Early farmers had learnt that corn was an exhausting crop and took so much goodness out of the soil that it could not be grown successfully year after year without a rest. Ploughing the whole of the Middle Field in the Driffield Manor would take many weeks, even with a number of plough teams working at the same time, an ox team probably did no more than three quarters of an acre a day. If no arrangement had been made about the ownership of strips before the whole field was done, much of the good sowing weather would have been lost, so it was natural to allot the strips to the villagers as the work proceeded and what method could be more natural than to give each strip as it was ploughed to one of the members of the group that supplied the oxen and the plough,

After a few days work each member of the group would have a strip he could sow and harrow, and as the work proceeded he would get another strip and so on, until by the time the whole big field was finished he might have many strips of different sizes and quality in the field. In this way ploughing and sowing went on together and the whole area was sown almost as soon as it was ploughed.

When the first field was sown with wheat, the plough team went on to the second field for spring corn, barley, oats, beans and peas and then to the third field which was ploughed and this was allowed to lie fallow for a year. The fallow field was grazed by livestock all winter and spring and so got some manure, which was ploughed in as opportunity arose during the summer, for sowing winter wheat in the autumn.

The introduction of turnips, clover and potatoes as farm crops, with the consequent provision of winter food for all the animals was the death knell of the open field system. The essence of that system was the rigidity with which the prctice of cropping and grazing to time had to be obeyed by all. The right of stubble grazing after the harvest was jealously guarded and certain to be exercised, so that no one could grow a crop on his strip which did not ripen at the same time as crops of his neighbours. To grow anything for winter food was impossible as it would have been eaten off when the stubbles were thrown open to grazing for the cattle of the whole village. In this rigidity lay the seeds of the decay of the system, and though for over 1,000 years the open fields had fed and clothed the majority of the people of England, they had eventually to give way to inclosed farming.

Open-field farming could never have been successful without some authority behind it to ensure that its rules were obeyed. At first it was the Manor Court which made the rules and imposed fines for breaking them, and then later a jury made up of villagers, which kept unruly members in check.

Offences against the laws of the open-fields made up a considerable number of presentations to the court.