Statute 31 Eliz., forbidding the erection of cottages without four acres of land attached, was framed with the intention of protecting the husbandman against the encroachments of capitalists, for a family which could grow its own supply of food on four acres of land would be largely independent of the farmer, as the father could earn the money for the rent, etc., by working only at harvest when wages were highest. As however this seasonal labour was not sufficient for the farmers’ demands, such independence was not wholly to their mind, and they complained of the idleness of husbandmen who would not work for the wages offered. Thus it was said that “In all or most towns, where the fields lie open there is a new brood of upstart intruders or inmates ... loiterers who will not work unless they may have such excessive wages as they themselves desire.”[95] “There is with us now rather a scarcity than a superfluity of servants, their wages being advanced to such an extraordinary height, that they are likely ere long to be masters and their masters servants, many poor husbandmen being forced to pay near as much to their servants for wages as to their landlords for rent.”[96] Footnote 95: Pseudonismus, _Considerations concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_, 1654. Footnote 96: Pseudonismus, _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_, 1656. The holdings of the husbandmen varied from seven acres or more to half an acre or even less of garden ground, in which as potatoes[97] were not yet grown in England the crop consisted of wheat, barley, rye, oats, or peas. Very likely there was a patch of hemp or flax and an apple-tree or two, a cherry tree and some elder-berries in the hedge, with a hive or two of bees in a warm corner. Common rights made it possible to keep sheep and pigs and poultry, and the possession of a cow definitely lifted the family above the poverty line. Footnote 97: Potatoes were already in use in Ireland, but are scarcely referred to during this period by English writers.