So far it has been argued that rapid demographic increase in the last quarter of the sixteenth century and early seventeenth century led to a state of ‘ecological disequilibrium’ in northern Arden, i.e., a serious imbalance between population and resources; and that, as a result, in the 1610s there was a mild Malthusian check on population growth. Immediately prior to this check the population of the five parishes had probably been somewhere in the region of 3,100. But the ‘seven lean years’ brought a reduction which was perhaps in the order of 10%. Certainly, the Cox estimate for the 1620s works out at 2,840, or over 8% below the analogous figure for the 1600s. However, the fact that by 1640 the parishes had taken their combined total up to something like 3,400 – i.e., well beyond the pre-crisis figure – suggests that the underlying ecological difficulties must have been countered in some way. How then, did these Arden communities manage eventually to accommodate the extra numbers?

To begin with, certain negative responses can be isolated, through which the ecosystem was indicating, as it were, that such high numbers could not be supported. The first such response was of course the Malthusian check itself, as represented by the 1613–19 crisis. However, from the ecological point of view, and in a seventeenth-century context, this involuntary emetic may be regarded as having made its own contribution to the eventual solution. For, by significantly reducing numbers, it helped to trim the problem to size.