One third of the cultivated land was kept in fallow, and ploughed through the summer, usually when labour was available following the hay harvest in August. This was then sown with winter wheat or possibly rye, crops needing a long growing season to give a full harvest, by the end of October. The second field with the wheat stubble of the previous year was winter ploughed, usually following Plough Monday, and sown with quick maturing crops such as beans, barley or oats which when harvested left the field free for fallow and grazing by the stock.

The need to separate the cultivated fields from the fallow was obvious, as the nursery rhyme puts it "the sheep in the meadow and the cows in the corn" was a ground for heavy fines on the offender who had not adequately fenced his area. Laws punishing offenders date back to King Ine’s time in the 7^th Century. Several such cases are recorded at Lighthorne.

Winter feed was normally hay prior to enclosure, certain fields, normally described as meadow were set aside for this purpose.

This mowing land or meadow was normally allotted to the tenants either on a permanent basis similar to the arable fields, with each tenants allocation marked out with stakes or stone markers, or by drawing lots for specific ‘doles’ of land according to the tenants total area entitlement. The field name "Thorney Dole" is the only evidence found so far that this latter method may have been used in Lighthorne at some time. The surveyors report and distribution lists of 1724 indicate a specific area of "grazing in the common field" to each of the tenant farmers, but not to the cottagers, which seems to indicate that the patches were permanently allocated by this time, as were the strips in the arable fields.

The meadow strips were generally smaller than the arable furlongs or lands, being 1 rod in width and 20 rods in length. This size possibly relates to one days mowing with a scythe but no study seems to have been made on this point. If so, this would relate to the one days ploughing which the furlongs’ represent in the arable fields.

The meadow was cultivated and mown by mutual agreement, the hay crop normally gathered by Lammas, also known as the feast of the first fruits, which falls on the 1^st of August.

Following the gathering of the hay crop, the field was normally turned over to common grazing until Michaelmas, to fertilize the land and to rest the common wasteland grazing for the winter feed. Furze and bracken were cut for winter fuel.

Waste lands were those which were either over and above those required for arable or meadow or were unsuitable due to the quality of the soil or other reasons. These areas provided the main source of grazing through the Winter Spring & Autumn, all tenants however small had the right to graze stock on these commons and it was the loss of these rights at enclosure which caused the maximum suffering to the small tenants & cottagers following the enclosures, effectively depriving them of the domestic cow and pigs.