Note 178 — Chapter IV · LANDED POSSESSION. THE EÐEL, HÍD OR ALOD.

It is well known that great quantities of land were thrown out of cultivation to produce chases and forests. And the constant wars of the baronial ages must have had the same effect. However singular we may think it, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that, in some districts of England, the Saxons may have had more land in cultivation than we ourselves had at the beginning of George the Third’s reign; Mr. Porter calculates that from 1760 to 1814, no less than 7,076,610 acres have been brought into cultivation under Inclosure Bills. Pr. of the Nation, 154.