possible to the alienation of landed property, in order to weaken
the overgrown power of his nobles. But as they, from the opposite
reasons, were not easily brought to consent to such a provision, it
was therefore couched in his act under covert and obscure
expressions; and the judges, though willing to construe that
statute as favorably as possible for the defeating of entailed
estates, yet hesitated at giving fines so extensive a power by mere
implication when the statute DE DONIS had expressly declared that
they should not be a bar to estates-tail. But the statute of Henry
VIII., when the doctrine of alienation was better received, and the
will of the prince more implicitly obeyed than before, avowed and
established that intention."

Fitzherbert, one of the judges of the Common Pleas in the reign of
Henry VIII., wrote a work on surveying and husbandry. It contains
directions for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, and for
enriching the soil and reducing it to tillage. Fallowing before
wheat was practised, and when a field was exhausted by grain it was
allowed to rest. Hollingshed estimated the usual return as 16 to 20
bushels of wheat per acre; prices varied very greatly, and famine
was of frequent recurrence. Leases began to be granted, but they
were not effectual to protect the tenant from the entry of
purchasers nor against the operation of fictitious recoveries.

In the succeeding reigns the efforts to encourage tillage and
prevent the clearing of the farms were renewed, and among the
enactments passed were the following:

5 Edward VI., cap. 5, for the better maintenance of tillage and
increase of corn within the realm, enacts: