Page:Our Common Land (and other short essays).djvu/196

 six for field-gardens. And the four schemes hitherto submitted to Parliament under the new Act contained a provision for only seventeen acres to be reserved for recreation and sixty-five for field-gardens out of 6,000 to be inclosed. The lords of the manors subsequently offered two more in each case, if opposition in committee were withdrawn. The offer was accepted by the committee, but the attempt to pass the Bill at the fag end of the session was most fortunately frustrated.

There is yet time, therefore, for consideration whether regulation would not meet the requirements of some of these cases rather than inclosure; and in some of them, or at least those parts of them which are commons or waste lands of manors strictly speaking, as distinguished from commonable lands, it would seem that if ever regulating schemes are to be adopted in rural districts, these are cases most suitable for them.

One of the commons recommended for