Thus in eighty years the average rent of arable land rose 100%, the average wheat crop 14%, while the price of bread had decreased 16%. But meat had increased 70%, wool over 100%, butter 100%. The chief benefit to the farmer therefore lay in the increased value of live stock and its products, and it was found then, as in the present depression, that the holders of strong wheat land suffered most, which was further illustrated by the fact that the rent of the corn-growing counties of the east coast averaged 23s. 8d. per acre; that of the mixed corn and grass counties in the midlands and west, 31s. 5d.

Writing in 1847, Porter said rents had doubled since 1790.[648] In Essex farms could be pointed out which were let in 1790 at less than 10s. an acre, but during the war at from 45s. to 50s. In 1818 the rent went down to 35s., and in 1847 was 20s.

In Berks. and Wilts. farms let at 14s. per acre in 1790, rose by 1810 to 70s., or fivefold; sank in 1820 to 50s., and in 1847 to 30s. In Staffordshire farms on one estate let for 8s. an acre in 1790, rose during the war to 35s., and at the peace were lowered to 20s., at which price they remained. Owing to better farming light soils had been applied to uses for which heavy lands alone had formerly been considered fit, with a considerable increase of rent.

On the Duke of Rutland's[649] Belvoir estate, of from 18,000 to 20,000 acres of above average quality, rents were in—

But the Dukes of Rutland were indulgent landlords and evidently took no undue advantage of the high prices during the war, a policy whose wisdom was fully justified afterwards.

It was the opinion of most competent judges, even after the abolition of the Corn Laws, that English land would continue to rise in value. Porter stated that the United Kingdom could never be habitually dependent on the soil of other countries for the food of its people, there was not enough shipping to transport it if it could.[650]

Caird prophesied that in the next eighty years the value of land in England would more than double. The wellnigh universal opinion was that as the land of England could not increase, and the population was constantly increasing, land must become dearer. Men failed to foresee the opening of millions of acres of virgin soil in other parts of the world, and the improvement of transport to such an extent that wheat has occasionally been carried as ballast. About twenty-five or thirty years after these prophecies their fallacy began to be cruelly exposed.[651]

About 1853[652] matters began to mend, chiefly owing to the great expansion in trade that followed the great gold discoveries in America and Australia. Then, came the Crimean War, with the closing of the Baltic to the export of Russian corn, wheat in 1855 averaging 74s. 8d., and in the next decade the American War crippled another competitor, the imports of wheat from the United States sinking from 16,140,000 cwt in 1862, to 635,000 cwt. in 1866. From 1853 until 1875 English agriculture prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good seasons. Between 1854 and 1865 there were ten good harvests, and only two below the average. Prices of produce rose almost continuously, and the price and rent of land with them. The trade of the country was good, and the demand for the farmer's products steadily grew; the capital value of the land, live stock, and crops upon it, increased in this period by £445,000,000.[653]

It appeared as if the abolition of the Corn Laws was not to have any great effect after all.

Now at last the great body of farmers began to approach the standard set them long before by the more energetic and enterprising. Early maturity in finishing live stock for the market by scientific feeding probably added a fourth to their weight The produce of crops per acre grew, and drainage and improvements were carried out on all sides, the greatest improvement being made in the cultivation and management of strong lands, of which drainage was the foundation, and enabled the occupier to add swedes to his course of cropping.[654]

It was in this period that Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attained a standard of excellence which has made them sought after by the whole world; and other breeds were perfected, the Sussex and Aberdeen Angus especially; while in sheep the improvement was perhaps even greater.[655] The improved Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Hampshire Downs, and Shropshires took their place as standard breeds at this period. In 1866, after many years of expectation and disappointment, agriculturists were furnished with statistics which are trustworthy for practical purpose, but are somewhat vitiated by the fact that the live stock census was taken on March 5, which obviously omitted a large number of young stock; so that those for 1867, when the census was taken on June 25, are better for purposes of comparison with those of subsequent years, when the census has been taken on June 4 or 5. Between 1867 and 1878 the cattle in England and Wales had increased from 4,013,564 to 4,642,641, though sheep had diminished from 22,025,498 to 21,369,810.[656] The total acreage under cultivation had increased from 25,451,526 acres to 27,164,326 acres in the same period.

There was, however, one black shadow in this fair picture: in 1865 England was invaded by the rinderpest, which spread with alarming rapidity, killing 2,000 cows in a month from its first appearance, and within six months infecting thirty-six counties.[657] The alarm was general, and town and country meetings were held in the various districts where the disease appeared to concert measures of defence. The Privy Council issued an order empowering Justices to appoint inspectors authorized to seize and slaughter any animal labouring under such diseases; but, in spite of this, the plague raged with redoubled fury throughout September. There was gross mismanagement in combating it, for the inspectors were often ignorant men, and no compensation was paid for slaughter, so that farmers often sold off most of their diseased stock before hoisting the black flag. The ravages of the disease in the London cow-houses was fearful, as might be expected, and they are said to have been left empty; by no means an unmixed evil, as the keeping of cow-houses in towns was a glaring defiance of the most obvious sanitary laws. In October a Commission was appointed to investigate the origin and nature of the disease, and the first return showed a total of 17,673 animals attacked. By March 9, 1866, 117,664 animals had died from the plague, and 26,135 been killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was 209,332,[658] and the loss to the nation was reckoned at £3,000,000. The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877 there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The cattle plague, rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said[659] to have first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and reappeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage, being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming from Holland; it is said to have caused such destruction among the cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In 1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865.

Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in 1839,[660] and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were attacked as they were during the serious outbreak of 1871-2. In 1883 no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and 24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneumonia, was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when 7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success in getting rid of the disease.

At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many cottages. Tea was 6s. to 7s. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in proportion; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other man was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything he undertook, became famous as a hedger, mower, and ploughman, and being consequently employed all over the Midlands and South Wales, began to gauge the discontent of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless, and hopeless. His wages by 1872 had increased to 12s. a week, but had not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was 7¹/₂d. a loaf; the labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for they had now all gone to school; his food was 'usually potatoes, dry bread, greens, herbs, "kettle broth" made by putting bread in the kettle, weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh meat hardly ever.'[662] It is difficult to realize that at the end of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, when Gladstone said the prosperity of the country was advancing 'by leaps and bounds', that any class of the community in full work could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came to the conclusion that labour could only improve its position when organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Union was initiated in 1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better conditions by combination was new to the rural labourer. It was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but speedily crushed, and not till 1865 was a new union founded in Scotland, which was followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867, and the foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.[663] It was determined to ask for 16s. a week and a 9¹/₂ hours' working day, which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. The agitation spread all over England, and was often conducted unwisely and with a bitter spirit, but the labourer was embittered by generations of sordid misery. Very reluctantly the farmers gave way, and generally speaking wages went up during the agitation to 14s. or 15s. a week, though Arch himself admits that even during the height of it they were often only 11s. and 12s. With the bad times, about 1879, wages began to fall again, and men were leaving the Agricultural Union; by 1882 Arch says many were again taking what the farmer chose to give. From 1884 the Union steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about 1890, practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started, but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages, was largely counteracted by the acute depression in agriculture, and though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts in England to-day where he only gets 11s. and 12s. a week.

The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the 'gang system', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no labourers, so that 'gangs' were collected to cultivate it[664]), by which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding &c., while pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the Education Acts helped its disappearance.

CHAPTER XXI

About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and 1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner, the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner, farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d., and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s. 10d.[666]

Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.

The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales 3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,[667] by 1881 5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of £10,000,000, and many, alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected, and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best preventives.

Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry. Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in some cases in different parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall were not hardly hit.[668]

The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:—

1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock.
2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to the inferior quality of the home production.
3. Increased cost of production.
4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate; and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exceptionally bad instances of this were given. In the parish of Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was £26 6s. 3d., for the five years ending March 31, 1878, £118 11s. 7d. In the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial periods from 1850:—
   

   1850-1	£5,471
   1860-1	5,534
   1870-1	8,525
   1878-9	10,089

   
   On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates, other than poor rates, amounted to 3s. 6d. in the £ on the rateable value.
5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be conveyed much more economically than if picked up at different stations in small quantities.

As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the balance of evidence did not incline either way.[669]

The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements, notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which it should be given.

As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly, others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of distress.

The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2, and the whole burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the competition of other industries, and at the same time become less efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage, however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still very defective.

Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875[670]; and in the exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of grass from a continuance of wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely, so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less from foreign competition than any other farmers.

Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between 1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878, 71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average was equal to an annual charge of nearly £7 an acre.[671] This encouraged hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England, which raised the average price to £18 10s. a cwt.; some choice samples fetching £30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &c., which, with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter beer, has done more than foreign competition to lower the price and thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles; and washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has increased, while the price has been falling.[672] The crop has always been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at £20 an acre, exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing[673]; and Young estimated the total cost at the same date at £31 10s. an acre[674]; to-day £40 an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they varied from 40s. to 240s. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'

At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92, improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant were divided into three classes. First class improvements, such as drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of permanent pasture, &c., required the previous consent in writing of the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking, claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third class improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure, and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the tenant.

The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Vict. c. 61)[675] was passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the second class; the other improvements which had been in the second class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no consent or notice was required.

The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law; first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by 14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the landlord might elect to purchase them.

1. Improvements.—By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906, in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the tenant with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.

4. Compensation for unreasonable disturbance. If a landlord without good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management, terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by the tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to compensation.

This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the recommendation of the Commission of 1894,[676] and seems to be an unwarrantable interference with the owner's management of his own land.

Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Vict., c. 47. Before the Act the tenant had by common law the exclusive right to the game, including hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which often worked terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered inseparable from the occupation of the land, though the owner may reserve to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England.

The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812 that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which embodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them.[677] His machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers in 1822, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Canada taking with them models of Common's reapers. McCormick, the reputed inventor of the reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous machine exhibited by him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Various other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873 the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W.A. Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common, the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely improved in the last thirty years.

Most of the suggestions of the Commission of 1879 were carried into effect. Rents were largely reduced, so that between 1880 and 1884 the annual value of agricultural land in England sank £5,750,000.[678] Grants were made by the Government in aid of local burdens, cottages were improved although the landowners' capital was constantly dwindling, Settled Land Acts assisted the transfer of limited estates, a Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1889, and in 1891 the payment of the tithe was transferred from the tenant to the landlord, which generally meant that the whole burden was now borne by the latter.

Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall. Wheat land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted to pasture or 'tumbling down' to grass, while a large quantity was used for oats. The price of live stock was now falling greatly before increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese, butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in. Farming, too, was now suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to lowering prices.[679] The enormous gold premium in the Argentine Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor. As Mr. Prothero says, 'Enterprise gradually weakened, landlords lost their ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power. The capital both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford to spend an unnecessary penny. Land deteriorated in condition, drainage was practically discontinued ... less cake and less manure were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area contracted.'[680] The year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring; from March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense.

In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed, whose description of the condition of agriculture was a lamentable one. The Commission in their final report[681] stated that the seasons since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain, particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not surprising therefore to find that the arable counties[682] had suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15 per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at all. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands, and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent.

In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases reductions, of 10 per cent.

In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was going out of cultivation; many farms, after lying derelict for a few years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent The rent of an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from £1,314 in 1879 to £415 in 1892, or from 18s. 6d. an acre to 5s. 10d.[683] The net rental of another had fallen from £7,682 in 1881 to £2,224 in 1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in 1892-3 was 1s. an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these depressed times[684]: