"Trees still dominated and it was the Teutonic farmers who first moved on to heavy soils... which entailed a heroic work of pioneering. The Saxons in England, in particular... exploited their new soils by means of the open-field system and a three-course rotation. ...to each township belonged a given area of land, the greater part of which was unreclaimed waste and not divided according to the share system, being common to all the villagers. Part of this untilled land was composed of meadows, and each householder had his turn at grazing stock or cutting grass... Arable strips were scattered all over the village holding, on the most suitable soils and sites, and a householder's share consisted of a number of strips, distributed fairly, so that he would have some good soil, some indifferent and some poor. There were cases in which villagers were shuffled round at intervals, moving on to a new holding, in order that equity might be even more rigorously observed. ...the householder's absolute right over his share endured only during the season of cultivation, to lapse after harvest, when his strips reverted into the common field, and to be resumed in the following ploughing time. Moreover, even during the season of cultivation, his right was limited by custom and the decision of the tenants in council as to what should be sown, when, how cultivated and when the harvest should be carried. Thus, the rotation of the crops on all arable land of the village was managed as one piece, and each shareholder grew the same crop in a given season. The rule was wheat, followed by beans or oats, followed by fallow. Manuring consisted of driving the cattle belonging to all the villagers on to the stubble after harvest. This system would not have done much to improve the soil, but nor would it have consumed it, or only very slowly. Generally speaking, the men and the soil of the whole medieval period held each other in balance, and there is not much evidence that the weight and quality of crops were any less at the end of than at the beginning of the period. It seems probable, however, that there was a very slow consumption of soil fertility, and that the stability of the manorial land-tenure practice, its very long endurance, was in itself mildly pernicious."