The following accounts, drawn up in 1805,[547] do not show that farmers were making much money with wheat at 10s. a bushel:

Account of the culture of an acre of wheat on good fallow land:

Dr. L s. d.

Two years' rent 2 0 0 Hauling dung from fold 10 0 Four ploughings 2 0 0 Two harrowings 4 0 Lime 1 18 0 Seed, 2-1/2 bushels 1 5 0 Reaping 5 0 Threshing 10 0 Wages 5 0 Tithes and taxes 15 0 ———— L9 12 0 ========

Cr. L s. d.

20 bushels of wheat at 10s 10 0 0 The straw was set against the value of the dung. The tailend wheat was Eaten by the family! ————- L10 0 0 =========

And on a farm on good land in the same county the following would be the annual balance sheet at the same date:

Dr. L s. d.

Rent 200 0 0 Tithes 40 0 0 Wages 58 0 0 Extra harvestmen 7 0 0 Tradesmen's bills 50 0 0 Taxes and rates 58 0 0 Malt, hops, and cider 60 0 0 Lime 20 0 0 Hop poles 10 0 0 Expenses at fairs and markets 8 0 0 Clothing, groceries, &c., for the family 45 0 0 Interest on L1,500 capital, at 5 per cent. 75 0 0 Sundries 15 0 0 ————— L646 0 0 ==========

Cr. L s. d.

360 bushels of wheat, @ 10 s. 180 0 0 300 bushels of barley, @ 6s. 90 0 0 100 bushels of peas, @ 6s. 30 0 0 20 cwt. hops 60 0 0 Sale of oxen, cows and calves 150 0 0 Profits from sheep 100 0 0 " from pigs, poultry, dairy, and sundries 50 0 0 ————— L660 0 0 ==========

According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest on capital, and get a living. Yet prices of what he had to sell had gone up greatly: wheat in Herefordshire in 1760 was 3s. a bushel, in 1805, 10s.; butcher's meat in 1760 was 1-1/2d. a lb., in 1804, 7d.; fresh butter 4-1/2d. in 1760, 1s. 3d. in 1804; a fat goose in Hereford market in 1740, 10d.; 1760, 1s.; 1804, 4s.; a couple of fowls in 1740, 6d.; 1760, 7d.; 1804, 2s. 4d.[548] The winter of 1813-4 was extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great importations kept the price down. Many sheep, however, were killed by the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period.[549] At Smithfield beef was 6s. to 7s. a stone, mutton 7s. to 8s. 6d. With the peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an end, a large amount of paper was withdrawn from circulation, which lowered the price of all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed. The first sufferers were the agricultural classes, who happened at that time to hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once; the incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many annihilated.[550] At the same time the demand for our manufactures from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less from the farmer.

The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in January, 1816, wheat was 52s. 6d., and the prices of live stock had fallen considerably. In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under 80s. a quarter, and other grain in proportion.[551] However, it was of no avail; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for information on the state of agriculture.

According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average 25 per cent. and agriculture was in a 'deplorable state.'[552] Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many farmers had become parish paupers. Rent was much in arrear, tithes and poor rates unpaid, improvements generally discontinued, live stock diminished; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged the country. The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and 'flock farms' had suffered less than others, though they had begun to feel it heavily.

All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords could not get many of their rents; the farmer's stock had depreciated 40 per cent.[553]; many labourers, who during the war had been getting from 15s. to 16s. a week and 18s. in summer,[554] were walking the country searching for employment. Many tenants threw up their farms, and it was often noticed that landlords, 'knowing very little of agriculture and taken by surprise,' could not manage the farms thrown on their hands, and they went uncultivated. Some farmers paid up their rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice; others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their household furniture in the night without settling.[555]

Farmers and landowners were asked to state the remedies required. Some asked for more rent reduction and further prohibition of import, but the most general cry was for the lessening of taxation.

A Herefordshire farmer[556] stated that in 1815 the taxes on a farm of 300 acres in that county were:

L s. d.

Property tax, landlord and tenant 95 16 10 Great tithes 64 17 6 Lesser tithes 29 15 0 Land tax 14 0 0 Window lights 24 1 6 Poor rates, landlord 10 0 0 " tenant 40 0 0 Cart-horse duty, landlord, 3 horses 2 11 0 Two saddle horses, landlord 9 0 0 Gig 6 6 0 Cart-horse duty,[557] tenant 7 2 0 One saddle horse, tenant 2 13 6 Landlord's malt duty on 60 bushels of barley 21 0 0 Tenant's duty for making 120 bushels of barley into malt 42 0 0 New rate for building shire hall, paid by landlord 9 0 0 " " " tenant 3 0 0 Surcharge 2 8 0 —————— L383 11 4 ============

The parish of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, paid in direct taxes a greater sum than the lands of the whole parish could be let for.

Another very general complaint was of the collection of tithe in kind, a most awkward and offensive method, causing great expense and waste, which, however, had given way in many places to compounding.

Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of high prices and protection.[558] One may naturally ask, if much money had been made by farmers during these years, where had it all gone to that they were reduced at the first breath of adversity to such straits? Some allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling because prices had come back to their natural level after an unnatural inflation.[559]

Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of hemp grown in Shropshire.[560] In that county there was a small plot of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled him to pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10 perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of cloth, worth generally about 3s. an ell. Thus a good crop on 10 perches of land brought in L4 10s. 0d., half of which was nett profit. The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there was the sooner it was ready to take off the grass. When the rind peeled easily from the woody part, it was, on a dry day, taken into the house, and when harvest was over well dried in fine weather and dressed, being then fit for the tow dresser, who prepared it for spinning. After the crop of hemp the land was sown with turnips, a valuable resource for the winter.

Since 1815 little hemp or flax has been grown in England[561]; in 1907 there were, according to the Agricultural Returns, 355 acres of flax grown in England, and hemp was not mentioned.

FOOTNOTES:

[504] R.A.S.E. Journal, 1896, p. 1, and 1898, p. 1.

[505] Autobiography, p. 242.

[506] Eden, State of the Poor, i. 18.

[507] 'Had his industry been under the direction of a better judgement, he would have been an admirable president.'—Young, Autobiography, p. 316.

[508] The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands, 1795, estimated wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221.

[509] The Merino was largely imported into England by the efforts of George III, and a Merino Society was formed in 1811; but many circumstances made it of such little profit to cultivate it in preference to native breeds, that it was diverted to Australia.—Burnley, History of Wool, p. 17.

[510] The first, the Bath and West of England, was established in 1777.

[511] R.A.S.E. Journal, 1899, p. 7.

[512] Higher prices had been realized for the improved Longhorns; in 1791, at the sale of Mr. Fowler of Little Rollright, Sultan a two-year-old bull fetched 210 guineas, and a cow 260 guineas; and at Mr. Paget's sale in 1793, a bull of the same breed sold for 400 guineas.—Culley on Live Stock, p. 59.

[513] R.A.S.E. Journal, 1899, p. 28.

[514] Culley on Live Stock (1807), pp. 46-7.

[515] Culley on Live Stock, p. vi.

[516] R.A.S.E. Journal, 1892, p. 27.

[517] Morton, Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, ii. 964.

[518] Northern Tour, iii. 49. Clarke also experimented on the effect of electricity on vegetables, electrifying turnips in boxes with the result that growth was quickened and weight increased.

[519] R.A.S.E. Journal, 1896, p, 93.

[520] Tooke, History of Prices, p. 182.

[521] Autobiography of A. Young, p. 256.

[522] State of the Poor, i. 565 et seq.; Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, p. 487. It is difficult to calculate the exact income of the labourer; besides extras in harvest, and relief from the parish, he might have a small holding, or common rights, also payments in kind and the earnings of his wife and children.

[523] Hasbach, op. cit. p. 181; Eden, op. cit. li. 27.

[524] Imports of wheat and flour in 1796 were 879,200 quarters.

[525] Yet imports were comparatively large; 1,264,520 quarters of wheat, against 463,185 quarters in 1799.

[526] Tooke, History of Prices, p. 219.

[527] Farmer's Magazine, 1817, p. 60.

[528] Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, c. 18.

[529] Annals of Agriculture, xxxvii. 265. In 1805, in Herefordshire, the labourer was getting about 6s. 6d. a week—See Duncumb, General View of Agriculture of Herefordshire. Those who lived in the farm-house often fared best: in 1808 the diet of a Hampshire farm servant was, for breakfast, bacon, bread, and skim milk; for lunch, bread and cheese and small beer; for dinner, between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., pickled pork or bacon with potatoes, cabbages, turnips, or greens, and broths of wheat-flour and garden stuff. Supper consisted of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. His bread was usually made of wheat, which, considering the price, is remarkable. On Sundays he had fresh meat. The farmers lived in many cases little better; a statement which must be compared with others ascribing great extravagance to them.—Vancouver, General View of the Agriculture of Hants (1808), p. 383.

[530] Tooke, History of Prices, i. 236.

[531] Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, c. 18. In many cases he was getting 15s. and 16s. a week all the year round. The Parliamentary Committee of 1822 put his wages during the war at from 15s. to 16s. a week. Parliamentary Reports Committees, v. 72; but it is difficult to say how much he received as wages, and how much as parish relief. Recruiting for the war helped to raise wages, as did the increased growth of corn.

[532] McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary (1847), p. 438. See Appendix, ii.

[533] Tooke, i. 319, and Pamphleteer, vi. 200 (A. Young). Since 1770, says the latter, labour by 1810-11 had doubled, but meat had risen 146 per cent., cheese 153 per cent., bread 100 per cent. Wages therefore had not risen in proportion to prices.

[534] Inquiry into Agricultural Distress (1822), p. 38.

[535] Thoughts on Present Depressed State of Agricultural Industry (1817), p. 6.

[536] Vancouver, General View of the Agriculture of Devon, p. 357.

[537] See 14 Eliz., c. 11, and 39 Eliz., c. 18.

[538] Transactions of the Devon Association, xxix. 291-349.

[539] Average annual prices of wheat were: 1812, 126s. 6d.; 1813, 109s. 9d.; 1814, 74s. 4d.; 1815, 65s. 7d.

[540] Porter, Progress of the Nation, p. 149.

[541] A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain (1814), p. 49.

[542] Ibid. p. x.

[543] Ibid. p. 7.

[544] Agricultural State of the Kingdom, p. 67.

[545] Parliamentary Reports (Committees), v. 72.

[546] Thoughts on the Present Depressed State of the Agricultural Interest (1817), p. 4.

[547] Duncumb, General View of the Agriculture of Hereford, 1805. The writer of A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain (1814) puts the average crop of wheat in the United Kingdom at 15 or 16 bushels an acre, p. 28. A very low estimate.

[548] Duncumb, General View of the Agriculture of Hereford, p. 140.

[549] Tooke, History of Prices, ii. 4.

[550] Farmer's Magazine (1817), p. 69.

[551] The duties were often evaded by smuggling; coasting vessels met the foreign corn ships at sea, received their cargoes, and landed them so as to escape the duty.

[552] Agricultural State of the Kingdom, p. 5.

[553] Observations for the Use of Landed Gentlemen (1817), p. 7.

[554] Defence of the Farmers, &c. (1814); and Parliamentary Reports, v. 72.

[555] Agricultural State of the Kingdom, p. 64.

[556] Ibid. p. 105.

[557] The agricultural horse tax was repealed in 1821, the tax on ponies and mules in 1823.

[558] There were some exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of replies to the letters were couched in the above spirit.

[559] At a time when landlords formed the majority in Parliament, it is curious to find a substantial farmer asserting that 'the landed interest has been, since the corn law of 1773, held in a state of complete vassalage to the commercial and manufacturing, and the farmers of the country in a state very little superior to that of Polish peasants.'

[560] Review of Western Department, pp. 249, 250.

[561] Morton, Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, ii. 26.



CHAPTER XVIII

ENCLOSURE—THE SMALL OWNER

The war period was one of great activity in enclosure; from 1798 to 1810 there were 956 Bills; from 1811-20, 771.[562]

It must be remembered, however, that the number of Acts is not a conclusive test of the amount of enclosure, as there was a large amount that was non-parliamentary: by the principal landlord, and by freeholders who agreed to amicable changes and transfer, as at Pickering, in Yorkshire.[563] Roughly speaking, about one-third of the Acts were for enclosing commonable waste, the rest for enclosing open and commonable fields and lands.[564] Owing to the expense an Act was only obtained in the last resource. It was also because of the expense[565] that many landlords desirous to enclose were unable to do so, and therefore devoted their attention to the improvement of the common fields. That agriculture benefited by enclosure there is no possible doubt, but it was attended with great hardships. The landowner generally gained, for his rents increased largely. In twenty-three parishes of Lincolnshire, for instance, his rents doubled on enclosure. But the expenses were so heavy that his gain was often very small, and sometimes he was a loser by the process. As for the farmers, the poorer ones suffered, for more capital was needed for enclosed lands, and the process generally was so slow, taking from two to six years before the final award was given, that many farmers were thrown out in the management of their farms, for they did not know where their future lands would be allotted. That the poor suffered greatly is indubitable: 'By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of twenty the poor are injured, in some cases grossly injured,' wrote Young in 1801.[566] In the Acts it was endeavoured to treat them fairly,[567] and allotments were made to them, or money paid on enclosure in lieu of their rights of common, or small plots of land; but the expense of enclosing small allotments was proportionately very great, generally too great, and they had to be sold, while the sums of money were often spent in the alehouse. The results of sixty-eight Acts were investigated in the eastern counties, with the result that in all but fifteen the poor were injured. It was generally found that they had lost their cows.

Its effect on the smallholder is well described by Davis in his Report on Wilts.[568] There, before enclosure, the tenants usually occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres of meadow, 18 acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty strips, with a right on the common meadows, common fields and downs for 40 sheep, and as many cattle as the tenant could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40 sheep were kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were taken every day to the downs and brought back every night to be folded on the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 sheep on a 'tenantry' acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) every night.[569] In breeding sheep regard was had to 'folding quality,' i.e. the propensity to drop manure only after being folded at night, as much as to quality and quantity of wool and meat. On enclosure the common flock was broken up. The small farmer had no longer any common to turn his horses on. The down on which he fed his sheep was largely curtailed, the common shepherd was abolished, and the farmer had too few sheep to enable him individually to employ a shepherd. Therefore he had to part with his flock. Having no cow common and very little pasture land he could not keep cows. In such circumstances the small farmer, after a few years, succumbed and became a labourer, or emigrated, or went to the towns.

In a pamphlet called The Case of Labourers in Husbandry, 1795, the Rev. David Davies said, 'by enclosure an amazing number of people have been reduced from a comfortable state of partial independence to the precarious condition of mere hirelings, who when out of work immediately come on the parish.' It has often been said that the poor were robbed of their share in the land by the landowners; but as a matter of fact it was the expense of securing the compensation allowed them, much greater in proportion on small holdings than on large, which went into the pockets of surveyors and lawyers, that did this. It was also often through the farmer that the labourer was deprived of his land when he had retained an acre or two after enclosure. Wishing to make the labourer dependent on him, he persuaded the agent to let the cottages with the farm, and the agent in order to avoid collecting a number of small rents consented. As soon as the farmer had the cottages he took the land from them and added it to his own. The peasant's losses engaged the serious attention of many landlords; near Tewkesbury, in 1773, the lord of the manor on enclosure, besides reserving 25 acres for the use of the poor, allowed land to each cottage sufficient to keep a horse or a cow, often added a small building, and gave stocks for raising orchards. Even some of the idlest were thereby made industrious, poor rates sank to 4d. in the L, though the population increased, and the labourer always had for sale some poultry, or the produce of his cow, or some fruit.[570]

In 1800 the Board of Agriculture, composed almost entirely of landowners, noticing that the poor of Rutland and Lincolnshire, who had land for one or two cows and some potatoes, had not applied for poor relief, offered a gold medal for the most satisfactory account of the best means of supporting cows on poor land, in a method applicable to cottagers.[571] Young recommended that in the case of extensive wastes every cottage on enclosure should be secured sufficient land on which to keep a cow, the land to be inalienable from the cottage and the ownership vested in the parish.

Lord Winchelsea[572] urged that a good garden should always go with a cottage, and set the example himself, one which has been generally followed in England by the greater landlords with much success. As may be imagined, these schemes or others similar to them were put into effect by the conscientious and energetic, but not by the apathetic and careless. Further, an Act was passed in the fifty-ninth year of George III, which enabled parishes to lease or buy 20 acres of land for the employment of their poor.

In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the commons was often worth very little. Let one man, it was said in 1795, put a cow on a common in spring for nothing, and let another pay a farmer 1s. 6d. a week to keep a cow of equal value on enclosed land. When both are driven to market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk meanwhile has been much superior.

The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the great increase in the weight of cattle not only to the improved methods of breeding, but to their being fed on good enclosed lands instead of wastes and commons.[573] Even when commons were stinted they were in general overstocked, while disease was always being spread with enormous loss to the commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights, often crowded out the smaller.

There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 'squatters' on commons who had seized and occupied land without any legal title. As a rule, if these people had been in possession twenty-one years their title was respected; if not, no regard was very justly paid to them on enclosure, and they were deprived of what they had seized.

Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height; he was a competent and accurate observer, and this is his picture of the 'commoner':[574] 'The advantages which cottagers and poor people derive from commons and wastes are rather apparent than real; instead of sticking regularly to labour they waste their time in picking up a few dry sticks or in grubbing on some bleak moor. Their starved pig or two, together with a few wandering goslings, besides involving them in perpetual altercations with their neighbours, are dearly paid for in care, time, and bought food. There are thousands and thousands of acres in the kingdom, now the sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses, half-grown horses, and half-starved cattle, which want but to be enclosed to be as rich as any land now in tillage.'

Enclosure worked an important social revolution. Before it the entirely landless labourer was rare: he nearly always had some holding in the common field or a right on the common pasture. With enclosure his holding or right had generally disappeared, and he deteriorated socially. It was very unfortunate, too, that when enclosure was most active domestic industries, such as weaving, decayed, and deprived the labourer and his family of a badly needed addition to his scanty income.

In its physical and moral effects the system of domestic manufactures was immensely preferable to that of the crowded factory, while economically it enabled the tillers of the soil to exist on farms which could not support them by agriculture alone.

This uprooting of a great part of the agricultural population from the soil by irresistible economic causes brought with it grave moral evils, and created divisions and antagonisms of interest from which we are suffering to-day.[575] If some such scheme as that of Arthur Young or Lord Winchelsea had been universally adopted, this blot on an inevitable movement might have been removed, and a healthy rural population planted on English soil. Another result followed, the labourer no longer boarded as a rule in his employer's house, where the farmer worked and lived with his men; the tie of mutual interest was loosened, and he worked for this or that master indifferently. One advantage, however, arose, in that, having to find a home of his own, he married early, but this was vitiated by his knowledge that the parish would support his children, on which knowledge he was induced to rely.

On the other hand, the farmer often rose in the social scale. With the abandonment of the handicaps and restrictions of the common-field system the efficient came more speedily to the front. It was they who had amassed capital, and capital was now needed more than ever, so they added field to field, and consolidated holdings.

The Act of 1845 did away with the necessity for private Enclosure Acts, still further reducing the expense; and since that date there have been 80,000 or 90,000 acres of common arable fields and meadows enclosed without parliamentary sanction, and 139,517 acres of the same have been enclosed with it,[576] besides many acres of commons and waste.

In the Report of the Committee of Enclosures of 1844,[577] there is a curious description of the way in which common fields were sometimes allotted. There were in some open fields, lands called 'panes', containing forty or sixty different lands, and on a certain day the best man of the parish appeared to take possession of any lot he thought fit. If his right was called in question there was a fight for it, and the survivor took the first lot, and so they went on through the parish. There was also the old 'lot meadow' in which the owners drew lots for choice of portions. On some of the grazing lands the right of grazing sheep belonged to a man called a 'flockmaster', who during certain months of the year had the exclusive right of turning his sheep on all the lands of the parish.

Closely connected with the subject of enclosure is that of the partial disappearance of the small owner, both the yeoman who farmed his own little estate and the peasant proprietor. We have noticed above[578] Gregory King's statement as to the number of small freeholders in England in 1688, no less than 160,000, or with their families about one-seventh of the population of the country. This date, that of the Revolution, marks an epoch in their history, for from that time they began to diminish in proportion to the population. Their number in 1688 is a sufficient answer to the exaggerated statement of contemporaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the depopulation caused by enclosures. Chamberlayne, in his State of Great Britain, published at about the same time as Gregory King's figures, says there were more freeholders in England than in any country of like extent in Europe: 'L40 or L50 a year is very ordinary, L100 or L200 in some counties is not rare, sometimes in Kent and in the Weald of Sussex L500 or L600 per annum, and L3,000 or L4,000 of stock.' In the first quarter of the eighteenth century he was a prominent figure. Defoe[579] describes the number and prosperity of the Greycoats of Kent (as they were called from their homespun garments), 'whose interest is so considerable that whoever they vote for is always sure to carry it.'

Why has this sturdy class so dwindled in numbers, and left England infinitely the weaker for their decrease? The causes are several; social, economic, and political. The chief, perhaps, is the peculiar form of Government which came in with the Revolution. The landed gentry by that event became supreme, the national and local administration was entirely in their hands, and land being the foundation of social and political influence was eagerly sought by them where it was not already in their hands.[580] At the same time the successful business men, whose numbers now increased rapidly from the development of trade, bought land to 'make themselves gentlemen'. Both these classes bought out the yeomen, who do not seem to have been very loath to part with their land. The recently devised system of strict family settlements enabled the old and the new gentlemen to keep this land in their families. The complicated title to land made its transfer difficult and costly, so that there was little breaking up of estates to correspond with the constant buying up of small owners. To the smaller freeholder, as has been noticed, the enclosure of waste land did much harm, for it was necessary to his holding. Again, smaller arable farms did not pay as well as large ones, so they tended to disappear. The decay of home industries was also a heavy blow to the smaller yeoman and the peasant proprietor.

Under this combination of circumstances many of the yeomen left the land. Yet though Young, less than a century after King and Davenant, said that the small freeholder had practically disappeared, there were at the end of the eighteenth century many left all over England, who however largely disappeared during the war and in the bad times after the war.[581] But a contrary tendency was at work which helped to replenish the class. The desire of the Englishman for land is not confined to the wealthy classes. At the end of the eighteenth century men who had made small fortunes in trade were buying small properties and taking the place of the yeomen.[582] In the great French War of 1793-1815, many yeomen, attracted by the high prices of land, sold their properties, but at the same time many farmers, attracted by the high prices of produce, which had often enriched them, bought land.[583] During the 'good times' of 1853-75 many small holders, like those of Axholme, noticed in the Report of the Agricultural Commission of 1893, bought land.

A new class of small owners also has sprung up, who, dwelling in or near towns and railway stations, have bought small freeholds. The return of the owners of land of 1872-6 gave the following numbers of those owning land in England and Wales[584]:

Total number of owners of: Number. Acreage.

less than one acre 703,289 151,171 1 acre and under 10 121,983 478,679 10 " 50 72,640 1,750,079 50 " 100 25,839 1,791,605 100 " 500 32,317 6,827,346

The great majority of the first class here enumerated, those owning less than one acre, do not concern us, as they were evidently merely houses and gardens not of an agricultural character, but a large number of the second class and most of the other three must have been agricultural, though unfortunately no distinction is made. It will be seen, therefore, that there were a considerable number of small owners in England in 1872, and their numbers have probably increased since. Many of them, however, are of the new class mentioned above, and there appears to be no doubt that the number of the peasant proprietors and of the yeomen of the old sort has much diminished, especially in proportion to the growth of population.

FOOTNOTES:

[562] Cf. supra, p. 163.

[563] R. Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire, p. 17 et seq.

[564] Slater, English Peasantry and Enclosure, p. 7.

[565] It was stated in the Report of the Committee on Enclosures (1844), p. 31, that the ordinary expense of obtaining an Enclosure Act was from L1,000 to L1,500. In 1814 the enclosure of three farms, amounting to 570 acres, including subdivision fences and money paid to a tenant for relinquishing his agreement, cost the landlord nearly L4,000.—Agricultural State of the Kingdom (1816), p. 116.

[566] Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the better Support of the Poor, p. 42.

[567] The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land should be 'allotted according to the several and respective rights of all who had rights and interests' in the enclosed property, and expenses were to be borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of the people interested'.

[568] pp. 8 et seq. Slater, op. cit. p. 113.

[569] Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in Hampshire at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land in the common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep in proportion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who fed them and folded them on all parts of the township. A similar practice was observed with the common herd of cows, which were placed under one cowherd who tended them by day and brought them back at night to be milked, distributing them among their respective owners, and in the morning they were collected by the sound of the horn.—Rural Economy of Southern Counties, ii. 351.

[570] Report of Committee on Waste Lands (1795), p. 204. Ground was frequently left by the Acts for the erection of cottages for the poor, and special allotments were made to Guardians for the use of the poor, in addition to the land allotted to all according to their respective claims. Can any one doubt that if there had been a systematic robbery of the smaller holders on enclosure they would not have risen 'en masse'?

[571] Slater, op. cit. p. 133.

[572] Agricultural State of the Kingdom (1816), p. 8.

[573] Report, p. 204.

[574] State of the Poor, pp. i, xviii.

[575] Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vi. 191.

[576] Slater, op. cit. p. 191.

[577] Report, p. 27.

[578] See above. Another estimate puts them at 180,000.

[579] Tour, i. (2), 37, 38.

[580] Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 62.

[581] Hasbach, op. cit. p. 71.

[582] Marshall, Review of Agriculture, Reports Western Department, p. 18.

[583] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 32.

[584] Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, lxxx. 21. The number of those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner or the yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000, 4,799; from 1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815; from 5,000 to 10,000, 581; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66; from 50,000 to 100,000, 3; over 100,000, 1. For the numbers of the 'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 see below, p. 334. The term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds.



CHAPTER XIX

1816-1837

DEPRESSION

The summer of 1816 was wretched; the distress, aggravated by the bad season, caused riots everywhere. At Bideford the mob interfered to prevent the export of a cargo of potatoes; at Bridport they broke into the bakers' shops. Incendiary fires broke out night after night in the eastern counties. At Swanage six people out of seven were paupers, and in one parish in Cambridgeshire every person but one was a pauper or a bankrupt.[585] Corn rose again: by June, 1817, it was 117s., but fell to 77s. in September.

In 1818 occurred a drought of four months, lasting from May till September, and great preparations were made to ward off the expected famine; immense quantities of wheat came from the Baltic, of maize from America, and beans and maize from Italy and Egypt, with hay from New York, as it was selling at L10 a ton. However, rain fell in September, brown fields suddenly became green, turnips sprang up where none had appeared, and even spring corn that had lain in the parched ground began to grow, so the fear of scarcity passed.

In 1822 came a good season, which produced a great crop of wheat; in the lifetime of the existing generation old men declared that such a harvest had been known only once before; imports also came from Ireland to the amount of nearly a million quarters, so that the price at the end of the year was 38s., and the average price for the year was 44s. 7d. Beef went down to 2s. 5d. a stone and mutton to 2s. 2d. The cry of agricultural distress again rose loudly. Farmers were still, though some of the war taxes had been remitted, heavily taxed; for the taxes on malt, soap, salt, candles, leather, all pressed heavily.[586] The chief cause of the distress was the long-felt reaction after the war, but it was aggravated by the return to cash payments in 1819. Gold had fallen to its real value, and the fall in gold had been followed by a fall in the prices of every other article.[587] The produce of many thousand acres in England did not sell that year for as much money as was expended in growing it, without reckoning rent, taxes, and interest on capital.[588] Estates worth L3,000 a year, says the same writer, some years since, were now worth L1,000. Bacon had gone down from 6s. 6d. to 2s. 4d. a stone; Southdown ewes from 50s. to 15s., and lambs from 42s. to 5s.

A Dorset farmer told the Parliamentary committee that since 1815 he knew of fifty farmers, farming 24,000 acres, who had failed entirely.[589]

In the Tyne Mercury of October 30, 1821, it was recorded that Mr. Thos. Cooper of Bow purchased 3 milch cows and 40 sheep for L18 16s. 6d. which sum four years previously would only have bought their skins. Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market at 4d. retail, and good joints of mutton at 3-1/2d.[590] Everywhere the farmers were complaining bitterly, but 'hanging on like sailors to the masts or hull of a wreck'. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds, once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and abandoned at the fall of prices. There were no less than 475 petitions on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 31, 1822. In 1822, it was proposed that the Government should purchase wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store it; also that when the average price of wheat was under 60s. the Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn.[591] There were not wanting men, however, who put the other side of the question. In a tract called The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of the Agricultural Petition, written in 1819, it was said that the increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent. 'He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman, keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 'Let him dismiss his steward, a character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress; distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England, it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war. Another writer said at the time, 'Individuals of all classes have of late been as it were inflated above their natural size: let this unnatural growth be reduced; let them resume their proper places and appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very pressing.

The persistent cries of distress produced a Bill giving still further protection to corn-growers, which was fortunately not carried into effect. There was no doubt, however, about the reality of the crisis through which the landed classes were passing. Many of the landowners were heavily in debt. Mortgages had been multiplied during the war, and while prices were high payment of interest was easy; but when prices fell and the tenant threw up his farm, the landlord could not throw over the mortgage, and the interest hung like a dead weight round his neck.[592]

The price to which wheat fell at the end of 1822 was to be the lowest for some years; it soon recovered, and until 1834 the average annual prices ranged from 53s. to 68s. 6d., while in 1825 beef at Smithfield was 5s. and mutton 5s. 4d. a stone.

In 1823 there was a marked improvement, and the king's speech congratulated the country on 'the gradual abatement of those difficulties under which agriculture has so long suffered.'[593] In 1824 'agriculture was recovering from the depression under which it laboured.'[594] In 1825 it was said, 'there never was a period in the history of this country when all the great interests of the nation were in so thriving a condition.'[595] In that year over-speculation produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826 Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'[596] In 1828 all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.[597]

At the meeting of Parliament in 1830 the king lamented the state of affairs, and ascribed it to unfavourable seasons and other causes beyond the reach of legislative remedy. Many had learnt that high protection was no protection for farmers, and it was stated more than once that the large foreign supply of grain, though only then about one-third of the home-grown, depressed our markets. At the same time, it must be admitted that agriculture, like all other industries, was suffering from the crisis of 1825. In 1830, the country was filled with unrest, in which the farm labourer shared. His motives, however, were hardly political. He had a rooted belief that machinery was injuring him, the threshing machine especially; and he avenged himself by burning the ricks of obnoxious farmers. Letters were sent to employers demanding higher wages and the disuse of machines, and notices signed 'Swing' were affixed to gates and buildings. Night after night incendiary fires broke out, and emboldened by impunity the rioters proceeded to pillage by day. In Hampshire they moved in bodies 1,500 strong. A special Commission was appointed, and the disorders put down at last with a firm hand. In 1828 there had been a relaxation in the duties on corn, the object of the Act passed in that year being to secure the farmer a constant price of 8s. a bushel instead of 10s. as in 1815, and by a sliding scale to prevent the disastrous fluctuations in prices. The best proof of its failure is afforded by the appointment of another parliamentary committee in 1833 to inquire into the distressed state of agriculture. At this inquiry many witnesses asserted that the cultivation of inferior soils and heavy clays had diminished from one-fourth to one-fifth.[598] It was also asserted that farmers were paying rent out of capital.[599] Tooke, however, thought there was much exaggeration of the distress, which was proved by the way the farmers weathered the low prices of 1835, when wheat, after a succession of four remarkably good seasons, averaged 39s. 4d. for the year. In these abundant years, too, he asserts that the home supply was equal to the demand,[600] though the committee of 1833 had stated that this had ceased to be the case.[601] Another committee, the last for many years, sat in 1835 to consider the distress; but although prices were low the whole tenor of the evidence established the improvement of farming, the extension of cultivation, and the increase of produce, and it was noticed at this time that towns dependent on agriculture were uniformly prosperous.[602]

On the whole, in spite of exaggeration from interested motives, the distress for the twenty years after the battle of Waterloo was real and deep; twenty years of depression succeeded the same period of false exaltation. The progress, too, during that time was real, and made, as was remarked, because of adversity. From this time agriculture slowly revived.

On one point both of the two last committees were agreed, that the condition of the labourer was improved, and they said he was better off than at any former period, for his wages remained the same, while prices of necessaries had fallen. That his wages went further is true, but they were still miserably low, and he was often housed worse than the animals on the farm. 'Wattle and dab' (or mud and straw) formed the walls of his cottage, the floors were often of mud, and all ages and both sexes frequently slept in one room. A block of ten cottages were put up in the parish of Holmer[603] at the commencement of the nineteenth century, which were said to have combined 'comfort, convenience, and economy;' they each contained one room 12 feet by 14 feet and 6 feet high with a bedroom over, and cost L32 10s. each. They were evidently considered quite superior dwellings, far better than the ordinary run of labourer's cottages. Cobbett gives us a picture of some in Leicestershire in 1826; 'hovels made of mud and straw, bits of glass, or of old cast-off windows, without frames or hinges frequently, and merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them and look at the bits of chairs or stools, the wretched boards tacked together to serve for a table, the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare ground; look at the thing called a bed, and survey the rags on the backs of the wretched inhabitants.'[604] The chief exceptions to this state of affairs were the estates of many of the great landlords. On that of the Earl of Winchelsea in Rutland, the cottages he had built contained a kitchen, parlour, dairy, two bedrooms, and a cow-house, and several had small holdings attached of from 5 to 20 acres.[605] Not long before, wages in Hampshire and Wiltshire were 5s. and 6s. a week.[606]

In 1822 it was stated that 'beef and mutton are things the taste of which was unknown to the mass of labourers. No one has lived more in cottages than I, and I declare solemnly I never remember once to have seen such a thing.'[607] A group of women labourers, whom Cobbett saw by the roadside in Hampshire, presented 'such an assemblage of rags as I never saw before even amongst the hoppers at Farnham.'[608]

The labourer's wages may have gone a little further, but he had lost his by-industries, his bit of land and rights of common, and would have had a very different tale to tell from that of the framers of the reports above quoted.

In spite of the complaints made that the improvements of the coaches and of the roads drew the countryman to the towns, many stirred hardly at all from their native parish, and their lives were now infinitely duller than in the Middle Ages. The great event of the year was the harvest home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop. As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and 1 came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called 'drinkings', or more food and drink, were taken into the field and consumed. After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to supper and more ale and cider till the small hours.[609]

No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the practice of using hired labour had largely superseded this old custom.

The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to farmers: the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 76), which reduced the rates,[610] and marked 'the beginning of a period of slow recovery in the labourer's standard of life, moral and material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity'[611]; and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus was removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto pursued, moreover, was wasteful. In exceptionally favourable circumstances the clergy did not receive more than two-thirds of the value of the tithe in kind. The delays were a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and wait for their arrival; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly damaged.[612]

FOOTNOTES:

[585] Walpole, History of England, i. 161.

[586] Inquiry into Agricultural Distress (1822), p. 40.

[587] Walpole, op. cit. ii. 22.

[588] A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory, 1822. The Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent out of capital (Parliamentary Reports. Committees, v. 71), and that leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to the farmer if held to his engagement.

[589] Parliamentary Reports, Committees, ix. 138.

[590] Cobbett, Rural Rides (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.

[591] Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression (1822), pp. 3, 4.

[592] Walpole, History of England, ii. 23.

[593] Hansard, ix. 1544.

[594] Ibid. x. 1, 2.

[595] Ibid. xii. 1.

[596] Rural Rides, ii. 199.

[597] Walpole, History of England, ii. 526. The distress was aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1836), viii (2), p. 198.

[598] Tooke, History of Prices, ii. 227.

[599] Report of 1833, p. 6.

[600] Tooke, History of Prices, ii, 238.

[601] Imports fell considerably at this date; they were:

1832 1,254,351 quarters. 1833 1,166,457 " 1834 981,486 " 1835 750,808 " 1836 861,156 " 1837 1,109,492 " 1838 1,923,400 "

There were also considerable exports:

1832 289,558 quarters. 1833 96,212 " 1834 159,482 " 1835 134,076 " 1836 256,978 " 1837 308,420 " 1838 158,621 "

McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary (1847), p. 438.

[602] Porter, Progress of the Nation, p. 151.

[603] See Duncumb, General View of Herefordshire, (1805).

[604] Rural Rides, ii. 348.

[605] London, Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1831), p. 1156.

[606] Cobbett, Rural Rides, i. 149. The average, however, now was about 9s.; see Parliamentary Reports, v. 72.

[607] A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory (1822), p. 16.

[608] Rural Rides, i. 18.

[609] Moore, History of Devonshire, i. 430.

[610] By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement, so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a settlement may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes, and by residence.—Stephen, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1903), iii. 87.

[611] Hasbach, op. cit. p. 217.

[612] R.A.S.E. Journal (1901), p. 9.



CHAPTER XX

1837-1875

REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE.—THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.—CORN LAW REPEAL.—A TEMPORARY SET-BACK.—THE HALCYON DAYS

The revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the accession of Queen Victoria.

It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and manuring the land; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used, implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little practised, drainage utterly inefficient; in fact, while one farmer used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them. But better times were at hand.

About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day. Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each, other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also been called 'furrow or frequent draining', as the drains were generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and-a-half feet deep at short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive; and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylindrical pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered the cost and increased the efficiency.[613] In 1848, Peel introduced Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty-two instalments of 6 1/2 per cent. This was consequently an era of extensive drainage works all over England, which sorely needed it; but even now the work was often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were sometimes a foot deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart,[614] although the soil required nothing of the kind.

Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation; in Devonshire the farmer was bound by his lease to repair 'old mud and wooden houses', at a cost of 10 per cent. on his rent, and there were many such all over England. Farm-buildings were often at the extreme end of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds, and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure, spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the pool where the live stock drank; a picture, alas, often true to-day. It was to bring the great mass of landlords and farmers into line with those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the Royal Society was founded in 1838, in imitation of the Highland Society, but also owing to the realization of the great benefits conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially aided the breeding of live stock.

Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley[615] spoke of the wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed was 'practice with science'. The first President of the Society was Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new agricultural implement.

In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the agricultural history of the times.

In 1839[616] the first country meeting of the Society was held at Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According to Bell's Weekly Messenger for July 22, 1839, the show for some time had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day 20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then, for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs, and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and sound they finished.[617] The show ground covered 7 acres, and among the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a drill for depositing manure after turnips. There were only six classes for cattle—Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed, Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for sheep—Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled; with one for pigs.[618] The Shorthorns, with the exception of the Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live stock was in no way remarkable.

From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew fast, and the Warwick meeting[619] of 1892, after several years of agricultural depression, illustrates the excellent work of the Society and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground covered 90 acres; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions, Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies, Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns (described as few in number and of no particular quality, 'a breed which has now been many years on the wane', but has recently been revived),[620] Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and Dexter-Kerry.

The increased variety of sheep was also striking; Leicesters, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain.

Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any other black breed, and Tamworths.

Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, and the number of implements was 5,430.

In 1840 appeared Liebig's Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology, tracing the relations between the nutrition of plants and the composition of the soil, a book which was received with enthusiasm, and completely changed the attitude which agriculturists generally had maintained towards chemistry; one of contempt, founded on ignorance.

But, as Mr. Prothero has said,[621] 'if the new agriculture was born in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than half a century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of vast benefit to agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect of manuring; the scientific bases for the rotation of crops, and the results of various foods on animals in the production of meat, milk, and manure.

The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly; bones, used long before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed in 1772, and their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, but for long they were crushed by hammer or horse mill, and their use was consequently limited. Then iron rollers worked by steam ground them cheaply and effectively, and their use soon spread, though it was not till about 1840 that it can be said to have become general. Its effects were often described as wonderful. In Cheshire, cheese-making had exhausted the soil, and it was said that by boning and draining an additional cow could be kept for every 4 acres, and tenants readily paid 7 per cent. to their landlords for expenditure in bone manure. Its use had indeed raised many struggling farmers to comparative independence.[622] A very large quantity of the bones used came from South America.[623] Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive trade has been carried on in an article called Guano', the guana of Davy, 'from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa'. Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his works at Deptford.[624]

Italian rye grass, not to be confounded with the old English ray grass, had been introduced by Thomson of Banchory, in 1834, from Munich;[625] and though the swede was known at the end of the eighteenth century, in many parts it had only just become common. In Notts it was in 1844 described as having recently become 'the sheet-anchor of the farmer'.[626] In Cheshire a writer at the same date said, 'in the year 1814 there were not 5 acres of Swedish turnips grown in the parish where I reside; now there are from 60 to 80, and in many parts of the county the increase has been in a much greater ratio.'[627]

About this time a remedy was found in the south for leaving the land idle during the nine months between harvesting the corn crop in August, and sowing the turnip crop in the following June, by sowing rye, which was eaten green by the sheep in May, a good preparation for the succeeding winter crop. Turnip cutters were at last being used, and corn and cake crushers soon followed.

The seasons from 1838 to 1841 were bad, and must be characterized as a period of dearth, wheat keeping at a good price.[628] That of 1844-5 was remarkable for the first general appearance of the potato disease, not only in these islands but on the continent of Europe.[629] In August, 1846, the worst apprehensions of the failure of the crop were more than realized, and the terrible results in Ireland are well known. In the early part of 1847 there was a fear of scarcity in corn, and the price of wheat rose to 102s. 5d. in spite of an importation of 4,500,000 quarters, but this was largely owing to the absence of any reliable agricultural statistics, which were not furnished till 1866, and the price soon fell.[630]

We have now reached the period of free trade, when the Corn Laws, which had protected agriculture more or less effectually for so long, were definitely abandoned. That they had failed to prevent great fluctuations in the price of corn is abundantly evident, it is also equally evident that they kept up the average price; in the ten years from 1837 to 1846, the average price of wheat was 58s. 7d. a quarter, in the seven years from 1848 to 1853, the average price was 48s. 2d.[631]

The average imports of wheat and flour for the same period were 2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters respectively. But to obtain the real effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815 and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day, when the fall is enormous.

The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36s. 8d. was imposed when the price was 50s., decreasing to 1s. when it was 73s.

In 1843 (5 Vict. c. 14) a duty of 20s. was imposed when the price was 50s., and the duty became 7s. when the price reached 65s.

A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at all: 'if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally failed. During the continuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue little.'[632] Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties, which was occasionally much higher.[633]

It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted, for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have been far[634] more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had generally speaking been induced by a reliance on protection to neglect his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts of the country; 'our common drink,' said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we never know what it is to get enough to eat.'[635] Against these disadvantages can only be put the fact that protection had kept up the price of corn, a calamity for the mass of the people.

The amount of wheat imported into England before the era of Corn Law repeal was inconsiderable. Mr. Porter has shown[636] how very small a proportion of wheat used in this country was imported from 1801-44. From 1801 to 1810 the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom was 600,946 quarters, or a little over a peck annually per head, the average annual consumption per head being about eight bushels. Between 1811 and 1820 the average importation was 458,578 quarters, or for the increased population a gallon-and-a-half per head, and the same share for each person was imported in the next decade 1821-30. From 1831-40 the average imports arose to 607,638 quarters, or two-and-a-quarter gallons per head, and in 1841-4 an average import of 1,901,495 quarters raised the average supply to four-and-a-half gallons per person, still a very small proportion of the amount consumed.

In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was formed in Manchester.[637] At one of its earliest meetings appeared Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its great agitation, its object being 'to convince the manufacturer that the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a fixed price for corn'. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed up by constant public meetings; and these efforts, aided by unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of protection. In 1840 the League spent L5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and 150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people. Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and, on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the landlord; in 1843 the League collected L50,000, next year L100,000, and in 1845 L250,000 in support of their agitation.

Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament; even in 1842 Peel only amended the laws; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced by the League's arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 22.

By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced to 10s. a quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under 18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the most important part of the Act was that on February 1, 1849, these duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter on foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860.

By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and other animals used as food was strictly prohibited,[638] but in that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter the country on a payment of 20s. a head on oxen and bulls, 15s. on cows, 3s. on sheep, 5s. on hogs; which duties continued till 1846.

It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the reduction of the duties, but he anticipated a great increase in salted meat from abroad; cold storage being then undreamt of.

The full effect of this momentous change was not to be felt for a generation, but the immediate effect was an agricultural panic apparently justified by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40s. 3d. and in 1851 38s. 6d. On the other hand, stock farmers were doing well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to come down; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture; distress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture in 1850, the Times sent James Caird on a tour through England, and one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his tour is, that owing to protection, the majority of landowners had neglected their land; but another cause of neglect was that the great body of English landlords knew nothing of the management of their estates, and committed it to agents who knew little more and merely received the rents. The important business of being a landowner is the only one for which no special training is provided. Many of the landlords, however, then, as now, were unable to improve their estates if they desired to do so, as they were hopelessly encumbered, and the expense of sale was almost prohibitive. The contrast between good and bad farmers was more marked in 1850 than to-day, the efforts of the Royal Agricultural Society to raise the general standard of farming had not yet borne much fruit. In many counties, side by side, were farmers who used every modern improvement, and those who still employed the methods of the eighteenth century: on one farm wheat producing 40 bushels an acre, threshed by steam at a cost of 3s. 6d., on the next 20 bushels to the acre threshed by the flail at a cost of 9s.[639]

Drainage in the counties where it was needed had made considerable progress, the removal of useless hedgerows often crowded with timber, that kept the sun from the crops and whose roots absorbed much of the nourishment of the soil, was slowly extending, but farm-buildings almost everywhere were defective. 'The inconvenient ill-arranged hovels, the rickety wood and thatch barns and sheds devoid of every known improvement for economizing labour, food, and manure, which are to be met with in every county in England, are a reproach to the landlords in the eyes of all good farmers.'[640] The farm-buildings of Belgium, Holland, France, and the Rhenish Provinces were much superior. In parts of England indeed no progress seems to have been made for generations at this date. Thousands of acres of peat moss in Lancashire were unreclaimed, and many parts of the Fylde district were difficult even to traverse. Even in Warwickshire, in the heart of England, between Knowle and Tamworth, instead of signs of industry and improvement were narrow winding lanes leading to nothing, traversed by lean pigs and rough cattle, broad copse-like hedges, small and irregular fields of couch, amidst which straggled the stalks of some smothered cereal; these with gipsy encampments and the occasional sound of the poacher's gun from woods and thickets around were the characteristics of the district.[641]

Leases were the exception throughout England, though more prevalent in the west.[642] The greater proportion of farms were held on yearly agreements terminable by six months' notice on either side, a system preferred by the landlord as enabling him to retain a greater hold over his land, and acquiesced in by the tenant because of easy rents. In spite of this insecurity of tenure and the absence of Agricultural Holdings Acts, the tenants invested their capital largely with no other security than the landlord's character, 'for in no country of the world does the character of any class of men stand so high for fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English landlords.'

The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain counties, Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.[643] Where it existed, the agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less degree. Many farmers were in the practice of 'working up to a quitting', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last; but chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was so gradual and imperceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern disinclination to be bound down to a particular spot for a long period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that leases were his chief necessity.

The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable, ranging from 15s. a week in parts of Lancashire to 6s. in South Wilts, the average of the northern counties being 11s. 6d., and of the southern 8s. 5d. a difference due wholly to the influence of manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact since Young's time wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in the south only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was 8s. 8-1/2d., but in the north 4s. 7-3/4d., and the percentage of paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was mainly due to two causes: (1) the ratepayers of parishes in the south were accustomed to divide among themselves the surplus labour, not according to their requirements but in proportion to the size of their farms, so that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, and the labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every one, good and bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the system of close and open parishes, by which large proprietors could drive the labourer from the parish where he worked to live in some distant village in case he should become chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common thing to see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys for them. Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, however, already benefited by free trade, for the price of many articles he consumed fell 30%; on the other hand the rent of his cottage in eighty years had increased 100%, and meat 70%, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him much. The great development of railway construction also helped him by absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife and children was more freely exploited at this date to swell the family budget.[644]

The great difference between the wages of the north and the south is a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural labourer are not dependent on the prices of agricultural produce, for those were the same in both regions. It was unmistakably due to the greater demand for labour in the north.

The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, often a black blot on English civilization. From many instances collected by an inquirer in 1844 the following may be taken. At Stourpaine in Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition whatever. At Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was rare, and licentiousness and immorality of the worst kind were frequent.[645]

As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than the corn grower. The following table shows the rent of cultivated land per acre, the produce of wheat per acre in bushels, the price of provisions, wages of labour, and rent of cottages in England at the date of Young's tours, about 1770, and of Caird's in 1850[647]:

Rent of Produce of cultivated land Wheat Price per lb. of per acre. per acre. Bread. Meat. Butter.

1770 13s. 4d. 23 1-1/2d. 3-1/4d. 6d. 1850 26s. 10d. 26-3/4[646] 1-1/4d. 5d. 1s.

Price of Wool Cottage Labourer's wages per lb. rents. per week.

1770 5-1/2d. 34s. 8d. 7s. 3d. 1850 1s. 74s. 6d. 9s. 7d.

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—

1799 19s. 3-3/4d. an acre. 1812 25s. 8-3/4d. " 1830 25s. 1-3/4d. " 1850 36s. 8d. "

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 L445,000,000.[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 L3,000,000. 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.