Such agreements were to be binding for six years, or two _rounds_, “according to the ancient and established course of each parish or place”; _i.e._, presumably, in a parish where the ancient customary course had been one crop and a fallow, the agreement was binding for four years; where it had been three crops and a fallow, for eight years. Further, every year between the 21st and 24th of May a field reeve or field reeves were to be elected. These field reeves, acting under the instructions of a three-fourths majority in number and value, might delay the opening of the common fields, might give permission for any balks, slades or meers (those words are synonyms) to be ploughed up, an equivalent piece of land being laid down in common, and boundary stones being put down instead. Since this Act was designed in the interest of better cultivation, and for the advantage of the proprietors and large occupiers, special provision is made that if the cottagers owning common rights feel themselves prejudiced, they may claim to have a separate piece of land set out as a common for them. The effect of the Act was to enable the common-field system to be adjusted to the new agriculture of the eighteenth century, which was marked by the introduction of turnips, artificial grasses, and the abandonment of frequent fallowing. A precise account of the adoption of a scheme under the Act is given us by the prime mover. In the township of Hunmanby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the cultivators had fallen into one of the besetting temptations to which “champion” farmers were liable. They had gradually extended the arable fields at the expense of the common pasture, till the manure produced by the latter was insufficient for the needs of the former, and the land was losing its fertility. Isaac Leatham got his brother farmers to agree to abandon the old (three-year) course of husbandry, and to substitute the following six-year course:-- 1. Turnips, hoed, and fed off with sheep. 2. Barley with grass seed. 3. Grass. 4. Grass. 5. Wheat. 6. Oats or peas. The grass seed sown with the barley was bought in common, and paid for proportionately. From the time the barley was carried until it was time to plough for the wheat crop, one gathers that the grass, which had been sown with the barley, was being fed with sheep; therefore, at any particular time after the course was established, half the common field area was feeding sheep, or growing turnips for sheep, and half was growing grain or pulse. The sheep flock was managed in common; each occupier was allowed to contribute sheep to it in proportion to his holding; the whole was under the care of two shepherds, who folded the sheep nightly upon different strips of land in succession, so that all occupiers received equal benefit. Field reeves were appointed.