The effect of inclosures was very similar. The old system of the villagers cultivating in turn strips of land in open fields was undoubtedly unsound, if the amount of wealth produced is the sole criterion; but it produced enough for the individual village-community, and the increased production accruing from inclosures went to swell the total wealth of the nation and of those who manipulated it at the cost of the tillers of the soil. The cost to the community was potential rather than actual; common lands which are now worth millions were appropriated by landlords in defiance of the law. This illegality was remedied in 1549, not by stopping the inclosures but by making them legal, provided that "sufficient" commons were left; if the incloser considered his leavings enough, the gainsaying of the tenants was to be ignored, or punished as treason or felony in case of persistence. England, however, was still fairly big for its three or four millions of souls, and an Act of Queen Elizabeth provided that every new cottage built should stand in four acres of its own. This anticipation of the demand for three acres and a cow did something to check excessive specialization; for the tenants of these cottages added a little cultivation on their own account to their occupations as hired labourers or village artisans. In the seventeenth century the land- hunger of the landlords was generally sated by schemes for draining and embanking; and vast tracts of fen and marsh, such as Hatfield Chase and Bedford Level, were thus brought under cultivation.