LANDED INTEREST 
 
 CHE SUPPLY OF FOOD 
 
REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OK THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 Received ... S^^ _ _ _ _ i88/_. 
 
 Accessions Nb^j/*fj?JfjiL- Shelf No., _ 
 

THE LANDED INTEREST 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SUPPLY OF FOOD. 
 
THE 
 
 LANDED INTEREST 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SUPPLY OF FOOD. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES CAIRD, F.R.S., 
 
 H 
 
 Author of "English Agriculture in 1850 and 1851.' 
 
 K A R 
 
 rNlVK^JTY OF 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 CASSELL, FETTER, GALPIN & Co.: 
 
 LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK. 
 
 1880. 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.! 
 
v\ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS Treatise was prepared at the re- 
 quest of the President and Council of 
 the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng- 
 land, to exhibit a general view of 
 British Agriculture, for the information 
 of European Agriculturists at the Inter- 
 national Agricultural Congress of Paris, 
 in 1878. For this purpose it was trans 
 lated into French by M. de la Trehonnais, 
 and so published in Paris. It was then 
 published, with other contributions on 
 analogous subjects, in the Journal of the 
 Royal Agricultural Society, and as a 
 separate work in this form. A fourth 
 edition having been called for, the oppor- 
 tunity has been taken to make such 
 emendations as have been rendered neces- 
 sary by the increasing pressure of foreign 
 competition. 
 
 J. c. 
 
 8, QUEEN'S GATE GARDENS, 
 LONDON, June, 1880. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Home and Foreign Supply of Food. 
 
 PAGE 
 Functions of Government in regard to the Supply 
 
 of Food Value of Cereal and Animal Food im- 
 ported from Abroad Rapid Rise in the Value 
 of Meat will be checked by Importations 
 from America Proportion of Home and Foreign 
 Supply of Food in this Country England 
 now chiefly dependent on Foreign Supplies for 
 further Increase Cost of Carriage equal to the 
 Rent of Land here Agricultural Statistics suffi- 
 ciently accurate for use Their main Features 
 Diminution of Corn in Ireland Present Agricul- 
 tural Prosperity of that Country Extent of the 
 various Crops and Numbers of Live Stock 
 Quantities and Value of Home and Foreign 
 Produce, respectively, consumed annually in 
 this Country I 14 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Changes and Progress in Agriculture in Recent ] 'cars. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Reaping and Mowing Machines Steam Plough 
 Double - furrow Plough General use of 
 Steam-power Successive Corn-crops use to 
 which this might be put in time of War 
 capable of checking a permanent great Rise in 
 Price of Wheat Autumn Culture and Steam- 
 power, with imported Manures, have given great 
 command of Crops Mr. Lawes' Experiments : 
 their Value and some of their special Lessons 
 The Experiments at Woburn Extension of 
 Land-drainage and Improvement of Farm-build- 
 ings and Labourers' Cottages Change within 
 30 years, more in general diffusion of Improved 
 Practice, and better Breeds of Stock, than in the 
 introduction of New Systems Greatest Change 
 caused by the Prosperity of the Country and 
 the Rise in the Value of Animal Food vast 
 consequent Increase in the Capital Value of 
 Live Stock and Landed Property 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Soil t Climate, and Crops. 
 
 Extent of Country and Proportion of various Crops 
 as influenced by Climate, Situation, and Rain- 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 fall Weight and relative Value of Corn-crops 
 Examples of Soils of greatest and least Natural 
 Fertility and of an average Soil unmanured and 
 specially manured Plants which predominate 
 in uncultivated Land 32 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Distribution of Landed Property. 
 
 Tendency to Diminution in Number of small Es- 
 tates Proportion of Landowners to whole Popu- 
 lation as one in a hundred These, being Heads 
 of Families, equivalent to one in twenty Hence 
 one-twentieth of Population interested in Landed 
 Property Increased to one-fifth by the Interests 
 of Tenant-farmers as part Owners of Agricul- 
 tural Property One-fifth of the Land held by 
 the Peerage Not cultivated by Owners but by 
 Farmers relative Extent of their Holdings in 
 England and in Ireland Trade and Colonies 
 enable us to dispense with Checks on Increase 
 of Population that checked in Ireland by 
 Potato Famine Decrease in Number of smallest 
 Holdings there on return of Prosperity Diminu- 
 tion of Agricultural Population artd of Yeomen 
 farming their own Land Experiment of Peasant 
 Proprietors in Ireland Plan Recommended ... 40 55 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Landowner, Farmer, and Labourer. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Landowners, their Position, Duties, and In- 
 fluence Their Number, and the immense Capital 
 Value of their Property The Tenant-farmers, 
 the proportional Extent of their Holdings, their 
 Numbers and Capital the Labourers Condi- 
 tion now better than at any previous Period, 
 comparing their Wages with the Price of Bread 
 Each of the three Classes constantly recruited 
 by changes of Property and Employment Re- 
 sult of the System, compared with that of other 
 Countries, shows larger Returns at less Cost 
 Special Features of System in England in Scot- 
 land in Ireland Tenancy-at-will in England 
 Leases in Scotland Middlemen in Ireland, and 
 the Result 56 78 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Land Improvement. 
 
 Hindrances by Settlements and Incumbrances 
 Expedients adopted to overcome the incapacity 
 of Owners to provide Capital for Improvement 
 State Loans for Land Improvement Followed 
 by Loans from Land Improvement Companies 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Total Amount so expended Parliamentary In- 
 quiry into the working of these Loans, and their 
 Results General Testimony to their rernunera- 
 rative Character Land Drainage the most remu- 
 nerative Improvement Greater Caution required 
 in Expenditure on Buildings Labourers' Dwell- 
 ings, judiciously executed and placed, as remune- 
 rative as any other Outlay of Landowner's Capital 
 Better Cottages wanted rather than more of 
 them Examples of remunerative Expenditure 79 95 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Recent Rise in the Value of Land. 
 
 Great Rise in the Value of Land since the Repeal 
 of the Corn Laws only partly due to the Out- 
 lay of Capital in Improvements Greatest Rise 
 has been in the Grazing Counties, on Grass- 
 lands, and in Scotland The Cause of this The 
 Scotch Landowner better trained to his Business 
 Landowning the only Business in which special 
 Training is not usually deemed necessary 
 Security for Tenant's Capital required Admir- 
 able Principle of Drainage Loans Extended 
 Powers of Sale in the case of Settled Estates 
 desirable Settlements should be limited to 
 Lives in being 96 no 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Government in its Connection with Agriculture. 
 
 No Minister of Agriculture, and no Government 
 Control exercised, or State Schools for Agricul- 
 ture, or Flocks or Herds maintained by Govern- 
 ment The Inclosure Commission the only State 
 Department connected with the Land Its 
 various Functions Main Drainage Commissions 
 for Control of Floods These beneficial where 
 not permitted to remain too long stagnant 
 Great Engineering Works seldom required Ex- 
 change of Intermixed Lands inexpensive and 
 simple in its Operation Extent to which the 
 Power of Exchange is used ... ... in 119 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Waste Lands and Copyholds. 
 
 Inclosure of Waste Lands, its Extent and Results 
 Quality and Occupation of Persons to whom 
 Waste Lands passed Extent of Public Roads 
 constructed and Value of Lands devoted to 
 Public Objects, at the Cost of the Owners of 
 Common Rights, equal to one-eighth of Value of 
 the whole Land inclosed Enfranchisement of 
 Copyhold Lands and Buildings Number com- 
 pleted Extinction of this objectionable kind of 
 Tenure desirable Mode of accomplishing this 120 130 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Church, Crown, and Charity Estates, 
 
 PAGE 
 Tithes commuted from Payment in Kind to Money 
 
 Unexpected Effect of this in preventing a Rise 
 in the Income of the Church, and increasing 
 that of the Landowners Parish Clergy a Body 
 of resident Landowners equal in Number to 
 more than one-fourth of those over 200 a year, 
 the removal of whom might prove a Change of 
 great magnitude in its Social Effect Her 
 Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues 
 managed with great Judgment and now yield a 
 Net Return to the Exchequer exceeding the Civil 
 List paid to the Queen General Conditions on 
 which the Farms of the Crown are let Charity 
 Estates, their Extent and Annual Value now 
 placed under the general direction of Govern- 
 mentTheir Magnitude compared with the 
 Cost of the Civil Administration of the 
 Country 131141 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Future. 
 
 Home Production of Bread and Meat limited 
 Country becoming less of a Farm and more of a 
 Garden Population, at Present Rate of Increase, 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 will in Twenty Years be Forty Millions causing, 
 
 if unchecked, a further Rise in Prices Prospect 
 of Landowner on good Land good of Tenant- 
 farmer more doubtful His Duty to protect him- 
 self by the security of a definite and lengthened 
 Term Either by Purchase of his Farm or by 
 Lease Good Understandings not likely to resist 
 the Increasing Pressure of Home and Foreign 
 Competition Facilities given to Farmers by 
 Government for Purchase in Ireland if ex- 
 tended to England and Scotland would be 
 more rapidly appropriated Somehow a Defi- 
 nite Term must be secured Time essential 
 in the Operations of Agriculture Earl of 
 Leicester's Lease an Admirable Example in its 
 Principal Features which admit of Freedom of 
 Management, and provide for Renewal without 
 Exposure to Undue Competition The Labourer, 
 his Work lightened, and Intelligence stimulated, 
 by extended use of Machinery Cheap Means 
 of Transit, and High Wages of Colonies make 
 him more independent His Political Position 
 likely soon to be improved 142 156 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Agricultural Prospects. 
 
 The Bad Harvest of 1879 Great Agricultural De- 
 pressionEstimated Loss sustained by British 
 
CONTENTS. xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Wheat Growers Stimulus given to American 
 Agriculture by Unfavourable Seasons in Western 
 Europe Comparative Produce of United States 
 with that of England and France The Great 
 North- West Wheat Belt of Canada Reduction 
 of the Cost of Transport of Grain And its 
 probable Effect on Home Produce Scientific 
 Appliances which Minimize the Cost and Lessen 
 the Risk of Distant Carriage Applicable also to 
 Meat and Provisions The Prairie Land Fresh 
 and Unexhausted Americans expect to be able 
 to Control European Markets Visit of British 
 Farm Delegates to Manitoba Their Opinion 
 of its High Fertility Wheat expected to be 
 placed in this Country at 35. 6d. a Bushel 
 Articles to which we must turn our Attention 
 Urgency of Removal of all Legal Restraints 
 that impede Home Production 157 175 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Table showing Rent, Prices, Wages, and Produce 
 
 in three periods during the last hundred years ... 177 
 
 Table showing Acreage of Crops and Number of 
 Live-stock in the United Kingdom, in each 
 year since 1867 178 
 
 Table showing Quantities and Value of Foreign 
 Grain and Live Stock, and Provisions imported, 
 in each of the last twenty years ... ... ... 179 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 J'AGK 
 
 Table showing the Annual Yield of Wheat in the 
 United Kingdom, per acre, during each of the 
 last thirty years, and in three periods of ten 
 years each 180 
 
 Description of the " Fertile Belt " of the North- 
 West Territory of Canada, published by Mr. 
 Caird, in 1859, with Analysis of Prairie Soils 
 as described by Professor Voelcker 181 
 
i,i r> u A i. 1 v 
 
 X i v KKSITY OF 
 
 AMKOUN! ' 
 
 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 I/ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOME AND FOREIGN SUPPLY OF FOOD. 
 
 ONE of the most important functions of Govern- 
 ment is to take care that there shall be no hin- 
 drance to the people supplying themselves with 
 food and clothing, which are the first necessaries 
 of life. And as these are, in one form or another, 
 annual products of the earth, dependent for their 
 abundance on the skill, capital, and labour 
 employed in its cultivation, much of the safety 
 and welfare of a country arises from the condi- 
 tion of its agriculture. That of England has 
 attained an exceptionally high productiveness. 
 The best of our land has long been occupied, 
 and, though there is yet much of the inferior 
 class that admits of improvement, it has become 
 
2 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 our interest as a nation to look also for further 
 supplies from the broader and richer lands of 
 other countries, which, to their advantage and 
 ours, the beneficent principle of Free Trade has 
 placed within our reach. 
 Value of The progressive increase of foreign supplies 
 
 cereal and 
 
 animal during the past twenty years is marvellous, the 
 
 food im- 
 ported value of foreign cereal and animal food imported 
 
 from 
 
 abroad. having risen from 25,900,000 in 1858 to 
 100,775,000 in 1879. The greatest propor- 
 tional increase has been in the importation of 
 animal food : living animals, fresh and salted 
 meat, fish, poultry, eggs, butter, and cheese, 
 which in that period has risen from an annual 
 value of five and a half to thirty-seven millions 
 sterling. More than half the farinaceous articles 
 imported, other than wheat, are used in the pro- 
 duction of beer and spirits. 
 
 The imports of animal food during the first 
 fourteen years of Free Trade were comparatively 
 small, the difference of price here and in foreign 
 countries not then affording a margin sufficiently 
 encouraging to justify costly arrangements of 
 transit. But as the price of meat in this country 
 
INCREASING PRICES. 3 
 
 moved steadily up, rising in a few years from Rapid rise 
 
 in value of 
 
 fivepence to sevenpence, ninepence, and even a meat, the 
 
 compara- 
 
 shilling a pound, enterprise with skill and capital tively high 
 
 price of 
 
 were called into rapid action to meet the grow- which pays 
 
 for long 
 
 ing demand. It became clear that an article so trans P r t' 
 valuable could cover the cost of carriage for 
 much longer distances than corn, a pound- 
 weight of meat being many times more valuable 
 than a pound of corn. All kinds of salted meat 
 were expected, and came ; but fresh meat (except 
 as live animals), from its perishable nature, was 
 not anticipated in any considerable quantity. 
 The cost of transporting live animals from any 
 great distance must obviously present a very 
 great difficulty. And a further and most serious 
 objection arose, in regard to those from nearer 
 European ports, in the risk of such live animals 
 bringing with them across the seas the contagion 
 of cattle-plague, or other pests, dangerous to 
 the live-stock of this country. All this could be Freshmea 
 
 from 
 
 avoided by the importation of fresh meat, and a America 
 
 may pre- 
 plan with this object, recently adopted by vent exces- 
 sive rise of 
 American shippers, has been attended with a price in 
 
 Europe 
 
 large measure of success. The steam-ships in 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 which the meat is carried have chambers fitted 
 in such a manner that the meat can be kept fresh 
 during the voyage by currents of cooled air. From 
 Australia and South America the same trade has 
 made a successful beginning, a new French cooling 
 process, by which the temperature of the air can 
 be reduced twenty degrees below zero (freezing 
 without the use of ice), having been introduced. 
 Large shipmentshave thus been successfully made, 
 and most of them have arrived in good condition. 
 Should this plan, in addition to the growing 
 importation of live animals, prove safe and suc- 
 cessful, we shall have the vast prairies of America, 
 North and South, and the rich grazings of 
 Australia added to our own pastures as new 
 sources of supply. This will be a great benefit 
 to the consumers of meat in this country, but 
 probably more by preventing a further rapid rise 
 in the price of meat than by effecting a heavy 
 reduction upon it. For the English market will 
 take only the best quality. Under any circum- 
 stances the English producer has the advantage 
 of about a penny a pound in the cost and risk of 
 transport against his Transatlantic and Australian 
 
PROPORTION OF FOREIGN TO HOME SUPPLY. 5 
 
 competitor an advantage equal to 4 on an 
 average ox. Of this natural advantage nothing 
 can deprive him. 
 
 The proportion in which the people of this 
 country are dependent for their principal articles 
 of food and clothing on home and foreign supply 
 was the subject of an inquiry by me in 1868, in a 
 
 Proportion 
 
 paper read to the Statistical Society. At that time O f home 
 
 and foreign 
 
 I found the foreign supply to be in the proportion supply of 
 
 food and 
 
 of one-fourth of the whole. In the ten years since clothing in 
 
 the United 
 
 that time the importation of meat has more than Kingdom, 
 doubled, butter and cheese have risen nearly 
 one-third, wheat more than a third, and other 
 grain has doubled. Inclusive of wool, nearly one- 
 half of our total consumption of agricultural pro- 
 duce is now obtained from other countries. 
 
 But it is a question of interest, both to the 
 home and foreign producer, to ascertain more 
 closely the proportion of the two chief articles, 
 bread and meat. In the past ten years there 
 has been a gradual reduction of the acreage and 
 produce of wheat in this country, and a more 
 than corresponding increase in the foreign sup- 
 ply ; the result of which is that we now receive 
 
6 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 our bread in smaller proportion from our own 
 fields than those of the stranger. In regard to 
 meat, and other animal products, ten years ago 
 the proportion of foreign was one-seventh of the 
 whole. It has now risen to nearly one-half. 
 England This country thus ' derives from foreign 
 
 now chiefly 
 
 dependent lands, not only more than one - half of its 
 
 on foreign 
 
 supply for bread and nearly one-half in value of its 
 
 further 
 
 increase. mQ at, dairy produce, and wool, but must 
 also depend on the foreigner for almost the 
 entire addition that may be further required by 
 an increase of its population. In the last ten 
 years there has been no increase in the acreage 
 or production of corn, and little in that of meat. 
 The extent of green crops and grass has slightly 
 increased, from the double impulse of the rise 
 in wages and the increasing demand for dairy 
 produce and meat. But, excluding good lands 
 capable of being rendered fertile by drainage, 
 we appear to have approached a point in agri- 
 cultural production beyond which capital can be 
 otherwise more profitably expended in this 
 country than in further attempting to force our 
 poorer class of soils. It is cheaper for us as a 
 
COST OF TRANSPORT EQUAL TO RENT. 7 
 
 nation to get the surplus from the richer lands of 
 America, Southern Russia, and Australia, where 
 the virgin soil is still unexhausted. 
 
 The cost of carriage depends very much on Cost of 
 
 carriage 
 
 distance, and as the chief supply of wheat comes equal to 
 
 the rent of 
 
 from great distances California and the Western land in 
 
 England. 
 
 States, the Black Sea, and South Australia 
 the cost of transporting a quantity equal to the 
 produce of an acre in England is seldom less, 
 and often more, than 303. Hay and straw are 
 so bulky that they can only bear the cost of 
 carriage from near Continental ports. Fresh 
 meat from America and elsewhere, from the 
 costly methods necessary to preserve it, will, 
 on the produce of an acre, cost equal to 305. 
 for transport to this country. The natural pro- 
 tection enjoyed by the British farmer in his 
 proximity to the home market, as compared 
 with the foreign farmer who seeks our market 
 for his produce, thus gives him an advantage 
 equal to the present average rent of his land, 
 placing him so far on an equality with the 
 owners of land in new countries, but with this 
 disadvantage, that he must manure and clean 
 
8 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 the worn out ground, while his competitors have 
 to deal with a virgin soil that needs no such 
 tending. 
 
 The total home produce can now be very 
 
 turalstatis- 
 
 U C nited the correctlv calculated from the annual agricultural 
 Kingdom, returns. The collection of these returns was 
 instituted in Ireland at the time of the potato 
 famine in 1847, an d they have been published 
 continuously since that time. The information 
 is collected by the constabulary, a semi-military 
 force, stationed in all parts of the country, 
 and is arranged by the Registrar-General, and 
 annually printed. 
 
 Not for twenty years afterwards were there 
 any complete returns from Great Britain. After 
 long perseverance I succeeded in obtaining a 
 Resolution of the House of Commons in favour 
 of the collection of agricultural statistics, which 
 was in consequence carried out for the first time 
 in 1867, the collection of the returns being made 
 by the officers of the Inland Revenue, and their 
 arrangement for publication by the Statistical 
 Department of the Board of Trade. The expe- 
 rience gained by thirteen years' repetition of the 
 
Ac- .'AL STATISTICS. 
 
 various inquiries has created such a fund of local 
 knowledge among the officers of the Inland 
 Revenue that there can now be no doubt enter- 
 tained of the substantial accuracy of the returns. 
 
 Minute accuracy is not expected or required, Their ac- 
 curacy suf- 
 but the comparisons from year to year show the ficient for 
 
 practical 
 
 relative accuracy obtained to be sufficient for all use- 
 practical purposes. 
 
 It appears from these returns that there Theirmain 
 
 features. 
 
 was an exceptional decrease in the acreage of 
 wheat in 1876, and again in 1879, caused 
 by low price and unfavourable seed-time, 
 from which a considerable change has occurred 
 during the past ten years in the production of 
 wheat in Great Britain. It has diminished in 
 England, and largely in Scotland and Ireland, 
 the diminution amounting to one fourth of 
 its area since 1869. Barley has increased, while 
 oats remain much the same, but the total extent 
 of arable has diminished by more than 10 per 
 cent. 
 
 The permanent pasture during the same increase of 
 
 pasture. 
 
 period has increased steadily no doubt from 
 the increased cost of labour and the gradual rise 
 
THE LANDED 
 
 in the value of live stock and its produce. This 
 increase of 8 per cent., amounting to nearly one 
 million acres, not having diminished the extent 
 of corn, must represent an addition of that 
 breadth gained by reclamation during the ten 
 years ; and, as some considerable extent of land 
 is yearly taken from cultivation by the increase 
 of towns and the construction of new railroads, 
 this shows an important gain by agricultural 
 enterprise. 
 Increase of The general extent of green crops has very 
 
 the man- 
 gold crop, slightly altered in the ten years, potatoes alone 
 
 showing some diminution. A large increase, 
 however, in the proportion of mangold is shown 
 by a rise of 100,000 acres more than in 1867. 
 This is a root-crop peculiarly well suited to the 
 deep soils and dry and warm climate of the 
 south-east and southern counties ; and its keep- 
 ing properties, continuing well into the following 
 summer, are a great recommendation to the 
 stock farmer. A rise of 40 per cent, in the 
 breadth cultivated, within so short a period as ten 
 years, is a convincing proof that the great value 
 of this plant is at length beginning to be gene- 
 
CHANGES OF CROP IN IRELAND. i T 
 
 rally recognised, and there seems a probability 
 of its continued extension. In live-stock there 
 has been a moderate increase in Great Britain 
 during the past ten years. 
 
 In Ireland the change of crops has been Diminu- 
 tion of corn 
 
 greater than in England or Scotland, the extent and in- 
 crease of 
 
 of land under corn having diminished in ten grass in 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 years by 12 per cent. Wheat has fallen to less 
 than one-half, there is an increase of 28 per cent, 
 in barley, but a decrease of nearly 10 per cent, 
 in oats. Potatoes have fallen 12 per cent, 
 while turnips have slightly increased. On the 
 whole there has been a diminution of 267,000 
 acres of land under corn, and an addition of 
 203,000 acres to permanent meadow and grass. 
 The reduction of the acreage of wheat, for which 
 the climate of most parts of Ireland is too moist, 
 and the considerable decline in potatoes, the 
 tempting but precarious crop upon which that 
 country has hitherto too much relied, are evident 
 signs of prudence and prosperity. In the same 
 period, though there has been a reduction in the 
 number of sheep, that is much more than com- 
 pensated by an increase in cattle. And as the 
 
12 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 expenditure on drainage and land improvement, 
 Present and in the building of farmhouses and labourers' 
 
 great agri- 
 cultural cottages, has been greatly increasing, year by 
 
 of that vear t h e s t a te O f agriculture in Ireland, chiefly 
 
 country. J 
 
 owing to the high price of live-stock, and 
 the increasing demand for store animals to be 
 fattened in Great Britain, now appears to have 
 attained a position of general progress and 
 prosperity greater than has ever been previously 
 experienced in that portion of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 The extent of land under the various crops 
 in the United Kingdom in 1879 was, in wheat, 
 3,056,000 acres; barley, 2,931,000 acres; oats, 
 3,998,000 acres ; potatoes, 1,393,000 acres ; other 
 green crops, 3,478,000 acres ; flax, 135,000 
 acres ; hops, 68,000 acres ; bare fallow, 738,000 
 acres ; grass under rotation, 6,441,000 acres ; 
 permanent pasture, 24,400,000 acres (besides 
 mountain pastures and wastes) ; woods and 
 plantations, 2,5 1 1,000. 
 
 The number of live-stock of various kinds in 
 1879 was > f horses, 2,834,000 ; cattle, 9,993,000 ; 
 sheep, 32,257,000; pigs, 3,164,000. 
 
VALUE OF HOME AND FOREIGN PRODUCE. IT. 
 
 . , K. o" o" o" o~ 
 
 *s||s 
 
 of Th ro IN HI 
 CN CM CO H 
 
 & &, 
 
 t^vO~ \O~ 
 
 N <N IH 
 
 O to>O H 
 If) rf M~ M" 
 
 S 
 
 10 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 L 
 
 S!&|| 
 
 
 
 tx O O O Q O 
 
 co ^O O O O O O 
 
 O vo 10 O >0 O O 
 
 t^ ^O CO t~x COvO~ >o" 
 
 CO H CO M 04 H 
 
 S3 
 
 S3 
 
M 
 
 By the aid of the agricultural returns, and 
 those of the annual imports of foreign and 
 colonial produce, I have constructed the preced- 
 ing Table, showing the comparative quantities 
 of home and foreign growth, and the value of 
 agricultural produce at present required for the 
 annual consumption of the people and live-stock 
 of this country. The grass, green crops other 
 than potatoes, and hay used on the farm, and 
 straw, are not included, nor the value of the 
 increase of horses. 
 Quantity The total value of the home crop is more 
 
 and value 
 
 of home than double that which we import, but the 
 
 and foreign 
 
 agricul- proportion of vegetable and animal produce is 
 
 tural pro- 
 
 .duce, re- singularly close, as will be seen by this further 
 
 spectively 
 
 consumed arra n Cement of the figures : 
 
 annually in 
 the British 
 
 Islands. Home Growth. Foreign. 
 
 Value of Corn and Vegetable 
 
 produce .... .125,737,500 64,900,000 
 
 Value of animal produce, in- 
 clusive of wool . . . 135,000,000 60,400,000 
 
 260,737,500 "125,300,000 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHANGES AND PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE 
 IN RECENT YEARS. 
 
 BEFORE entering on a more detailed description The most 
 
 striking 
 
 of the principles which regulate the agriculture features of 
 
 recent 
 
 and general management of landed property in agricul- 
 tural pro- 
 
 this country, it may be useful shortly to notice 8 ress - 
 its more recent progress, and those changes of 
 practice which science or art, or the circumstances 
 of his position in regard to competition or labour, 
 have forced on the British farmer. With a few 
 exceptions the change will be found rather in 
 the more general diffusion of a knowledge of 
 good principles and practice than in any con- 
 siderable advance upon either. 
 
 The most striking feature of agricultural The reap- 
 ing and 
 progress within the last twenty years has been mowing 
 
 machines. 
 
 the general introduction of reaping-machines, 
 
1 6 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 one of which can do the work of ten men. This 
 has multiplied the effect of human labour tenfold, 
 and that at the most critical season, the harvest, 
 when the entire crop ripens within a fortnight, 
 and must with all possible expedition be saved 
 without loss of time. For hay-making, a similar 
 machine is in the same proportion available. It 
 would be difficult to reckon the vast saving which 
 the introduction of this most important invention 
 has made at these most critical periods, haytime 
 and harvest. 
 Thesteam- Next to it is the steam-plough, which, on 
 
 plough. 
 
 heavy land and in large fields, especially where 
 coal is moderate in cost, and water easily avail- 
 able, is both economical and expeditious. A 
 steam-plough, capable of ploughing ten acres a 
 day, will do the labour of ten men and twenty 
 horses, and, where deep culture is advantageous, 
 will execute the work much more effectively, and 
 with no injurious trampling of the tender soil. 
 But it is as yet a costly implement, beyond the 
 reach of small farmers except when hired as an 
 auxiliary, and not capable of doing its work with 
 economy within small enclosures. The saving of 
 
RE A PING- MA CHINES. 1 7 
 
 labour is great in suitable localities, but it is not 
 so uniformly applicable, nor does it so certainly 
 and quickly repay its cost as the reaping-machine. 
 On light and friable soils the double-furrow The 
 plough, balancing itself with greatly less friction furrow 
 
 plough. 
 
 in proportion than the single plough, is found to 
 do the same work with one man and three 
 horses as two single ploughs with two men and 
 four horses. This is equal to a saving of 100 
 per cent, in man-power, and 25 per cent, in 
 horse-power, and it will become more generally 
 available on the lighter soils if any serious 
 pressure arises from scarcity of labour. In the 
 threshing of corn, and cutting of straw and hay General 
 
 for fodder, and the grinding and bruising of corn steam- 
 power in 
 
 and cake for horse and cattle food, the aid of manipula- 
 tion of 
 
 steam-power has long been used by the farmers crops. 
 
 of this country. 
 
 Next to the economy of labour may be Successive 
 
 i j .LI r i ^i corn-crops. 
 
 ranked the increase of produce by the expe- 
 dient of taking two corn-crops in succession 
 where the land is clean and in high condition 
 and can bear the application of special manure, 
 and where the agriculturist is free to follow a 
 
1 8 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 rational system of farming. The four-course 
 system of alternate corn and green crops 
 wheat, turnips, barley, clover had two great 
 advantages, first, by alternating restorative and 
 cleansing crops with corn ; and second, by 
 regular distribution of labour throughout the 
 year. The introduction of guano, nitrate of 
 soda, and other ammoniacal and phosphatic 
 manures, has now rendered the farmer compara- 
 tively independent of this alternate system of 
 cropping. As the supply of nitrate is believed 
 to be capable of lasting for a very long period, 
 we may hope for its continuance at a moderate 
 Use to price. It might become an instrument of great 
 
 which this 
 
 might be national value if any unforeseen occurrence should 
 
 put in time 
 
 of war. cu t off one of our main supplies of wheat, that of 
 Russia, for example. If only the twentieth part 
 of the corn land of the United Kingdom were 
 called on to bear an additional wheat-crop, the 
 loss would be at once made good, and with no 
 perceptible strain on our agricultural system. 
 If all Europe were shut against us, we should be 
 quickly able to meet the increased home demand 
 by double cropping to the extent of one-tenth 
 
SUCCESSIVE CORK-CROPS. 19 
 
 of our corn-land, and without any greater change 
 in the demand for nitrate of soda than has already 
 been met by the advancing supplies of recent 
 years. It is unnecessary to consider the posi- 
 tion of this country were even a heavier calamity 
 to befall us, obtaining as we do from the foreigner 
 so large a proportion of our food, for it is not 
 conceivable that the producers of corn in any 
 country would desire to see the best market in 
 the world long closed to them. But it is clear 
 that we possess in this power of taking a second 
 crop of wheat a latent reserve force which might, 
 on very short notice, be brought into action, and 
 which should dispel all fear of our being starved 
 into submission in case of war ; and this without 
 reckoning anything on the immense reserve 
 power of cereal production which is stored up 
 in the pasture-lands, ready in case of need. 
 
 It is a power, moreover, that, independent Likely to 
 
 check a 
 
 of foreign supply, will check any considerable permanent 
 
 rise in the 
 
 permanent rise in the price of wheat. A de- price of 
 
 wheat. 
 
 cline in the acreage under wheat, when not 
 caused by a bad seed-time, is the natural 
 result of low price ; but when the price rises, 
 C 2 
 
2O THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 increased acreage quickly follows. Were the 
 . price to rise steadily, and show signs of per- 
 manence, the second-crop system would extend, 
 and continue to do so until the increase of pro- 
 duce was found to check the rise in price. 
 
 Barley may be taken after barley with more 
 success on many soils than wheat ; and where 
 there is reason to suppose that a second crop of 
 wheat, however carefully the ground may have 
 been managed and manured, may be likely 
 to fail, barley may, with great probability, be 
 expected to succeed. 
 
 The use of nitrate of soda or other sources of 
 ammonia, combined with phosphatic manures, 
 promises to be a more permanent resource to 
 British agriculture than Peruvian guano, which 
 unites the same properties in itself, but seems 
 Autumn likely soon to become exhausted. Autumn 
 
 culture 
 
 and steam- culture, aided by the command of time which 
 
 power, 
 
 with im- steam-power has given to the agriculturist, 
 
 ported ma- 
 nures, have a nd that supplemented by spring top-dress- 
 given great 
 command i n cr s of nitrates and phosphates, have made 
 
 of crops. 
 
 continuous corn-cropping possible and profit- 
 able, without injury to the land, whenever soil 
 
NITRATES AND PHOSPHATES. 21 
 
 and circumstances render such a practice neces- 
 sary. The old plan of relying on the resources 
 of the farm by depending on the manure made 
 upon it, while the corn and meat were sold 
 away, will not answer now. Commerce and 
 mercantile enterprise have provided other means 
 for maintaining fertility at a cheaper cost, and 
 in a more commodious and portable form. One 
 cwt. of nitrate of soda will give a more certain 
 return of corn than fifty times its weight in 
 farm-yard manure, and can be carried to and 
 spread upon the ground at one-fiftieth of the 
 labour. The proof of this, in Mr. Lawes' ex- Great 
 
 value to 
 
 periments, has been before the country for more British 
 
 agriculture 
 
 than thirty years, and yet it is only beginning ofMr.^ 
 to be generally recognised. periments. 
 
 To Mr. J. B. Lawes the agriculture of this 
 country is deeply indebted. For thirty-three 
 years he has conducted, at his own cost, a series 
 of experiments on his estate in Hertfordshire, 
 the results of which have been annually pub- 
 lished, and the farm itself, with every detail 
 of the work, has been laid open to public in- 
 spection and criticism. Among other valuable 
 
22 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 results, one most useful fact has been elicited, 
 that of that mass of dark, strongly-smelling sub- 
 stance called dung, its sole property as a manure 
 depends upon the small quantity of chemical 
 salts and of organic nitrogen which it contains, 
 the bulky organic matter being only useful in 
 making the land work better, and rendering it 
 more capable of absorbing and retaining mois- 
 ture. Beginning in 1844 with wheat, the staff 
 of life in this country, he for eight years concen- 
 trated his attention upon it, dividing his experi- 
 mental field into twenty-two plots, upon two of 
 which no manure has ever been applied, and 
 upon the other twenty a carefully considered 
 variety of manures has been continuously used. 
 In 1852 he commenced a similar series of ex- 
 periments with barley, and in 1869, on a smaller 
 area, with oats. Experiments with leguminous 
 crops had been for a series of years continued, 
 but this species of plant being found, when 
 grown too frequently on the same land, to be 
 peculiarly subject to disease, which no con- 
 ditions of manuring appeared capable of ob- 
 viating, they were discontinued. With regard to 
 
MR. L AWES' EXPERIMENTS. 23 
 
 red clover, when the land becomes clover-sick 
 it was found that no manure could be relied on 
 to secure a crop, and continuous crops of it are 
 therefore impossible. Experiments on the 
 various root- crops were continued for series of 
 years, and the result published ; also on sugar- 
 beet ; and in 1 876 a commencement was made with 
 potatoes. His experiments on the corn crops 
 go on without cessation. In 1856 an important 
 series of experiments was commenced on grass- 
 land, which, with very little change on each of 
 the twenty plots, has been continued to the 
 present time. The average of the past twenty 
 years shows that the natural produce may be 
 doubled, and even trebled, by the continuous 
 use of special manures. Seeing that nearly 
 two-thirds of the cultivated area of this country, 
 and all the uncultivated, are in grass, this series 
 of experiments is of very great interest and 
 value. 
 
 After thirty-three successive wheat crops Some of 
 
 their 
 
 it is not surprising that the soil begins to ex- special 
 
 lessons. 
 
 hibit symptoms of exhaustion. The rotation 
 experiments show that this may be corrected 
 
24 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 by interposing a heavily-dunged green crop, 
 such as mangold, while the introduction of red 
 clover between the corn-crops is also found to 
 add greatly to the corn-producing power of the 
 soil. To attain a maximum paying produce, he 
 finds that the land should be dunged heavily 
 for mangold, to be followed with wheat, or 
 barley, or oats, according to soil and climate, for 
 several years in succession ; then interpose 
 clover, and follow it with corn-crops, keeping 
 the land perfectly clean, and manuring all the 
 corn-crops with nitrate of soda and superphos- 
 phate. When the land shows need of change, 
 begin again with heavily-dunged green crops. 
 Successive crops of barley he finds to pay 
 better, and are more certain than either wheat 
 or oats, and give more corn in proportion to 
 straw. If a heavily dunged green crop is occa- 
 sionally introduced, it is not necessary to give 
 any other manure to the corn-crops than nitrate 
 of soda and superphosphate. Potash (which 
 may be supplied by dung) is very necessary in 
 a grass-manure, especially for clover, which, 
 unlike corn, is injured by ammonia. The grass 
 
A MAXIMUM PRODUCE. 25 
 
 experiments show that by giving food to the 
 plants, the strongest and best varieties appro- 
 priate what they most need, and by the law of 
 the strongest, put the weakest down. In the 
 best plots the weeds almost disappear, while 
 on one plot, to which no manure is ap- 
 plied, the weeds form 50 per cent, of the 
 produce. 
 
 Besides these experiments on crops, Mr. 
 Lawes has carried out investigations on the 
 feeding of live stock, and on the different 
 values of their food, both as affecting the 
 processes of fattening and the quality and 
 value of the manure. 
 
 The Royal Agricultural Society has com- The 
 
 Woburn 
 
 menced a series of experiments on the growth experi- 
 ments. 
 
 of crops and the fattening of live-stock, with 
 a special relation to the manures applied and 
 the food used, and to the effect of the manures 
 resulting from specific kinds of food. The 
 Duke of Bedford, with great liberality and 
 public spirit, has undertaken the cost of these 
 experiments, and has placed suitable land and 
 buildings at the disposal of the Society, whose 
 
26 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Council, under the guidance of Dr. Voelcker, 
 their consulting chemist, regulate and superin- 
 tend them. They are open to public inspection, 
 and under such management the most useful 
 results may be anticipated. 
 Extension There has been a great extension of land 
 
 of land 
 
 drainage, drainage in recent years, and in the construction 
 
 and im- 
 
 offlrm ent of im P roved farm buildings, and in the better 
 cottars"' l oc te m g f farm-labourers in more commodious 
 housing cottages. And in regard to live-stock there has 
 stock Ve been a wider diffusion of the best breeds, and 
 generally an earlier maturity obtained in the 
 process of fattening. The use of improved im- 
 plements and machinery has greatly extended, 
 as also has the general application of loco- 
 motive steam-power to the threshing and other 
 preparation of crops for market or feeding 
 purposes. Cheap descriptions of corn are 
 largely and increasingly employed in the fatten- 
 ing of stock, and also oil-cake, cotton-cake, and 
 Large rape-cake. For these, and for bones, guano, 
 
 annual ex- 
 penditure and nitrate of soda used as manure, the annual 
 
 on cattle 
 
 food and expenditure cannot now be less than twelve 
 
 portable 
 
 manure. millions sterling. 
 
FARMING IN 1850. 27 
 
 But, with the exception of the more general The 
 
 change in 
 
 use of steam-power, and of the reaping machine the last 
 
 thirty years 
 
 and steam-plough, and other implements and more in 
 
 the general 
 
 machines, there is really little that is new in the diffusion of 
 
 improved 
 
 practice of the last quarter of a century. The 
 
 " 
 
 present system of drainage was previously well 
 understood. Bones, guano, and nitrate of soda 
 were fully appreciated by those who then used ysems. 
 them. Covered buildings and autumn cultiva- 
 tion had been introduced. Mr. Hudson, of 
 Castleacre, in Norfolk, then manured his land 
 for every crop. In running my eye over the 
 account which I wrote of English agriculture 
 in 1850, I find descriptions of good farming 
 in nearly every part of the country, the details 
 of which differ very little from the practice of 
 the present day. Mr. Pusey and Sir John 
 Conroy in Berkshire ; Mr. Thomas in Bedford- 
 shire ; Mr. Beasley in Northampton ; Mr. Paget 
 in Notts ; Mr. Torr in Lincoln ; Mr. Mechi, Mr. 
 Fisher Hobbs, and Mr. Hutley, in Essex ; Mr. 
 Huxtable in Dorset ; Jonas Webb in Cambridge- 
 shire ; Mr. Morton in Gloucestershire ; the Messrs. 
 Wells and Outhwaite in Yorkshire ; Mr. Fleming 
 
28 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 of Barrochan, Mr. M'Culloch of Auchness, and 
 Mr. George Hope, in Scotland ; Lord Lucan, 
 Mr. St. John Jeffryes, and Mr. Boyd, of Castle- 
 wellan, in Ireland, and many others, then carried 
 out the business of farming in a manner that 
 would bear favourable comparison with the 
 prize-farms of the present year. And, as to 
 breeds of cattle and sheep, the brothers Ceiling's 
 and Messrs. Booth's and Mr. Bates's Shorthorns ; 
 George Turner's and the Messrs. Quartley's 
 Devons ; Mr. Bakewell's Leicesters ; Jonas Webb's 
 Southdowns are not surpassed by the best of 
 the present day. The change has been not in 
 any considerable progress beyond what was 
 then the best, but in a general upheaval of the 
 middling and the worst towards the higher 
 platform then occupied by the few. 
 influence Towards this end, but beyond all efforts 
 
 upon agri- 
 
 culture of of the agriculturists themselves, or of the engi- 
 
 the general 
 
 prosperity neers and chemists who have done so much 
 
 of the 
 
 country in to aid them in developing the capabilities of 
 the rise of 
 
 the price the land, has been the influence of the general 
 
 of meat, 
 
 and the prosperity and growing trade and wealth of the 
 
 consequent r 
 
 increase in coun try. Thirty years ago, probably not more 
 
INFLUENCE OF GENERAL PROSPERITY. 29 
 than one-third of the people of this country the capital 
 
 value of 
 
 consumed animal food more than once a week, live-stock, 
 Now, nearly all of them eat it, in meat, or 
 cheese, or butter, once a day. This has more 
 than doubled the average consumption per 
 head ; and when the increase of population is 
 considered, has probably trebled the total con- 
 sumption of animal food in this country. The 
 increased supply has come partly from our own 
 fields, but chiefly from abroad. The leap which 
 the consumption of meat took in consequence of 
 the general rise of wages in all branches of trade 
 and employment, could not have been met 
 without foreign supplies, and these could not 
 have been secured except by such a rise of 
 price as fully paid the risk and cost of transport. 
 The additional price on the home-produce was 
 all profit to the landed interests of this country, 
 and is now being shared among them, partly in 
 rise of rent, partly in increase of profit, and 
 chiefly in rise of wages and expenses, and local 
 rates. Within the last twenty-five years, the 
 capital value of the live stock of the United 
 Kingdom has risen from one hundred and 
 
30 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 forty-six to two hundred and sixty millions 
 sterling, a gain of one hundred and fourteen 
 millions, 
 and in that It will be subsequently shown, when treating 
 
 of land. 
 
 of the value of land, that within a somewhat 
 shorter period the increase of the land-rent of 
 this country, when capitalised at thirty years' 
 purchase, shows an increased value of three 
 hundred and thirty-one millions sterling. When 
 we add to this the increase of farm capital, 
 through the rise in the value of live-stock, one 
 hundred and fourteen millions, there is the 
 amazing sum of four hundred and forty-five 
 millions sterling as the gain to the agriculturists 
 the landowners and farmers and, in higher 
 wages, to the agricultural labourers of the 
 United Kingdom, from the improvement of land 
 and the general prosperity of the country. I 
 may, perhaps, be excused for quoting the 
 concluding words of my volume, written in 
 1851, at a time of great agricultural depression, 
 when I stated that I believed the landlords 
 and tenants of England possessed energy and 
 capacity sufficient to meet and adapt themselves 
 
RISE /.v VALUE OF LIVE-STOCK AND LAND. 31 
 
 to the Free Trade policy, " which, in its extra- 
 ordinary effect on the welfare of all other classes 
 of the community, would, sooner or later, bear 
 good fruits also to them." 
 
 I' * B U A R \ 
 
 I'M VKHs'lTY OF 
 
 - LIF< >U\! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOIL, CLIMATE, AND CROPS. 
 Extent of THE total extent of the United Kingdom is 
 
 the coun- 
 try and 76,300,000 acres, of which 26,300,000 are in 
 
 propor- 
 tions of mountain pasture and waste, and 50,000,000 in 
 
 various 
 
 crops, crops, meadows, permanent pasture, and woods 
 and forests. Of the crops, one-fourth is in 
 various kinds of corn, one-eighth in green crops, 
 one-eighth in grass under rotation, and one- 
 half in meadows and permanent pasture. About 
 a thirtieth of the whole surface of the kingdom 
 is in woods and forests. These proportions 
 show the prevailing system of husbandry, and 
 reveal the cause of its increasing productiveness. 
 Three-fourths of the whole are green crops, 
 which feed and clean, or grass, which rests and 
 maintains the fertility of the remaining fourth 
 in corn. This preponderance of restorative over 
 exhaustive crops greatly exceeds that of any 
 
CLIMATE AND RAINFALL. 33 
 
 other country, and is very much due to the 
 climate. 
 
 The climate of the eastern side is drier than as in- 
 fluenced by 
 that of the west, the fall of rain at equal alti- climate, 
 
 tudes being as 25 inches in the east to 35 in the 
 west. The drought and heat are greatest in the 
 east, centre, and south-east in spring and 
 summer. The whole western side of the 
 country is comparatively mild and -moist, and 
 specially adapted for green crops and pasture. 
 The east, having generally a deeper soil, and 
 greater heat in summer, is best suited to wheat 
 and barley. It produces 64 per cent, of all the 
 wheat and barley grown, and 74 per cent, of the 
 pulse-crops. The west, on the other hand, 
 contains more than twice the extent of per- 
 manent pasture, and produces nearly double 
 the number of cattle. The waters of the Gulf 
 Stream envelop the British Islands. Their 
 vapours, carried over every part of the kingdom 
 by prevailing west winds, temper the cold of 
 winter and the heats of summer. This favours 
 the growth, on the west especially, of succulent 
 herbage and green crops, and we are free from 
 
34 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 the extremes experienced on the Continent. 
 Grass and green crops flourish in all parts of the 
 country, and both in the low lands, and on the 
 mountain pastures of the west and north, sheep 
 feed unsheltered and unhoused during both 
 winter and summer. Beasts of prey are 
 unknown. 
 and The annual rainfall in the lower parts of the 
 
 rainfall. 
 
 country varies from 25 to 35 inches. In the 
 mountainous districts these figures may be 
 doubled. But, limiting our consideration to the 
 cultivated lands, it must be obvious that an 
 annual rainfall, upon an acre of land, in the one 
 case of 2,500 tons and in the other of 3,500 tons, 
 accompanied by corresponding humidity of 
 atmosphere, will greatly modify the respective 
 systems of husbandry practised. Accordingly, 
 the eastern half of the country may be correctly 
 described as the corn and fattening region, and 
 the western half as the dairy and breeding 
 region of the kingdom. The winter tempera- 
 ture is more severe in the east than in the west, 
 and that of the summer warmer and more sunny, 
 and better suited to the ripening of wheat, 
 
WEIGHT AND VALUE OF CROPS. 35 
 
 while that of the west, being less scorching and 
 more cloudy, is better adapted to pasture and 
 oats. The value of live-stock is so much greater 
 than corn, that it is not found profitable to push 
 the limit of cultivation to a greater height than 
 800 feet in the east and 500 feet in the west, and 
 these limits are becoming more circumscribed by 
 the increasing cost of labour, and the continued 
 rise in the value of live-stock. 
 
 The soil varies greatly in fertility, and its 
 cultivation is regulated both by the amount it 
 yields and the cost of cultivating it. The most 
 profitable and productive soil is that which is 
 at once fertile and easy of cultivation. A rich 
 loam which yields a ton of wheat to the acre is Weight 
 
 and 
 
 less costly in labour than a poor clay which relative 
 
 value of 
 
 yields little more than half that weight. Be- corn-crops. 
 tween corn and straw an average crop of wheat, 
 barley, or oats, will weigh two tons an acre ; 
 about two-fifths being corn and three- fifths 
 straw, though the proportion of straw to corn 
 in wheat and oats is greater than in barley. A 
 ton of wheat, at the average price of the last 
 fifteen years, is worth 1 1 145. ; a ton of barley, 
 
 D2 
 
36 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 g 1 2s. ; and of oats, 9. But the wheat is 
 more costly to grow, as it is four months longer 
 in the soil, and therefore takes more out of it 
 than either barley or oats, and requires either a 
 better soil or more enriching preparation. On 
 soils of equal quality the average weight of 
 barley and oats yielded by an acre exceeds that 
 of wheat in about the same proportion as it falls 
 short of it in value per ton. Hence, where the 
 soil and climate are equally suited to the 
 production of these varieties of corn, the 
 choice of one or the other is more a ques- 
 tion of convenience than profit, and depends 
 much on the local value of the different kinds 
 of straw. 
 Examples The fertility of a soil may be expressed by 
 
 of soils of 
 
 the great- examples taken, 1st, in the natural state of 
 
 est and 
 
 least pasture ; and, 2nd, on similar soils after treat- 
 
 natural 
 
 fertility, me nt The maximum of fertility in the natural 
 state is a rich pasture capable of fattening an 
 ox and two sheep on an acre. Such soils are 
 exceptional, though in most counties they are 
 to be met with. The Pawlet Hams in Somer- 
 setshire, for example, is a tract of rich alluvial 
 
COMPARATIVE FERTILITY. 37 
 
 soil on the River Parrott, stretching along the 
 sea-board. It is in permanent pasture, and is 
 let for grazing at 4. to $ of rent an acre. 
 Some of the marsh-lands of Sussex and Kent 
 are of equal fertility. And on certain limestone 
 lands, not alluvial, in various parts of the 
 country, both east and west, feeding pastures 
 of great fertility are met with. Such lands, as 
 they require neither labour nor manure, yield 
 the largest rents to their owners. The profit 
 to the stock-feeder beyond the rent paid to the 
 landowner depends on the skill with which he 
 conducts his business. The minimum of fer- 
 tility may be exemplified by a bleak mountain 
 pasture, where ten acres will barely maintain a 
 small sheep. 
 
 The artificial maximum and minimum of and of an 
 
 average 
 
 fertility which result from the treatment of soils soil un- 
 
 manured, 
 
 of the same quality is more instructive, and and 
 
 specially 
 
 may be clearly exemplified by taking two of manured, 
 the experiments which have been carried on 
 by Mr. Lawes of Rothamsted, in Hertford- 
 shire, for the last thirty years. Confining the 
 comparison to the average of the last twelve 
 
THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 years, the following is the weight in pounds of 
 an average crop : 
 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Straw. 
 
 Total. 
 
 ist. Wheat grown continuously, with- ) 
 out manure ) 
 
 Ibs. 
 73 
 
 Ibs. 
 1,120 
 
 Ibs. 
 1,850 
 
 2nd. Wheat grown continuously, with ) 
 special manure ) 
 
 2,342 
 
 4,928 
 
 7,270 
 
 
 
 
 
 The soils here are exactly similar and in the 
 same field, strong land on clay with a sub- 
 stratum of chalk ; the management is the same, 
 in so far as culture is concerned ; both crops are 
 kept equally clean and free from weeds, the 
 same seed is used, and they are exposed to the 
 same changes of weather. The only difference 
 is, that in the one case nature has for thirty 
 years been unassisted by manure, and in the 
 other the soil receives every year the various 
 kinds of manure which have been found most 
 suitable to the crop. The result of this treat- 
 ment is a return of three times the weight 
 of corn and four times the weight of straw, 
 for an expenditure in manure which leaves a 
 profit of 100 per cent, on its cost. In both 
 
WITH AND WITHOUT MANURE. 39 
 
 cases the wheat is grown continuously year 
 after year. 
 
 The plants which predominate in uncul- 
 tivated land depend both on the nature of the 
 soil and on the climate and situation. On poor 
 gravel, furze grows in abundance ; on peaty 
 uplands, short heath ; on cold, wet-bottomed 
 soils, rushes cover the ground. Natural woods 
 of birch and oak are found in sheltered High- 
 land glens, and self-sown Scotch firs spread 
 themselves in the neighbourhood of extensive 
 pine forests. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF LANDED PROPERTY. 
 Tendency THE distribution of landed property in England, 
 
 of landed 
 
 property to so far as ownership is concerned, is, by the 
 
 diminution 
 
 1 th ^ f growing wealth of the country, constantly tend- 
 smaii j n g to a reduction in the number of small 
 
 estates. 
 
 estates. This tendency is further promoted by 
 the law, which permits entails and settlements, 
 thus hindering the natural sale of land so 
 dealt with ; and also by rights of primogeniture, 
 which prevent subdivision of landed property 
 among the family in case of intestacy. Culti- 
 vation thus passes out of the hands of small 
 owners into those of tenant-farmers, causing a 
 gradual decrease of the agricultural population, 
 and a proportionate increase of the towns. This 
 has been much accelerated by a policy of Free 
 Trade, which has at once opened up the markets 
 of the world for our commerce, and for the 
 
HOME PRODUCE COMPARED WITH FOREIGN. 41 
 
 produce of our mines and manufactures. These 
 are advantageously interchanged for the corn 
 and other agricultural products of foreign lands. 
 This will go on while the commerce is found 
 mutually profitable. And it will be profitable 
 so long as, by superior skill and enterprise, 
 combined with exceptional mineral advantages, 
 we can undersell other countries in the produce 
 of our manufactories and mines, while they 
 can supply us with corn at a cheaper rate than 
 we can grow it at home. Our present relation 
 with foreign countries is becoming like that of 
 a crowded capital, which draws its fresh supplies 
 of vegetables, milk, and meat from the market- 
 gardens, meadows, and rich grazings in its 
 vicinity, but looks to more distant lands for the 
 corn and other commodities which bear long 
 transport from cheaper and more distant farms. 
 Nearly one-half of our corn is now of foreign 
 growth, and not quite one-third of our meat 
 and dairy produce ; whilst year by year our 
 corn-land is giving place to the more profitable 
 produce afforded by the milk and grazing and 
 market - garden farms, which are gradually 
 
42 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 extending their circle. Such produce renders the 
 land more valuable, more tempting prices are 
 offered for it to the small landowners, and their 
 numbers decrease. Wealthy men from the 
 mines and manufactories and shipping and 
 colonial interests, and the learned professions, 
 desire to become proprietors of land ; and some 
 competition exists between them and those 
 landowners of older standing whose increasing 
 wealth tempts them on suitable opportunities 
 to enlarge the boundaries of their domains. 
 Thus small proprietors are bought out, and 
 agricultural landowners diminish in number ; 
 while, side by side with them, vast urban popu- 
 lations are growing up, having little other con- 
 nection with the land than that of recruiting 
 their population from it, and affording the best 
 market for its produce. 
 Proportion The Domesday Book for the United King- 
 
 of land- 
 owners to dom, lately published, divides the landowners 
 
 whole 
 
 popula- into two classes those who have less than one 
 
 tion. 
 
 acre of land, and those who have one acre and 
 upwards. The former comprise 70 per cent, of 
 the whole ; but as none of this class has so 
 
''/'*, 
 
 PROPORTION OF LANDOWNERS TO POPULATION. 43 
 
 !/ / // ' V / ' 
 
 much as an acre, and they hold together Jess /> 
 
 than a two-hundredth part of the land, they may'- , 
 be regarded as householders only. Excluding 
 these as not properly agricultural landowners, 
 it may then fairly be said that one person in 
 every hundred of the entire population is a land- 
 owner. Subdividing that figure by the average 
 numbers of each family, it may be concluded 
 that every twentieth head of a family is an 
 owner of land. 
 
 But the tenant-farmers are entitled also to increased 
 
 by the 
 
 be reckoned as part owners of agricultural pro- interests of 
 perty, for, in the crops and live and dead stock, f" armers 
 they own equal to one-fifth of the whole capital 
 value of the land. Part of this is incorporated 
 with the soil, and it is all as indispensable for 
 the production of crops as the land itself. As 
 cultivators, they employ and possess individually 
 a larger capital than the peasant proprietors 
 of other countries in their double capacity as 
 owners and cultivators. They are 1,160,000 in 
 number, and when added to 320,000 owners of 
 one acre and upwards, make 1,480,000 alto- 
 gether, engaged in the ownership and cultivation 
 
44 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 of the soil. When reckoned as heads of families 
 they comprise more than one-fifth of the total 
 male adult population ; and it is thence not un- 
 reasonable to infer that, in that proportion, the 
 people of this country are more or less interested 
 in the preservation of landed property. 
 
 When we come more closely to analyse 
 the purely landowning class, the aggregation of 
 land amongst small numbers becomes very con- 
 spicuous. One-fourth of the whole territory, ex- 
 cluding those under one acre, is held by 1,200 
 persons, at an average for each of 16,200 acres ; 
 another fourth by 6,200 persons, at an average 
 for each of 3,150 acres; another fourth by 
 50,770 persons, at an average for each of 380 
 acres ; whilst the remaining fourth is held by 
 261,830 persons, at an average for each of 70 
 acres. An interesting compilation from the 
 Domesday Books by the Scotsman newspaper 
 One-fifth shows that the Peerage of the United King- 
 
 ofthe 
 
 land held dom, about 600 in number, possess among them 
 
 by the 
 
 Peerage, rather more than a fifth of all the land, and 
 between a tenth and an eleventh of its annual 
 income. 
 
OXE-FIFTH OF PEOPLE CONNECTED WITH LAND. 45 
 
 The great bulk of the land in the United Not culti- 
 vated by 
 Kingdom is not cultivated by the owners, but owners but 
 
 by tenant- 
 by tenant-occupiers. Of these there are 561,000 farmers; 
 
 in Great Britain, and 600,000 in Ireland. Ex- 
 cluding the mountains, wastes, and water, the 
 cultivated land is held by these at an average relative 
 
 extent of 
 
 of 56 acres each in Great Britain, and 26 acres their hold- 
 ings in 
 in Ireland. But the proportion of large and England 
 
 and 
 
 small farms in the two countries is very different, Ireland, 
 nearly half the land in Ireland being held in 
 small farms under 1 5 acres each, while less than 
 a fifth of Great Britain is so occupied. 86 per 
 cent, of the farmers in Ireland hold nearly half 
 the land, while 70 per cent, in Great Britain 
 hold less than a fifth. Agriculture is the prin- 
 cipal occupation of the people of Ireland, the 
 revenue from the land there forming twice as 
 much as that from all other sources, whilst in 
 Great Britain it is but a seventh of the whole. 
 Hence in Ireland the possession and occupancy 
 of land is the great political question, while 
 in Great Britain it has ceased to have much 
 prominence. 
 
 This country, from its insular position and 
 
46 IHE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Trade and the great resources it possesses in minerals of iron 
 
 Colonies 
 
 enable and coal, and the outlet it finds in extensive 
 
 England 
 
 to dispense colonies, has advantages which have hitherto 
 
 with 
 
 increase" 1 ena ^ e d ^ to disregard those prudential con- 
 siderations which, in some other countries, have 
 checked the rapid increase of population. Where 
 full employment and the means of subsistence 
 are abundant, population increases in geo- 
 metrical progression, and therefore in a far 
 more rapid proportion than the increased pro- 
 ductiveness of the soil, which, after a certain 
 point, is stationary. The population of England 
 increases more rapidly than that of France 
 because our enormous foreign trade, amounting 
 in value to 20 per head of our population, 
 enables us to add the food resources of other 
 countries to our own. Our surplus population, 
 not wedded to the soil by property, emigrate 
 to countries of the same language, at the rate 
 of 100,000 a year ; partly to the United States, 
 and partly to our own colonies. Our agricul- 
 ture is no longer influenced by considerations 
 of the means of finding employment for sur- 
 plus labour, but is now being developed on the 
 
SURPLUS POPULATION READILY EMIGRATE. 47 
 
 principle of obtaining the largest produce at 
 the least cost, the same principle by which the 
 power-loom has supplanted the hand-loom. In 
 this process many ancient ties are loosened, and 
 among them that adhesiveness to the soil which 
 for generations has more bound the English 
 labourer than the owner of the land to the 
 parish of his birth ; the man of most ancient 
 known descent being in very many cases the 
 labourer. The process is a wholesome one so 
 long as the command to multiply and replenish 
 the earth has not been fulfilled. And the 
 general rise of wages among the labouring 
 classes both in town and country, with the 
 diminution of pauperism, in the last five years, 
 would seem to be a satisfactory proof that there 
 is still room for our people in this country and 
 its colonies, and no need to check the growth of 
 population. 
 
 Such a check, however, took place in Ireland Checked 
 
 in Ireland, 
 
 at the time of the potato famine in 1846. The by potato 
 
 famine in 
 
 population was then eight millions and a half. 1846. Its 
 
 results. 
 
 Within five years it had fallen to six millions 
 and a half, nearly one-fourth of the people 
 
48 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 having either emigrated or died. The deaths 
 from fever and famine had ceased in 1850, 
 but the emigration continued, partly to Great 
 Britain and the colonies, but chiefly to the 
 United States. The population had fallen in 
 1871 to 5,412,000, and was then almost the same 
 as that of 1801, seventy years before. There is 
 no darker page than this in the history of our 
 country in the present or preceding century. 
 Millions of money were lavishly spent by the 
 Government in direct relief, and in relief and 
 improvement works to give employment, with a 
 view to palliate the collapse which befell a people 
 who had no resources when the potato failed 
 them. The landowners in the more distressed 
 districts were nearly as much broken down as 
 their tenants. They had either encouraged or 
 not discouraged the continued subdivision of 
 small farms, as well as the rapid increase of the 
 people, by which, so long as the potato could be 
 relied on, their rents were increased. The 
 famine-stricken land was everywhere abandoned 
 by the starving occupiers, and thrown tenantless 
 upon the owners' hands, making many of them 
 
THE IRISH FAMINE IN 1846. 49 
 
 bankrupt. An ' Encumbered Estates Act ' was 
 passed, to sell off the lands of those proprietors 
 whose encumbrances had overwhelmed them, 
 and substitute others more capable of fulfilling 
 the duties of landowners. In a few years land 
 to the value of twenty-five millions sterling was 
 disposed of, twenty-four of which were dis- 
 tributed among creditors. In order to secure 
 the landowners' prompt attention in future to 
 the condition of the people, the incidence of the 
 poor-rates, which had previously been placed 
 wholly on the tenant-occupier, was divided 
 equally between him and the landowner. In 
 fifteen years, emigration and the sale of encum- 
 bered estates had removed the most needy class 
 of the population. Prosperity then began again 
 to dawn upon agriculture in Ireland ; works of 
 improvement followed the introduction of 
 capital, supplied partly by Government loans 
 and partly by the new landowners. Labour, 
 having become less plentiful, was better em- 
 ployed and more liberally paid, and the more 
 energetic of the small farmers were ready to 
 enlarge their holdings on every favourable 
 
50 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 opportunity. As time went on, a great change 
 
 was found to have taken place, the old eagerness 
 
 for the occupancy of land returned, but not for 
 
 Decrease its subdivision. In less than thirty years, 
 
 of smallest 
 
 holdings 270,000 of the smallest holdings were merged 
 
 on the 
 
 return of into adjoining larger farms, one-half of the small 
 
 prosperity 
 
 in Ireland, holdings of 1845 having totally disappeared. 
 The tide of emigration began to turn, extreme 
 poverty ceased, the proportion of paupers to 
 the population became much lower, and the 
 costs of poor relief nearly one-half less, than in 
 either England or Scotland. This was accom- 
 panied by better wages to the labourer, higher 
 profits to the farmer, and a rise in the value of 
 land, all fostered by a growing demand for the 
 kind of produce which the soil and climate of 
 Ireland are specially adapted to yield. But the 
 lesson left by the previous disaster has led to 
 the gravest distrust in the system of very small 
 holdings, in a country producing neither wine 
 nor oil, and where the occupier is not the owner 
 of the land. 
 
 Diminu- It is worthy of note that the strictly rural 
 
 cultural parishes of England exhibit some decline of 
 
DIMINUTION OF RURAL POPULATION. 51 
 population. In one-fourth of the registration population 
 
 in proper- 
 districts there has been a diminution, of the tion to 
 
 other 
 
 agricultural population in the ten years ending classes in 
 
 England. 
 
 1871, amounting altogether to 108,000. And it 
 is quite certain that this continues. It arises 
 from the natural draft to the better-paid labour 
 of the mining, manufacturing, and other indus- 
 trial centres, which are augmented chiefly by 
 this immigration. Diminished population in 
 the rural districts is followed by a rise of wages ; 
 and this leads to greater economy of labour, 
 both by the introduction of labour-saving 
 machinery and the conversion of arable land to 
 pasture, where the nature of the soil admits. 
 The higher price of meat and dairy-produce 
 also contributes to this change. . But the loss in 
 numbers of the agricultural districts is amply 
 made good by the gain in the rest of the country, 
 the population now employed in agriculture 
 being small compared with that of the other 
 industries. Fifty years ago a fifth of the working 
 population of England was engaged in agricul- 
 ture. At the present time there is less than a 
 
 tenth. There is a danger that this may proceed 
 E2 
 
52 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 too far, inasmuch as the town population would 
 languish and diminish if not regularly recruited 
 by that of the country. A general conversion 
 of arable to pasture might so lessen the means 
 of employing an agricultural population, that 
 many must emigrate, and there would be no 
 surplus left to recruit the towns. When 
 population begins to diminish, our national 
 prosperity will have passed its zenith. The 
 future of British agriculture thus becomes a 
 question of vital importance. 
 Class of The land of the United Kingdom may be 
 
 yeomen, 
 
 farming sa id to be now almost wholly cultivated by 
 
 their own 
 
 land, now tenant-farmers. The class of yeomen, or small 
 
 in very 
 
 small pro- landowners farming their own land, is found 
 
 portion to 
 
 tenanf ^ iere an< ^ tnere m England, but scarcely at all 
 farmers. j n s co tl a nd, and now bears but small proportion 
 to the whole. Many of the larger landowners 
 retain a farm under their own management for 
 home supplies, or for the breeding of selected 
 stock ; very few as a matter of business, or for 
 profit. The general system is, that the land- 
 owners make the permanent works on their 
 estates, their income being paid in rent by 
 
LANDOWNERS AND TENANT-FARMERS. 53 
 
 tenant-occupiers ; the tenants in their turn 
 direct the cultivation, provide the farm-stock 
 and implements and all the necessary capital 
 and skill, and employ and pay the agricultural 
 labourers by whose work the land is cultivated. 
 The system is so general in the United King- 
 dom, that we really cannot be said to know any 
 other, and yet, with reference to almost every 
 country but our own, is so exceptional in 
 Europe, that a more detailed description of it 
 will be given in the next chapter. 
 
 The circumstances of Ireland eight years ago Peasant 
 
 proprie- 
 
 appeared favourable for the creation of a class tors in 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 of peasant proprietors, and Parliament resolved 
 to give the principle a trial. Two opportunities 
 presented themselves ; first, in 1869, on the 
 disestablishment of the Church, which possessed 
 upwards of 10,000 small holdings of land, in the 
 benefices situated all over the country. The 
 pre-emption of these was offered to the tenants 
 on terms most favourable to them, both as to 
 price and payment, and nearly two-thirds of the 
 offers were promptly accepted. Again, in 1870, 
 the Irish Land Act contains provisions ex- 
 
54 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 pressly favouring the system ; but, though great 
 advantages in regard to terms of payment were 
 also offered by that Act, the results hitherto 
 have been comparatively small. In the first 
 case the disposal of the lands was imperative, 
 and the Church Commissioners offered these 
 small holdings at low fixed prices without com- 
 petition. But it is the duty of the Landed 
 Estates Court to get the best price they can for 
 the landowner, who may very naturally object 
 to allow small portions to be sold here and there 
 out of his estate to suit the convenience of 
 individual tenants. It has been proposed to 
 create a new office, whose function should be to 
 buy on suitable terms large estates which are 
 offered for sale, and to subdivide and sell them 
 to the farmers on the same favourable terms 
 as -the Church lands. 
 
 Of the two plans which have been chiefly 
 advocated in Ireland, viz., fixity of tenure with 
 court-made rents, or to advance Government 
 money by which the occupiers may be gradually 
 put in possession of the fee simple, I should 
 prefer the latter. The first would not remove 
 
IRISH PEASANT PROPRIETORS. 55 
 
 the present evil, as it would be a constant 
 source of disputes, bad feeling, and law-suits, 
 and would be likely to discourage improve- 
 ments the probable effect of which would be 
 a demand for increased rent. The second plan 
 would give the cultivator the security that every 
 improvement he made would be altogether his 
 own property. This principle has been success- 
 fully carried out in Germany and Hungary. It 
 would eventually cost the Government nothing 
 if successful, as in thirty-five years from the 
 time of the advance being made both principal 
 and interest would be repaid. 
 
 But this plan would be liable to certain 
 failure wherever land naturally unsuitable for 
 profitable cultivation was purchased. Great 
 judgment must be exercised in the selection 
 of land of such quality, and in such a climate, 
 as would ensure a profitable return to industry 
 and enterprise. The poverty and misery of 
 Ireland are chiefly found in localities naturally 
 so poor in soil, and so bare and exposed in 
 situation, as to defeat the most honest efforts 
 of thrift and perseverance. 
 
I H U A RY 
 
 v i ; K s i r r Y o 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LANDOWNER, FARMER, AND LABOURER. 
 
 The land- THE landowners are the capitalists to whom 
 
 owners ; 
 
 their the land belongs. Their property comprises the 
 
 position, 
 
 duties, and so il and all that is beneath it, and the buildings 
 
 influence : 
 
 and other permanent works upon it, required for 
 the accommodation of the people, and of the 
 working stock employed in its cultivation. 
 Thus, where the land itself may be worth 35 
 an acre, the buildings, roads, fences, and drain- 
 age may have cost the landowners 15 an acre 
 more. The landowner has thus two capitals in 
 the land, one of which is permanent, and 
 growing in value with the prosperity of the 
 country, the other liable to decay, and occa- 
 sioning cost in repair. In nearly all perma- 
 nent improvements arising from the progress of 
 agriculture he is also expected to share the 
 cost. And he is necessarily concerned in the 
 
THE LANDOWNER. 57 
 
 general prosperity and good management of his 
 estate, and in the welfare of those who live upon 
 it, with which his own is so closely involved. 
 He takes a lead in the business of his parish, 
 and from his class the magistrates who admi- 
 nister the criminal affairs of the county, and 
 superintend its roads, its public buildings, and 
 charitable institutions, are selected. Nor do his 
 duties end here, for the landowner, from his 
 position, is expected to be at the head of all 
 objects of public utility, to subscribe to, and, if 
 so inclined, to ride with the hounds, showing at 
 once an example to the farmers and tradesmen, 
 and meeting them on terms of neighbourly 
 friendship and acquaintance. The same ex- 
 ample is carried out in his intercourse with the 
 clergy and schoolmaster, and his influence, 
 where wisely exercised, is felt in the church, the 
 school, the farm, and the cottage. 
 
 This class in the United Kingdom comprises their 
 
 number, 
 
 a body of about 1 80,000, who possess among and the 
 
 immense 
 
 them the whole of the agricultural land from capital 
 
 value of 
 
 10 acres upwards. The owners of less than 10 their 
 
 property. 
 
 acres each hold not more than one-hundredth 
 
58 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 part of the land, and in regard to farming may 
 be regarded as householders only. The property 
 of the landowners, independent of minerals, yields 
 an annual rent of sixty-seven millions sterling, 
 and is worth a capital value of two thousand 
 millions. There is no other body of men in the 
 country who administer so large a capital on 
 their own account, or whose influence is so 
 widely extended and universally present. From 
 them the learned professions, the church, the 
 army, and the public services are largely 
 recruited. 
 The The tenant-farmers are the second class, and 
 
 tenant- 
 
 farmers ; a much more numerous one. Their business is 
 
 the pro- 
 
 ^ cu l tivat i n of the l ancl , with a capital quite 
 ings" and 1 " independent of that of the landowner. They 
 tiontibat*" OCCU P7 farms of very various extent, 70 per 
 among cent, of them under 50 acres each, 12 per cent. 
 between 50 and 100 acres, and 18 per cent, farms 
 of more than 100 acres each. 5,000 occupy 
 farms of between 500 and 1,000 acres, and 600 
 occupy farms exceeding 1,000 acres. Many of 
 them are men of liberal education, and some 
 of these are found in most parishes and in every 
 
THE TENANT-FARMER. 59 
 
 county. A spirit of emulation exists among 
 them, elicited by county, provincial, and na- 
 tional exhibitions of agricultural stock, and by 
 a natural desire, in a country where everything 
 is open to comment, not to be behind their 
 neighbours in the neatness, style, and success 
 of their cultivation, or in the symmetry and 
 condition of their live-stock. They are brought 
 into the closest relations with their labourers, 
 and although, occasionally, feelings of keen 
 antagonism have arisen, there is generally a 
 very friendly understanding between them. The 
 farmer knows that it is for his interest that the 
 labourers should find their position made so 
 comfortable as to value it. 
 
 To the farmer is committed the management 
 of the details of the parish, as those of the 
 county to the landowner. His intimate know- 
 ledge of the condition of the labourer, and 
 constant residence in the parish, fit him best for 
 the duty of Overseer of the Poor, member of the 
 Board of Guardians, Churchwarden, and Sur- 
 veyor of the Roads. He is frank and hospitable 
 to strangers, as a rule ; in favour of the 
 
60 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 established political institutions of the country ; 
 loyal as a subject ; often available in case 
 of need as a mounted yeoman ; and constantly 
 in requisition as a juryman in the Courts of 
 Law. 
 Their The farmers are six times as numerous as 
 
 numbers 
 
 and the landowners, there being 560,000 in Great 
 
 capital. 
 
 Britain, and 600,000 in Ireland, the holdings 
 there being on a smaller scale. They employ a 
 vast capital in the aggregate, upwards of four 
 hundred millions sterling, and, unlike that of 
 the landowners, much of it is in daily use, 
 circulating among tradesmen and labourers. 
 Land- Between the landlords and farmers there is 
 
 agents. 
 
 an intermediate class, the land-agents, to whom 
 on most large estates the details of transacting 
 business with the farmers, and looking after the 
 cultivation and buildings and general condition 
 of the property, are committed. These gentle- 
 men, in most cases, are prepared by a course of 
 special training and education for the very 
 important and delicate duties thus entrusted to 
 them. Where they possess such an amount 
 of general knowledge as enables them to carry 
 
LA ND-A GENTS. 6 1 
 
 their employer with them .in all equitable 
 arrangements for maintaining the property in a 
 state of high agricultural efficiency, they perform 
 a most useful function, and add very greatly to 
 the welfare and comfort of all connected with 
 the estates which they administer. A very 
 eminent living authority rests the tenure of 
 property on the fulfilment of duty ; and a most 
 important part of that duty is to see that no 
 good land upon it is suffered by neglect or 
 mismanagement to remain unproductive. 
 
 The third class comprises the agricultural The 
 
 labourers 
 
 labourers, who are necessarily much more 
 numerous than both landowners and tenants. 
 They cannot be said to have any other capital 
 than the furniture of their dwellings, their well- 
 acquired experience in all the details of hus- 
 bandry, and the bodily strength to use it. The 
 English labourer, of the southern counties 
 especially, has hitherto had but little education, 
 except in his business. The Scotch have had 
 their parish schools for three centuries, and the 
 Irish a national school system for the last forty 
 years. The legislation of 1876 has removed 
 
62 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 this blot on the English system, by enacting 
 that no child shall be employed at any kind of 
 labour until he is of the age of ten, nor above 
 that age unless he can show a certain degree of 
 proficiency in education. This excellent rule is 
 a virtual compulsion of education, as parents 
 and employers alike are liable to penalties for 
 its infringement And as it is now accompanied 
 in all parts of the kingdom by the establishment 
 of duly regulated schools, no child can avoid an 
 elementary education, 
 their state The state of the agricultural labourer of the 
 
 in some 
 
 of the southern counties has long been the subject of 
 
 southern 
 
 reproach, and, till a recent period, not without 
 reason. In many parishes the average 
 
 mending ra * e ^ wa g es was below the means of main- 
 taining a man's bodily strength adequate to 
 good work, and the result was that two men at 
 low wages was kept to do the work of one well- 
 paid labourer. The employer was a loser by 
 this ; and though he might be aware of it, he 
 could not help it, for there was a redundancy of 
 labour seeking employment, and which had to 
 be maintained either by wages or poor-rates. 
 
THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 63 
 
 The labourer himself was uneducated, having 
 little knowledge of any district outside his own 
 parish, no means of moving beyond it, while he 
 risked the loss of his legal right to the parish 
 relief in illness or old age if he left it. In such 
 circumstances it was hardly possible for the 
 agricultural labourer to attain any degree of 
 independence. There was no margin for saving, 
 no surplus out of which an enterprising man 
 could make the venture of moving his labour to 
 places in which it would command a better 
 return. And during the long period that this 
 continued, his condition was low, and still shows 
 itself in his small stature and slow gait. From 
 the pressure of this system he was at last 
 emancipated by the extension of his legal right 
 of relief from the parish to the Union, a district 
 much more extensive, and by the simultaneous 
 increase in the demand for labour arising from 
 the rapid development of the other industrial 
 resources of the country. The great extension 
 of steam communication with America, and the 
 encouragement thereby afforded to emigration, 
 drew off rapidly the surplus agricultural popula- 
 
64 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 tion of Scotland and Ireland ; wages in both 
 countries quickly increased, and this soon ex- 
 tended its influence southwards. Agricultural 
 labourers' unions were formed in the depressed 
 districts just when this wholesome feeling was 
 spreading throughout the country, and to their 
 efforts much of the natural effect of other 
 causes in producing a rise of wages has been 
 ascribed. This increase of wages was attended 
 by a most useful result, for it forced upon 
 farmers the more extensive use of machinery, 
 and, in the end, brought about a higher scale of 
 wages to the labourer, while the additional cost 
 to the farmer is met to some extent by superior 
 skill, and greater economy in the application of 
 labour. It is worthy of note that the increase 
 of agricultural wages has been greatest in 
 Scotland, where labourers' unions have not taken 
 root, but where the parish school is an old 
 Institution. 
 Condition The general condition of the agricultural 
 
 now better 
 
 than at any labourer was probably never better than it is 
 
 previous 
 
 period, at present. Compared with that of 300 years 
 
 comparing 
 
 wages with ago in the time of Elizabeth, wages have risen 
 
ADVANCE IN LABOURER'S CONDITION. 65 
 sixfold, while the price of bread has only the price 
 
 of bread. 
 
 doubled. Two centuries later, in 17/0, the 
 farm-labourer's wages was is. 2d. a day, when 
 the price of wheat was 463. a quarter. In 1846, 
 immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws, 
 wages were is. /d., when wheat was 533. At 
 the present time wages have risen 60 per cent, 
 while wheat has diminished in price. In other 
 words, the labourer's earning power in pro- 
 curing * v the staff of life f cost him five days 
 work to pay for a bushel of wheat in 1770, four 
 days in 1840, and two and a half days in 1880. 
 He is better lodged than he ever was before ; 
 though, in many parts of the country, there is 
 still much room for improvement in that 
 respect. Compared with the labourer in towns, 
 his position is one of greater comfort ; he lives 
 in a better atmosphere, he is more free from 
 anxiety, and has a closer and more friendly 
 relation with his employers, and with the 
 schoolmaster and clergyman of his parish. He 
 is kind to animals, understands how to manage 
 them, and in his family shows a good example, 
 on the whole, of sobriety and industry. 
 F 
 
66 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Each of To these three classes are committed the 
 
 the three 
 
 classes agricultural interest and industry of the king- 
 constantly 
 recruited dom. The two first have duties entrusted to 
 
 by changes 
 
 ofproperty them by the constitution, for the management 
 
 and em- 
 ployment. O f the public and local interests of their counties 
 
 and parishes, in addition to their special busi- 
 ness as landowners and agriculturists. Each of 
 the three classes is constantly being altered and 
 recruited by changes and additions. Landed 
 property of the value of several millions sterling 
 a year changes hands, and as there is necessarily 
 a larger body of persons capable of competing 
 for small properties, there is a certain inducement 
 to offer it for subdivision on sale. In every 
 county many farms change their tenants at Lady 
 Day or Michaelmas, new men with new ideas 
 being substituted for the old, some of whom have 
 died, some retired from business, and some 
 moved elsewhere. Labourers move about more 
 than they used to do, and learn something 
 useful in each change, and large drafts of them 
 pass off to the other industrial pursuits of the 
 country, and to the colonies. The feeling of 
 being bound to the soil or the parish of his birth 
 
OUR MIXED SYSTEM. 67 
 
 has lost much of its strength, and every facility 
 is now presented to the unmarried agricultural 
 labourer for improving his position if he desires 
 to alter it. 
 
 In short, our system is that of large capi- 
 talists owning the land-; of smaller capitalists, 
 each cultivating five times more of it than they 
 would have means to do if they owned their 
 farms ; and of labourers free to carry their 
 labour to any market which they consider most 
 remunerative. It has been the gradual growth 
 of experience in a country of moderate extent, 
 where the land is all occupied ; where capital is 
 abundant and constantly seeking investment in 
 land ; and where other industries than agri- 
 culture are always demanding recruits from the 
 children of the agricultural labourer, who find, 
 besides, a ready outlet in those British colonies 
 where the soil and climate are not much 
 different from that which they leave, and where 
 their own language is spoken. And doubtless 
 this facility of language has greatly helped the 
 people of this country in encountering the trials 
 
 and difficulties of emigration. But the want of 
 V 2 
 
68 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 it may be successfully overcome, as the example 
 of Germany has proved in the tens of thousands 
 of her people who have gone to the United States. 
 There, and in North-West Canada, and in the vast 
 continent of Australia, there is room enough to 
 take, with advantage, the surplus population of 
 every country in Europe for many generations. 
 Instead of struggling at home as labourers or cul- 
 tivators of small patches of land where nothing 
 but the most sparing frugality enables them to 
 live, the working-men of all countries are invited 
 by Australia and North America to take a share 
 on equal terms with our own people in the great 
 enterprise of colonising new fields of labour, 
 where liberty, order, and remunerative employ- 
 ment are offered to all comers ; where the 
 climate is pure and healthy for Europeans, and 
 where every industry, agricultural, manufacturing, 
 or mining, affords a field for enterprise. 
 The result A system is best tested by its fruits. Com- 
 
 of the 
 
 system pared with all other countries, our threefold 
 
 compared 
 
 with that plan of landlord, farmer, and labourer appears 
 
 of other 
 
 countries to yield larger returns, with fewer labourers, and 
 
 shows 
 
 larger f rom an equal extent of land. Our average 
 
COMPARISON WITH OTHER COUNTRIES. 69 
 produce of wheat is 28 bushels an acre, as returns at 
 
 less cost. 
 
 against 16 in France, 16 in Germany, 13 in 
 Russia, and 12 in the United States. We show a 
 similar advantage in live-stock, both in quantity 
 and quality. We have far more horses, cattle, 
 and sheep in proportion to acreage than any 
 other country, and in all these kinds there is a 
 general superiority. Our most famous breeders 
 of live-stock are the tenant-farmers. The best 
 examples of farming are found in the same 
 class. The improved breeds of cattle, the 
 Leicester and Southdown sheep, and the ex- 
 tended use of machinery, manures, and artificial 
 foods is chiefly due to them. And the neat- 
 ness of the cultivation, the straight furrow, and 
 the beautiful lines of drilled corn, the well-built 
 ricks and docile horses, exhibit at once the 
 strength and skill of the labourers. If that 
 mode of husbandry which lessens the exchange- 
 able value of bread and meat by an increase of 
 production and supply is the best for the 
 community, from whom a smaller proportion of 
 their labour is required for the purchase of their 
 food, then our system of subdivision of labour 
 
70 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 by landowner, farmer, and labourer, the three 
 interests engaged in its production, will stand a 
 favourable comparison with that of any other 
 country. 
 Special There are characteristic features in the 
 
 features 
 
 presented business relation between the landowner and 
 
 by it in 
 
 each of the farmer which deserve notice, in its application 
 
 three 
 
 countries to the three countries, England, Scotland, and 
 
 in Eng- 
 land, Ireland. In England the general system is 
 
 tenancy at will, by which the connection may 
 be terminated on six months' notice. The 
 result is, that the notice is rarely given, changes 
 of tenancy are comparatively few, and systems 
 in Scot- of management are slowly altered. In Scotland 
 
 land, 
 
 there has long been tenancy on a nineteen 
 years' lease. The certainty of the tenure up to 
 a fixed time prompts immediate enterprise to 
 make the most of that definite period, and 
 changes of tenant at its conclusion have become 
 frequent. There can be no doubt that this has 
 been attended with a more hearty and ready 
 appreciation of improved processes on the part 
 of both landlord and tenant, and a higher scale 
 of wages to the labourer. It still needs, how- 
 
VARIETY OF TENURE. 71 
 
 ever, some equitable rules to secure continuance 
 of the tenant's interest in good farming to the 
 close of the lease. And the Scotch tenants are 
 also hampered by an unreasonable law which 
 prohibits them from transferring their leases 
 even to a solvent and unobjectionable successor, 
 and, still worse, from bequeathing the lease to 
 their widows or any of their children except 
 the heir-at-law. Ireland has a system of its in Ireland. 
 own. Till a very recent period the tenant made 
 nearly all improvements, such as they were. He 
 reclaimed the waste, built his own poor habita- 
 tion, and he and his family occupied the land, 
 and subdivided it amongst them. He thus 
 tacitly acquired a hold on the soil much greater 
 than in the sister countries, and which was 
 generally acquiesced in by the landlords, many 
 of whom were non-residents. These three sys- 
 tems were the natural growth of circumstances, 
 and have become deeply intertwined with the 
 habits and feelings of the agricultural classes 
 in the several countries. 
 
 Three-fourths of the land in England have tenancy- 
 
 at-will in 
 
 long been held by a comparatively small body England. 
 
72 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 of great landowners. From the Revolution 
 of 1688 till the Reform Bill of 1831, all political 
 power was in their hands. They were the 
 patrons of -agriculture, and their tenants, being 
 accustomed to continue undisturbed, neither 
 asked nor expected legal security of tenure. 
 But habit and custom gave such security in 
 reality, though not in law; and to this day 
 there are families of tenants-at-will who can 
 count back a longer period of unbroken suc- 
 cession in their farms than the great landowner 
 at whose will they hold them. The first Reform 
 Bill gave tenant-farmers, paying a rent of 50 
 and upwards, the right to vote in the election of 
 members of Parliament, and thus strengthened 
 their hold on the consideration of their landlord, 
 but at the same time gave him an unfortunate 
 interest in the continuance of a system which 
 kept them dependent on his will. This con- 
 tinued for one generation more, until in 1867 
 the franchise was lowered to 12, and in 1871 
 vote by ballot introduced. By those measures 
 the numbers and political strength of the tenant- 
 farmer class were largely increased. Household 
 
THE ENGLISH SYSTEM. 73 
 
 suffrage in counties is believed to be not far off, 
 and thus the hitherto paramount political in- 
 fluence of the landowner in the counties is 
 gradually being replaced by the wider basis 
 of the representation of each of the three varied 
 interests. The first result of the latest extension 
 of the constituency, and their protection by 
 ballot, has been a strong agitation on the part 
 of the farmers to obtain a legal right to be 
 compensated, on removal, for their unexhausted 
 manures and improvements. Simultaneously 
 with it, a labourers' league has been formed 
 in some districts to concentrate the latent power 
 of the dispersed but numerous body of agricul- 
 tural labourers. Both of these movements have 
 been attended with a moderate measure of 
 success. The Agricultural Holdings Act, passed 
 in 1875, recognises for the first time a legal 
 right in the English farmer to compensa- 
 tion for unexhausted improvements, cumbered, 
 indeed, with conditions which have made it 
 unsatisfactory to both parties. A considerable 
 step has, however, been gained, as all parties are 
 brought to look carefully into their position, 
 
74 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 and thus the mutual connection, while losing 
 something of sentiment, will in time gain more 
 of business and enterprise. 
 
 Land- l n Scotland the necessities of the large land- 
 
 owner s 
 
 necessities owners prompted them, at a much earlier period, 
 
 prompted 
 
 c ir i to see k relief from the embarrassments of entail 
 
 b cotlana. 
 
 by obtaining legislative power to borrow money 
 for the improvement of their settled property. 
 And, when the means were thus provided for 
 executing permanent works, the energies of 
 the tenant-farmers were wisely enlisted in carry- 
 ing these into remunerative effect by the now 
 well-recognised form of a lease of nineteen years, 
 at a fixed rent, to assure the tenant such a 
 period of possession as should at once evoke 
 their best exertions. This system has now been 
 in practice for three generations, and its results 
 are seen in a higher state of general cultivation 
 than that of the sister countries ; greater compe- 
 tition for farms, and a higher scale of rent ; more 
 independence ; and at least as keen an intelli- 
 gence shown in adopting improvements. For a 
 long period the Scotch landowners have been 
 compelled to look into the management of their 
 
THE SCOTCH SYSTEM. 75 
 
 property in a different manner from those of 
 England. Upon them the liability was directly 
 placed of finding the money for the public 
 establishments of their counties, the churches, 
 prisons, and police. They had the determina- 
 tion of questions of road-making ; and having 
 to contribute directly a large proportion of the 
 county expenditure, they took an active interest 
 in its administration. This brought them into 
 closer business contact with the farmers ; and 
 recent legislation has tended to increase this 
 connection by the principle of imposing all 
 county rates in certain proportion directly on 
 landowners and farmers, and giving to both a 
 representation at the same county or parish 
 board. There is thus a better fusion of the 
 two interests than in England, and a readier 
 appreciation on the part of the landowner of 
 the outlays requisite on his part to enable his 
 tenant to make the most of the land he farms. 
 The time seems rapidly approaching when the 
 Scotch system of equal valuation and rating, 
 imposed directly upon both landowner and 
 farmer, will be imitated in England, and lead 
 
76 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 to the principle of local administration in each 
 county by representatives of every interest at 
 a county board. 
 Non- In Ireland the relation between landlord 
 
 residence 
 
 of land- and tenant is altogether different from that of 
 
 owners 
 
 produced England and Scotland. Previous to the famine 
 
 system of 
 
 middle- o f 13^5 the <^reat landowners were non-resident, 
 
 men in 
 
 Ireland, anc j j-j ie } anc j was st jjj j n a g rea t measure in the 
 
 and its con- 
 hands of middle-men on leases for lives, with 
 
 leave to subdivide and sublet for the same time. 
 These men had no permanent interest in the 
 property ; their business was to make an income 
 out of it at the least cost, and their intermediate 
 position severed the otherwise natural connection 
 between landlord and tenant. The famine of 
 1846 prostrated the class of middle-men entirely, 
 and brought the landowner and the real tenants 
 face to face. But]the hold which the latter had 
 been permitted to obtain led them to consider 
 the landowner very much as only the holder 
 of the first charge on the land ; and they were 
 in the habit of selling and buying their farms 
 among themselves subject to this charge, a 
 course which, as a matter of practice, was tacitly 
 
\- J /i 
 
 THE IRISH SYSTEM. //77 < 
 
 accepted by the landowner. He had ae/urity ' -S / f J 
 
 for his rent in the money paid by an incoming^. 
 
 <* \ 
 
 tenant, who, for his own safety, required the land- \ / 
 
 owner's consent to the change of tenancy, and 
 the landowner's agent then received the "price" 
 of the farm (for that was the term used), and 
 handed it over to the outgoing tenant, after 
 deducting all arrears of rent. This suited the 
 convenience of landowners, the most of whom 
 had no money to spend on improvements, many 
 of them non-resident and taking little interest in 
 the country, and dealing with a numerous body 
 of small tenants with whom they seldom came 
 into personal contact. In the north of Ireland 
 this custom of sale became legally recognised as 
 tenant-right. The want of it in other parts 
 of Ireland produced an agitation which ulti- 
 mately led to the Irish Land Act, under which 
 legislative protection is given to customs capable 
 of proof. The custom of "selling" the farm, 
 subject to the approval of the landowner, by 
 a tenant on yearly tenure, is rapidly gaining 
 ground in Ireland ; and so firmly are the people 
 imbued with this idea of their rights, that the 
 
78 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 clauses of the Irish Land Act, which enable 
 the tenant, by the aid of a loan of Government 
 money, on very easy terms, to purchase the 
 proper ownership of his farm, are rarely acted 
 upon, from the belief that the farm is already 
 his, under the burden of a moderate rent-charge 
 to his nominal landlord. Circumstances have 
 thus brought about a situation in which the 
 landowner cannot deal with the same freedom 
 with his property as in England or Scotland, 
 either in the selection of his tenants or in the 
 fair readjustment of rent, and this has, in a 
 great measure, arisen naturally from the neglect 
 by the landlord of his proper duties, in not himself 
 executing those indispensable permanent im- 
 provements which the tenant was thus obliged 
 to undertake, and who in this way established 
 for himself a claim to a co-partnership in the 
 soil itself. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LAND IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 HAVING now endeavoured to explain the respec- Settle- 
 
 ments and 
 tive positions of the three interests engaged in incum- 
 
 brances 
 
 the cultivation of the soil in each of the three hinder the 
 
 free action 
 
 countries forming the United Kingdom, I of many 
 
 land- 
 proceed to consider the circumstances which owners in 
 
 the 
 
 embarrass the free action of a large proportion mana s e - 
 
 ment of 
 
 of the landowners, and the modes by which these t P ro ' 
 have been more or less overcome. A very large 
 proportion of the land is held by tenants for life 
 under strict settlement, a condition which pre- 
 vents the power of sale, and it is also frequently 
 burdened with payments to other members of 
 the family, and in many cases with debt. The 
 nominal income is thus often very much reduced, 
 and the apparent owner of five thousand a year 
 may have little more than half of it to spend. In 
 such cases there is no capital available for the 
 improvements which a landowner is called upon 
 
8o THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 to make, in order to keep his property abreast of 
 the advance in agricultural practice. This was 
 pressingly felt at the time of the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws, and the withdrawal of protective 
 
 Expe- duties from native produce. Parliament, there- 
 clients 
 adopted to f ore when it enacted a free import of the neces- 
 
 overcome 
 
 this. saries of life, instead of abolishing settlement 
 
 provided State loans on favourable terms to the 
 landowners for the drainage and reclamation of 
 their estates. 
 
 The potato disease of 1846 and 1847 was a 
 serious calamity at the time, but it was the 
 occasion from which arose the great stride made 
 in agricultural enterprise in this country during 
 the last thirty years. It led at once to the 
 removal of all protective duties on foreign agri- 
 cultural produce, and obtained for the people of 
 this country access to supplies from foreign 
 lands, where wages were lower and good land 
 more abundant. Landowners and farmers be- 
 stirred themselves to meet the inevitable com- 
 petition to which they became exposed ; and 
 their efforts were promptly aided by the State 
 with reproductive loans to tide them over the 
 
LOANS FOR LAND IMPROVEMENT. Si 
 
 early years of trial. As the sums voted by 
 Parliament for these loans became exhausted, 
 Land Improvement Companies were formed to 
 carry on the good work on the principles which 
 had already proved successful, the companies 
 necessarily charging somewhat higher terms 
 than those which the credit of the State had 
 enabled it to afford without loss. 
 
 The State loans were limited in Great Britain State loans 
 
 for dram- 
 
 to drainage and reclamation, the landowners a p eand re - 
 
 clamation 
 
 being left to their own resources for buildings, 
 roads, and fences. In Ireland these were and 
 still are included, that country having always 
 been favoured in matters of State assistance. 
 The rate of payment was by annual instalments 
 of 6| per cent, which in twenty-two years re- 
 deemed the principal, and at the same time paid 
 the annual interest at 3^ per cent. In many 
 cases the tenant undertook the whole of this 
 annual payment in addition to his rent, and the 
 landowner thus had his land permanently im- 
 proved, and returned to him free of all charge 
 at the end of twenty-two years. Not un- 
 frequently the landowner was satisfied with 
 
 on 
 
82 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 5 per cent, from his tenant, and paid I J out of 
 his own pocket for this permanent advantage. 
 Especially was this the case in regard to build- 
 ings, the return from which is not so direct or 
 immediate as from drainage or reclamation, 
 followed The same principle is followed by the Land 
 
 by loans 
 
 from Com- Improvement Companies, whose loans, like those 
 
 panics. 
 
 of the State, are secured by priority over all 
 other charges, but continue for twenty-five or 
 thirty years, according to the rate annually paid. 
 It has been proposed to extend the term still 
 farther, in order to reduce the rate of annual 
 repayment ; but this is a questionable advan- 
 tage, for each generation has improvements of 
 its own to carry out, and it is a good general 
 rule that the cost of the past should be paid 
 off before new charges are placed on the land. 
 
 The total amount of money charged on the 
 Total land of the United Kingdom for agricultural 
 
 amount so . . . 
 
 expended, improvements under the system of periodical 
 redemption, in the last thirty years, amounts to 
 about fifteen millions sterling twelve in Great 
 Britain and three in Ireland. About eight 
 millions of it was advanced by the State, and 
 
AMOUNT EXPENDED. 83 
 
 seven millions by private companies. A large 
 proportion of the first has now been repaid, 
 having been returned to the public exchequer, 
 principal and interest, and is no longer a charge 
 upon the land. Two-thirds of the whole have 
 been spent on drainage, the remainder on farm- 
 buildings, labourers' cottages, embanking, water- 
 courses, farm roads, reclamation, planting for 
 shelter, and enclosing. The expenditure through 
 such loans goes on with great regularity at an 
 average of half a million sterling a year, and 
 the loans are being redeemed and the charge 
 extinguished at about the same rate. The 
 extent of work still to be done far exceeds what 
 has been accomplished, and so many new 
 demands arise to meet the changes in husbandry 
 that the system is likely to be a permanent one. 
 It may therefore be useful to consider its 
 present mode of working, the objections which 
 have been made to it, and whether any improve- 
 ment can be introduced which might facilitate 
 its operation. 
 
 An inquiry into this subject was under- Inquiry 
 
 by Parlia- 
 
 taken by the House of Lords in 1873. The ment into 
 G 2 
 
84 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 the mode Committee comprised men of acknowledged emi- 
 
 of working 
 
 these nence on both sides of politics, great landowners 
 
 loans, and 
 
 their conversant with such subjects, and having more 
 
 results. 
 
 or less practical knowledge of agricultural affairs. 
 Twenty-three witnesses were examined from 
 various parts of the kingdom, all of whom had 
 experience of the system. Various instances 
 were adduced to show the unremunerative 
 nature of certain improvements, the explanation 
 of which was either injudicious and imperfect 
 execution of the works, or inadequacy of capital, 
 or energy, or knowledge, to follow them up by 
 good culture ; want of knowledge and expe- 
 rience on the part of the landowner or his agent, 
 or the usual circumstances of a similar nature 
 which are found here and there to occur in all 
 large operations, which must often be unwittingly 
 entrusted to weak or dishonest management. 
 As this inquiry embraced the execution of works 
 in all parts of Great Britain, spread over a period 
 of twenty-six years, and embracing an expendi- 
 ture then exceeding ten millions sterling, the 
 comparatively few and exceptional instances of 
 failure might be taken as a strong proof of the 
 
GENERALLY REMUNERATIVE. 85 
 
 general success of the system. Except in such 
 buildings as required restoration from the con- 
 tinued neglect of landowners to repair a case 
 very common both north and south some re- 
 turn seems always to be reckoned upon, even 
 for expenditure on new buildings. On all other General 
 
 testimony 
 
 kinds of improvement there was a general testi- to their 
 
 remunera- 
 
 mony to their remunerative character. And tive cha - 
 
 racter. 
 
 those of the witnesses most competent to speak, 
 the tenant-farmers, who had themselves repaid 
 the cost of the works, declared that they had 
 received from the money spent on land-improve- 
 ment much more than a return of capital and 
 interest. 
 
 The Committee very truly remark that it is Object of 
 
 continuing 
 
 an anomaly that private transactions should be Govern- 
 ment con- 
 submitted to the control of a Government office, trol after 
 
 issue of 
 
 This was perfectly legitimate, so long as the public 
 
 money 
 
 money advanced was a public loan. When the ceased, 
 supply of public money ceased, and that of 
 private persons or companies was substituted, 
 the existing Government machinery of inspec- 
 tion and control, which had been found on 
 the whole to work well, was continued by 
 
86 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Parliament on the ground that the improvement 
 of the land of this country was a matter of public 
 interest. But this was not with the view of 
 protecting the interests of the remainder-man 
 and mortgagee, for that is no part of the duty 
 of Government ; but in order to give a first 
 charge on the inheritance, and so enable land- 
 owners, whether under settlement or otherwise, 
 to obtain money for improving their estates 
 (which is an object of public importance), at a 
 lower rate of interest than would otherwise have 
 been possible. This preferential charge could 
 be given only with the tacit assent of other 
 parties already creditors of the estate ; and the 
 condition which hitherto has assured that assent 
 has been the certificate, under statutory powers, 
 of an acknowledged Government authority, that 
 their security had not been thereby injuriously 
 affected. The continuance of the Government 
 inspection has thus been wholly in the interest 
 of the landowner, especially if he is under 
 settlement or entail, in which condition the 
 tenant for life is otherwise unable to raise 
 money for the improvement of his property. 
 
LAND DRAINAGE REMUNERATIVE. 87 
 
 Besides the public and private loans spent 
 on land improvement, a much larger sum has 
 been laid out on the same object by landowners 
 from their own resources. 
 
 It may be useful to consider in their order Land 
 
 drainage 
 
 the several objects of land-improvement, and one of the 
 
 most 
 
 the return they are capable of yielding under certainly 
 
 remunera- 
 
 suitable economical management. irrTrove- 
 
 The first improvement, in all cases where it n 
 is required, is drainage, for until the land is 
 freed from stagnant water, and thus rendered 
 capable of yielding its fullest assistance to the 
 further efforts of the agriculturist, all other out- 
 lay is vain. There is never any difficulty in 
 deciding upon the expediency of drainage in 
 these islands, because wherever it is required, 
 and is judiciously executed, it at once becomes 
 remunerative. The under drainage of arable 
 and good grass-land, in a climate where drain- 
 age is advantageous, renders the land so much 
 warmer and more wholesome for plants and 
 animals, everything upon it becomes so much 
 more thrifty, and all operations so much more 
 
88 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 easy and certain in their results, that it is sure 
 to pay. 
 Greater With regard to outlay on farm buildings, 
 
 caution 
 
 required there is not the same certainty of return. Farm 
 
 in expendi- 
 ture on buildings are of two kinds, those for the accom- 
 
 farm 
 
 buildings, modation of live-stock and the manipulation of 
 the crop, and those for the housing of the farmer 
 and farm labourers. In regard to the first, it is 
 only necessary to refer to the increasing prices 
 of live-stock to show the advantage of making 
 adequate and comfortable provision for their 
 food and shelter. But the time has gone by for 
 great corn barns. The corn is now much more 
 economically treated by stacking it in the field 
 where it grows, and threshing it out by loco- 
 motive engine -power when required. The 
 partial conversion of these large barns into 
 feeding-sheds, or, in the grazing counties, into 
 hay-sheds, is the best mode of turning them to 
 account ; and where farm-buildings have been 
 kept by the proprietor in good repair, their 
 conversion to objects of modern husbandry 
 need not be very costly. It is only where they 
 have been completely neglected, and require 
 
FARM BUILDINGS AND COTTAGES. 89 
 
 entire renewal, that the expense is greater than 
 can be met by the immediate return. Even 
 then it is capable of proof that the economy of 
 labour and of food, the better quality of the 
 manure, and the greater thrift of the stock, will, 
 as a rule, be ample compensation for the charge. 
 Additions to existing buildings for a specific 
 object, planned and executed with judgment, 
 will always be remunerative. But the more 
 common fault of putting up very costly build- 
 ings, planned with little reference to the value 
 and extent of the farm, or little practical know- 
 ledge on the part of land-agent or architect, 
 too surely ends in disappointment to both land- 
 owner and farmer. 
 
 Labourers' cottages are reckoned the least Labourers 
 
 dwellings, 
 
 remunerative of all. New cottages, even though when judi- 
 ciously 
 built in blocks of two or four together, cannot placed, as 
 
 remunera- 
 
 at present be built by contract for less than * as any 
 
 other out- 
 
 150 each, if planned with due regard to com- lay of land- 
 ' 
 
 fort and decency, and at a greater cost if the 
 expense of haulage of materials be included. 
 To repay this in twenty-five years, both prin- 
 cipal and interest, a weekly rent of 43. is 
 
90 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 required. But labourers in the southern counties 
 have been unable to pay more than is. or 2s. 
 out of their weekly wages, so that the land- 
 owner who lets good cottages at that rent is 
 really paying also 2s. or 33. a week towards 
 the wages of his farmer's labourers. By this, 
 all the parties are misled. The landowner's 
 duty to his estate is to provide it with all 
 permanent buildings required for its proper cul- 
 tivation. He must do so if he cultivates the 
 land himself, and he ought equally to do so if 
 he lets it to be cultivated by another. The 
 farmer, whether landowner or tenant, must then 
 furnish the farm with " the plant," the live and 
 dead stock necessary for its cultivation. Both 
 parties are entitled to look for a return for their 
 investment ; the landowner's safe and improving 
 capital yielding him a smaller annual return 
 than the farmer's, which is liable to the vicissi- 
 tudes of seasons, and wear and tear, and must 
 also cover his personal industry and skill. The 
 labourers' dwellings are as indispensable as the 
 stables and barns, and no arable farm can be 
 said to be complete which has not the command 
 
COTTAGES MAY BE REMUNERATIVE. 91 
 
 of an adequate number of cottages for the work- 
 people. These, with the farm and all other 
 necessary buildings, should be let to the farmer 
 at a rent which should give a fair return on the 
 landlord's capital, and the farmer and the la- 
 bourer should be left to deal with each other 
 on the basis of adequate remuneration for 
 useful service, regulated by the ultimate rule of 
 demand and supply. On this footing the return 
 on labourers' cottages will become as remune- 
 rative as that of any other outlay of landowners' 
 capital, because it will be controlled by the real 
 necessity and requirements of the farm. 
 
 This will apply chiefly in cases where new Better 
 cottages are attached to farms, and fresh outlay wanted 
 
 rather than 
 
 for that object is to be made. But, in the vast more of 
 
 them. 
 
 majority of cases, labourers' cottages already 
 exist in sufficient numbers. Better cottages are 
 required in many parts of the country, rather 
 than more of them. It has been already stated 
 that during the last thirty years the agricultural 
 population has diminished. The circumstances 
 which have led to that continue in full strength. 
 Increased facilities of locomotion between dif- 
 
92 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 ferent parts of the country, and for emigration 
 across the seas, tend more and more to carry 
 off the energetic portion of the agricultural 
 population. This has raised the rate of farm 
 wages and the cost of cultivating arable land. 
 The prosperity of the wage-earning class in 
 other occupations has, at the same time, vastly 
 increased the demand for butchers' meat and 
 dairy produce, and so greatly increased the 
 returns from grass land. The natural result is 
 a gradual conversion of suitable arable land to 
 grass, and this diminution of extent is accom- 
 panied also by the introduction of labour-saving 
 machines. There is thus in both ways a ten- 
 dency to a diminution of our agricultural 
 population, the one operating in carrying off the 
 ablest to more remunerative fields of industry, 
 the other in lessening the home demand for 
 agricultural labour. It is a fact of great im- 
 portance in the consideration of this question 
 that, within the period between the census of 
 1 86 1 and 1871, there has been a decrease of the 
 country population in every county of England 
 except five, and it is only in the suburban 
 
DECREASE OF COUNTRY POPULATION. 93 
 
 counties and in the manufacturing and mining 
 districts that an increase has taken place. 
 Future provision for agricultural labourers' 
 dwellings ought, therefore, to be in the direction 
 of improvement rather than increase. 
 
 Abundant proof might easily be adduced 
 from most parts of the country that on the main 
 heads of agricultural improvement there should 
 be no lack of good return. The fact that the 
 outlay goes on without diminution, notwith- 
 standing the great increase in the cost of labour 
 and materials, would alone upset all reasoning, 
 and isolated instances, to the contrary. A very Examples 
 
 of remu- 
 
 mstructive paper on this part ot the subject was nerative 
 
 expendi- 
 
 produced by the managing director of the Lands ture. 
 Improvement Company. It showed a return of 
 forty cases of outlays, not picked cases, but 
 taken as they happened to come, with the in- 
 creased rentals subsequent to the improvements. 
 Upon an outlay in the aggregate of ,195,000 
 there was an increased rental of ^"31,000. This 
 increase had been obtained within seven to ten 
 years. In only five instances did the increase 
 fall short of repaying the annual charge which 
 
94 IHE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 redeems the principal as well as the interest. 
 In every other case it left a profit beyond this, 
 in many cases a large profit. On the whole, 
 the increase is equal to a return of 1 5 per cent, 
 on the expenditure, and if this is capitalised at 
 the common estimate of thirty years' purchase of 
 land rent, the sum expended will be found to 
 have been increased more than fourfold. If land- 
 owners generally could reckon on anything like 
 the average return of these forty cases, they would 
 have the means, under the Lands Improvement 
 Acts, of improving their estates, not only without 
 present loss, but with a large immediate profit. 
 
 But no distinction was made or could be 
 made in this return between that increment 
 which arose from improvements and the general 
 increase of rent due to the prosperity of the 
 country, the increased value of produce, and the 
 development of particular districts by the open- 
 ing of railways and roads. Still, in one way or 
 other the landowner in these cases has been 
 made entirely safe. 
 
 And in the nature of things in this country 
 such must be the case wherever reasonable 
 
INCREASING VALUE OF LAND. 95 
 
 judgment has been shown in expenditure on 
 land improvement. Nature has given us a 
 climate more favourable to the production of 
 meat and milk, vegetables and grass, than that 
 of any other European State. These, in pro- 
 portion to their value, are the least costly in 
 labour, and therefore the least affected by a 
 rise of wages. The growing demand for them, 
 and their consequently increasing value, exer- 
 cise a constant pressure for increased production, 
 which can still to some extent be obtained by 
 improving the land we have. A large propor- 
 tion of the improvable land under cultivation 
 admits of this, and much of that vast tract 
 which has hitherto been left to nature might 
 also be profitably reclaimed for the rearing of 
 sheep and cattle. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RECENT RISE IN THE VALUE OF LAND. 
 Great rise THERE has been, within the last twenty years, 
 
 in tnc 
 
 value of a ver y considerable increase in the value of land 
 
 land since J 
 
 oftheCom * n ^ s country. The income-tax returns are 
 
 partly due 7 most instructive on this point, and, as they 
 
 outlay of show the rental of land in England, Scotland, 
 
 improve" an ^ Ireland separately, they afford the means of 
 
 ments. 
 
 comparing the rate of improvement in each 
 country. That improvement does not seem to 
 have begun in England till 1858, the gross 
 annual value of "Lands" in 1857 having been 
 returned at 50,000 less in that year than in 
 1846. From 1858 the rise has been progressive 
 and continuous, and with an average increase of 
 470,000 a year. The rise seems to have begun 
 somewhat earlier in Scotland, and the average 
 yearly increase has been 82,000. The returns 
 from Ireland cannot be distinguished prior to 
 
RISE IN VALUE SINCE 1857. 
 
 97 
 
 1 862, and show an average yearly increase, from 
 that year, of 39,000. The total rise within a 
 peried of eighteen years has been a little over 
 20 per cent. ; but, as will be seen by the annexed 
 Table, the proportion of increase on the Scotch 
 rental has been greater than on that of England. 
 The small rise in Ireland presents a striking 
 contrast to England and Scotland. The capital 
 value of the total increase at the present selling 
 price of land in this country will be reckoned 
 something prodigious, especially by those of us 
 who are old enough to recall the dismal pro- 
 phecies of the agricultural ruin which would 
 surely follow the free admission of foreign 
 corn. 
 
 GROSS ANNUAL VALUE OF LAND ASSESSED TO THE 
 INCOME-TAX IN 1857 AND 1875. 
 
 
 1857. 
 
 1875. 
 
 Increase. 
 8,948,000 
 
 1 ,- 
 
 crease 
 L. per 
 cent. 
 
 Capital Value 
 of Increase 
 at 30 Years' 
 Purchase. 
 
 England... 
 
 
 4 i.i;7,ooo 
 
 
 50,125,000 
 
 21 
 
 
 268,440,000 
 
 Scotland... 
 
 5,932,000 
 
 7,493,000 
 
 1,561,000 
 
 26 
 
 46,830,000 
 
 Ireland, > 
 from 1 862) 
 
 8,747,000 
 
 9,293,000 
 
 546,000 
 
 6 
 
 16,380,000 
 
 55,856,000 | 66,911,000 
 
 11,055,000 ... 
 
 331,650,000 
 
 II 
 
98 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 This vast increase in. the value of landed 
 property within the short period of twenty years 
 is very remarkable. It has been already shown 
 that the improvement expenditure effected by 
 loans has been fifteen millions. If we assume 
 that even three times as much has been effected 
 during the same period by private capital with- 
 out loans, we here see that the capital wealth of 
 the owners of landed property has been in- 
 creased by three hundred and thirty-one millions 
 sterling in these twenty years, at a cost to them 
 which probably has not exceeded sixty millions. 
 This increase, as elsewhere explained, has arisen 
 chiefly from the great advance in the consump- 
 tion and value of meat and dairy produce, 
 and is thus only in part the result of land 
 improvement. 
 
 Greatest But though in the aggregate the landowners 
 
 been in of England have become richer by more than 
 
 counties, one-fifth, and those of Scotland by more than 
 
 Scotland : one-fourth, the progress has not been uniform. 
 
 of this. In the purely corn districts, and on the chalk 
 
 and sands of the drier counties, where grass does 
 
 not thrive, the increase has been small. On the 
 
GREATEST IN THE WEST AND NORTH. 99 
 
 poor clays there has been none. It has been 
 greatest in the grazing counties and in the west 
 and north. The increase shown in Scotland 
 deserves special attention. In that country the 
 larger proportion of grazing-land and the small 
 area in wheat compared with barley and oats, 
 the former having fallen while the latter have 
 risen in price, partly explains this ; but, on the 
 other hand, entails are more strict, and land 
 is understood to be more heavily mortgaged 
 than in England, so that in these respects 
 Scotland has no advantage. It was this greater 
 disability of the entailed Scotch proprietor 
 which drove him earlier to seek a remedy. A 
 little more than a century ago, in 1770, the 
 first Improvement of Land Act was passed, the 
 famous Montgomery Act, the preamble of 
 which clearly explains its origin. "Whereas 
 much mischief arises to the public, which must 
 daily increase so long as the law allowing 
 such entails subsists, if some remedy be not 
 provided," and then it provided a remedy very 
 similar in principle to the Drainage Acts passed 
 for both countries eighty years later. But 
 H 2 
 
ioo THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 the power of raising money would not alone 
 have sufficed. It was necessary also to take 
 care that that money should be wisely expended, 
 and the astute heads which devised the Mont- 
 gomery Act enlisted the aid of the tenant- 
 farmers, by giving them the security of nineteen 
 years' leases, and thus obtaining their co-opera- 
 tion in the execution of the works, and in 
 the subsequent operations necessary to make 
 them remunerative. This co-operation between 
 landlord and tenant in Scotland had been in 
 full action for more than two generations before 
 the Drainage Loans introduced by Sir Robert 
 Peel in 1848, when both landlord and tenant in 
 Scotland at once eagerly availed themselves of 
 the very liberal terms on which these were 
 offered ; and that goes on to this day. The 
 facilities given by the Improvement of Land 
 Act, 1864, which enables limited landowners to 
 operate with their own means without the inter- 
 vention of the Improvement Companies, were at 
 once recognised in Scotland, which has availed 
 itself of them to an extent six times greater, 
 in proportion, than England. In Scotland, as 
 
WHY SCOTLAND TOOK THE LEAD. 101 
 
 was stated by one of the witnesses, " the tenants 
 are practically the applicants for improvement 
 loans." They readily meet their landlords much 
 more than half-way in contributing to the repay- 
 ment ; and instead of lagging behind, or waiting 
 to be spurred on to further enterprise, they com- 
 pete even too much with each other for the posses- 
 sion of farms on terms which have now become 
 more remunerative to the land-owners than to 
 themselves. There is not in England, generally, 
 a similar spirit of agricultural enterprise. 
 
 To what is this difference between the two The 
 
 Scotch 
 
 countries to be attributed ? Chiefly to three landowner 
 
 better 
 
 causes, in which the Scotch landowner has the trained 
 
 to his 
 
 advantage : earlier education in, and apprecia- busmess - 
 tion of, the benefits of land improvement ; a 
 better knowledge of the business of landowning; 
 and the general system of leases. To the first, 
 reference has already been made. The better 
 knowledge of their business has naturally flowed 
 from it to the Scotch landowners. They are 
 trained to it by fathers who have been in their 
 day likewise taught to look into the manage- 
 ment of their property. Sir Walter Scott 
 
102 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 mentions the discussions with which his youth 
 was familiar when visiting his country relations, 
 the comparative merits of " long " and " short " 
 sheep, the reclamation of waste, and the advan- 
 tage in a bare country of sheltering woods. 
 "Aye be sticking in a tree," was the dying 
 advice of an old Scotch laird to his son, " it 
 will be growing when you're sleeping." The 
 " home " farm was always found in the personal 
 occupation of the Scotch landowner, and the 
 Edinburgh University has for many years had 
 a Chair of Agriculture. It is true that among 
 the greater landowners of Scotland the English 
 schools and universities have long had a special 
 attraction, but even their tone has failed to 
 eradicate from the young Scotchman's mind the 
 inborn love of the farms and fields, and the 
 country employments of his fathers. 
 Landown- This knowledge of business is a matter of 
 
 ing the 
 
 only busi- great moment to those who employ so vast a 
 
 ness in 
 
 which capital as the English landowners, a capital far 
 
 special 
 
 training beyond the entire value of our railways, mines, 
 
 is not 
 
 necessar ironworks, canals, and gasworks put together. 
 Men of the highest capacity, with special 
 
WANT OF SPECIAL TRAINING. 103 
 
 training and qualifications, are employed in the 
 management of these. Constant watchfulness 
 of the progress of invention, by which large 
 results may be obtained on a given expenditure, 
 is absolutely necessary to procure a profit in the 
 general competition. The landowners of large 
 estates entrust the management of their property 
 to agents more or less qualified, many very 
 capable, but often hampered by the pressing 
 need of their employer for the largest return of 
 rental at the least cost. The landowner himself 
 too seldom takes such an active and intelligent 
 interest in the details of management as would 
 convince him of the need to keep his farms in a 
 similar state of high working order. It is not 
 with him really a question of business. Let us 
 take, by way of comparison, a manufacturer, 
 merchant, or shipowner, employing each a capital 
 equal to that of a landowner who has a rental of 
 $,ooo a year. What would be thought of the 
 prospects of a woollen manufacturer who, with- 
 out the slightest preparation or special knowledge, 
 embarked 100,000 in that business? Or of a 
 man who took over a mercantile concern of the 
 
104 
 
 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 same extent, without having ever before written 
 or read a business letter ? Or of a young 
 military officer giving up his commission to take 
 the direction and responsibility of a great ship- 
 owning house ?' And yet this is in effect what 
 is done every day by the majority of English 
 landowners. They complain that the business 
 so undertaken " is not sufficiently lucrative to 
 offer much attraction to capital." And people 
 are surprised that within the narrow limits of the 
 British Isles, with a teeming, wealthy, meat- 
 consuming people, so large a proportion of the 
 cultivated land is still permitted to remain only 
 partially productive. 
 Security The third point of difference between the 
 
 for tenant's 
 
 capital, two countries is the system of yearly tenancy 
 
 whether 
 
 by leases in England, while leases of nineteen and twenty- 
 
 or other- 
 wise, one years may be said to be the rule in Scotland 
 
 should be 
 
 given. anc i the exception in England. It is in the 
 nature of a yearly tenancy that there should be 
 insecurity. Agricultural investments demand 
 time to be fully remunerative. How can a man 
 subject at any time to a year's notice to quit be 
 expected to improve ? That he does so in very 
 
'>';'** 
 
 TENANT AND LANDLORD., 105 
 
 ' A- 
 
 many cases is due to the confidence fdfy, a 
 
 Uj 
 
 long-standing connection between landlord an<f 
 tenant. There does not live a more upright 
 honourable man in any class than the average 
 English landowner. But, with every acknow- 
 ledgment of his desire to be just and fair in his 
 dealings with his tenantry, it is vain to look for 
 enterprise and progress where there is no real 
 security. Whether that may be best attained 
 under the Agricultural Holdings Act, or by 
 special agreement without a lease, or by giving 
 such security with two years' notice in addition 
 to a lease, in one way or other security must be 
 given to induce such an adequate flow of capital 
 into the business of farming as will render it 
 effective. 
 
 Owners in fee-simple, as well as tenants for 
 life, very frequently use the powers given by the 
 Land Improvement Acts. The principle of 
 annual repayment of a portion of the loan, by 
 which the estate is at once put under improve- 
 ment and the debt redeemed, commends itself 
 to every man who desires to retain and improve 
 his property. He borrows, at a fixed rate of 
 
io6 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 interest, on a security the augmenting value of 
 which is all his own. Besides this, there are few 
 landowners who have not either inherited or 
 found it necessary themselves to create mort- 
 gages on their estates. This is common to all 
 countries, and no change in the laws affecting 
 land is likely to alter it. The limited owner and 
 the full owner are alike subject to it. If further 
 expenditure is required, the money in the 
 ordinary way must be raised on less advan- 
 tageous terms than the previous loans. It 
 probably cannot be raised on any terms by the 
 Admirable limited owner. But the admirable principle of 
 
 principle 
 
 of Drain- Sir Robert Peel's Drainage Loans, the essence 
 
 age Loans. 
 
 of which is that no charge shall be sanctioned 
 
 which does not promise a return greater than 
 the annual cost of a gradual repayment of the 
 debt, may, without injustice to the previous 
 creditor, permit them to be made a prior charge 
 upon the land, and will thus secure the most 
 advantageous terms to the borrower, whether he 
 holds under settlement or in fee-simple. 
 Extended But there are many cases of land improve- 
 
 powers of 
 
 sale in the ment which can be only partially reached by 
 
EXTENDED POWERS OF SALE REQUIRED. 107 
 these Acts, and which require to be dealt with case of 
 
 settled 
 
 in a different manner. In the home counties, estates 
 
 would be 
 
 for instance, and in the neighbourhood of some ver y 
 
 ad van - 
 
 of our great centres of population, there are tageous. 
 large tracts of comparatively infertile land, let 
 at low rents as farms, and yielding little satis- 
 factory return to anybody connected with them. 
 Cases may be met with where the limited owner, 
 who has inherited such a property from a 
 succession of men in a similar position of legal 
 incapacity, finds himself, in the midst of general 
 progress, constrained to keep perhaps half a 
 dozen parishes in a state almost of stagnation. 
 The country itself is most likely well-timbered 
 and very picturesque, with easy railway access 
 to the metropolis or town, and highly suitable 
 for residential occupation. He could sell it 
 readily, if he had the power, in small properties 
 for that purpose, retaining still an important 
 family estate. It would not be difficult to point 
 out cases in which this might be done with 
 immense advantage to the landowner, the neigh- 
 bourhood, and the public. Take, for example, 
 a limited owner of 10,000 acres of such land, 
 
io8 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 yielding a gross rent of 10,000. If he were 
 enabled to sell 2,000 acres, which might fetch a 
 residential price of 100 an acre, or 200,000, 
 retaining his family seat and 8,000 acres: his 
 rental would then be 8,000, plus the interest at 
 4 per cent, of 200,000 8,000. These sums 
 together would make an income of 16,000, or 
 60 per cent, more than he had before. He 
 would thus at once find himself in funds and in 
 spirits to go on with the improvement of the 
 remainder of his estate, while the neighbourhood 
 would have the advantage of a circulation of 
 fresh capital and ideas, to brighten a scene 
 formerly rendered gloomy by dissatisfied in- 
 difference. Landowners who are precluded 
 by entail or settlement from using this natural 
 advantage of their position, are deprived of an 
 incalculable benefit to themselves and their 
 families. 
 Settle- To a certain extent this has already been 
 
 ments 
 
 should be discovered, and there are probably no settle- 
 limited 
 
 lives h 
 being. 
 
 limited to 
 
 lives in ments of land now made without considerable 
 
 powers of sale. The principle is recognised, 
 and may with great benefit be extended and 
 
IMPROVED SYSTEM OF LAND TRANSFER. 109 
 
 made general. Settlements of land to a limited 
 extent, like settlements of any other kind of 
 property, are likely to continue. I desire to 
 avoid any discussion at present of their advan- 
 tage or otherwise, as a question of polity, but 
 am anxious to see them, at least, limited to 
 lives in being, with large powers of sale, so as 
 not to hamper in the smallest degree the most 
 beneficial disposition of the land. This, with an 
 improved system of land transfer, long promised 
 and anxiously hoped for by men of all parties, 
 will render the country less dependent on 
 palliative measures, such as the Land Improve- 
 ment Acts. But these have proved, and con- 
 tinue to be found, of indispensable service, as, 
 without them, the improvement of land would 
 still be impossible over a large portion of this 
 kingdom. 
 
 But even increased freedom for the energies The 
 
 capital <>t 
 
 of the landowner will fail if not adequately tenant- 
 farmers 
 backed by an intelligent and enterprising entitled to 
 
 legal 
 
 tenantry. The rapid changes which have taken security, 
 place in late years, both in the improvement of 
 live-stock and in the better cultivation of the 
 
no THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 land, are in the main due to them. The vast 
 business which has grown up in the importation 
 and manufacture of manures and feeding-stuffs 
 shows their willingness to enter upon new lines 
 of expenditure which promise useful results. 
 They have a large capital at stake, and they 
 justly desire freedom of action in regard to 
 cultivation, and security for that portion of their 
 capital which, being necessarily incorporated 
 with the soil to produce a future return, may be 
 confiscated wherever it remains unprotected by 
 contract or by law. 
 
No Minis- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT IN ITS CONNECTION WITH 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 THERE is no Minister of Agriculture in Great 
 Britain, and no attempt is made by Government tf r f uj 
 to interfere with the cultivation of the soil, or tur > ancl 
 
 novjovern- 
 
 between the landowners, the tenants, and the 
 labourers. There are no State flocks, or herds, 
 or horse-breeding establishments, nor any State 
 schools of agriculture. In Ireland such schools, 
 
 maintained 
 
 and several experimental farms, were established byGovern- 
 at the cost of the Government, at the time of 
 the potato famine. In the disorganised state in 
 which that country then was, some benefit 
 ensued. But the general principle of our 
 political system is that every trade and business 
 should be self-supporting, subordinate only to 
 the general laws, and controlled by the rule 
 of free competition. The political influence 
 possessed by the landed interests insures for 
 
ii2 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 them adequate representation in the Govern- 
 ment, and their great wealth endows them with 
 the means of promoting all objects of general 
 interest to them as a class. The Royal Agri- 
 cultural Societies in England and Ireland, and 
 the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scot- 
 land, are the self-supporting national institutions 
 of each kingdom for the promotion of agri- 
 culture. And, besides great provincial societies 
 in various parts of the country, there are iri 
 every county one or more local Agricultural 
 Societies for the same object. These are all 
 self-supporting, having neither stipend from the 
 State, nor being subject to its control. The 
 good result of this principle is seen in the 
 successful manner in which they have evoked 
 friendly competition amongst all classes con- 
 nected with the land, and disseminated in every 
 part of the country a knowledge of the best 
 breeds of live-stock, and of the most improved 
 instruments and processes of agricultural de- 
 velopment. 
 The Inclo- The only department of the State which 
 
 sure Com- 
 mission the has a direct connection with the land is the 
 
THE STATE AND THE LAND. 113 
 
 Inclosure Office, which combines several objects, only State 
 
 depart- 
 more or less appertaining to landed property, ent 
 
 directly 
 
 but with no power to interfere except when connected 
 
 with the 
 
 applied to for the means of facilitating improve- land - 
 ments. The costs of all proceedings effected 
 through this department are provided by those 
 who make use of it. Its original object was to 
 promote the inclosure of waste lands, and 
 thereby to increase the home produce of food, 
 and afford increased employment to the agri- 
 cultural labourers. These objects, so far as 
 they were necessary, have to a great extent 
 been otherwise accomplished, and the agri- 
 cultural labourer has become happily inde- 
 pendent of such aid. The duty of this branch 
 of the office now is not to promote inclosure 
 with the object of dividing the land amongst 
 severalty owners, except in cases where by no 
 other means could its improvement be effected, 
 but to encourage the improvement of "com- 
 mons" under a system of regulation, by which 
 the land may be drained, planted for ornament 
 and shelter, and the surface be improved for 
 pasturage, without excluding the public from its 
 
ii4 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 enjoyment by subdivision into severalty owner- 
 Its various ship. Advantage of the office has from time to 
 
 functions. 
 
 time been taken by Parliament for objects of an 
 analogous character. The Drainage and Land 
 Improvement Acts are administered by this 
 Commission, the object of these Acts being, as 
 already explained, to permit landowners to 
 borrow money for permanent improvements, 
 and to charge their lands with the cost of these 
 on the principle of such annual payments as 
 within a definite period will reimburse both 
 principal and interest. The control exercised 
 by the Government department insures that the 
 proposed improvement shall be both beneficial 
 and well executed, and that the future possessor 
 of the property may not find himself on his 
 succession called on to pay for unprofitable 
 outlays made by his predecessor. But any 
 Government control in such circumstances is 
 really the fruit of the artificial system of entail 
 and settlement. 
 Formation The office is also entrusted with the forma- 
 
 <>f Main 
 
 Drainage tion of commissions for the drainage of districts 
 
 Commis- 
 sions, liable to floods, under which works embracing 
 
PREVENTION OF FLOODS. 115 
 
 large areas of country are carried out under a 
 general system, the cost being levied on the 
 landowners in proportion to the advantage they 
 receive. In the execution of this duty it has 
 been found that the applicants in many cases 
 have erred in not including the whole of the 
 area which should naturally fall under one 
 control, and so failing to secure uniformity over 
 the whole of the catchment basin affected. 
 
 Floods in river valleys in autumn, and Floods 
 
 beneficial, 
 
 winter, and spring, provide rich irrigation for except 
 
 where per- 
 
 the land, the mud in which subsides when the mitted to 
 
 remain too 
 
 waters are for a time partially stagnant. They lon g stag- 
 nant. 
 
 are very beneficial if not permitted to remain 
 too long. Land subject to such floods should 
 never be broken up from grass, as in no other 
 way can it in this country be more profitably 
 used. Before under-drainage became so general, 
 the floods came down much more loaded with 
 sediment, and therefore in that respect much 
 more enriching than now, when the rains of 
 the uplands pass through and are filtered by 
 the soil. But that is largely compensated by 
 the soluble salts of the manure which the rain 
 
 12 
 
n6 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 carries with it. Summer floods are injurious, 
 but they are rare, and if once in twenty years 
 they injure or even carry off the hay, there is 
 some compensation in the heavy crops of after- 
 math that follow. If the natural beds of the rivers 
 were kept free from obstruction, there would be 
 far more benefit than injury from floods. 
 
 But in earlier times, before steam-power was 
 known, water-power was found a valuable aid 
 for both mills and navigation. Weirs and dams 
 were then constructed, and water-rights have 
 grown up which greatly hamper arterial drain- 
 age. Towns on the river-banks, though gene- 
 rally built above flood-mark, are injured by 
 long-continued floods ; and their interests, as 
 well as those of the land, are concerned in 
 removing all artificial obstructions. There is no 
 longer any necessity for these, as steam-power 
 can everywhere be substituted for water-mills, 
 and the tedious delays of barges be superseded 
 by the quicker and more certain conveyance by 
 railways. The barge navigation was attended 
 by one benefit, as, in order to maintain adequate 
 depth of water, it was necessary to keep the bed 
 
GREAT WORKS SELDOM REQUIRED. 117 
 
 of the river free from the natural growth of 
 weeds which otherwise impede the current, and 
 cause deposits of mud which gradually contract 
 the outfall. Questions of compensation, how- 
 ever, arise when rights of any kind are touched, 
 and hence the need of some authority to control 
 and reconcile opposing interests. 
 
 The Inclosure Commissioners have power, 
 upon application being made to them to recom- 
 mend the formation of drainage districts, which 
 may embrace either the whole or a part of a 
 river-basin. So far as their experience has 
 gone, it is in favour of placing each river-basin 
 as a whole system under competent authority, 
 with power to that authority to form sub- 
 districts for the management of each, with 
 representatives at the general board which 
 controls the whole. As the object is not to Great 
 
 engineer- 
 prevent floods, but to limit the period of their ing works 
 
 seldom 
 
 stagnation, it is seldom that any grand engineer- required, 
 ing operation is required. 
 
 Another most useful branch of the office is Power to 
 
 exchange 
 
 the very extensive power entrusted to the Com- intermixed 
 
n8 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 lands, in- missioners to carry out exchanges and partitions 
 
 expensive, 
 
 and simple of lands. By their aid any two landowners can. 
 
 in its 
 
 operation. a t ver y trifling expense, correct any irregularity 
 in the boundary of their respective estates, or 
 even exchange entire farms or estates. This 
 may be done without risk, or investigation of 
 title, by the simple process of attaching to 
 the lands exchanged all the accidents of title, 
 tenure, and incumbrance, which formerly be- 
 longed to each other. The only questions 
 requiring the decision of the Commissioners 
 are : Is the exchange beneficial to the two 
 estates ? Are the parcels proposed to be ex- 
 changed equal in value ? or within one-eighth of 
 an equality in value ? When satisfied of this, 
 the Commission authorises the exchange, and 
 the one parcel immediately, for all purposes, 
 takes the place of the other. So that if the title 
 of either be thereafter found faulty, the person 
 who may recover will have, not the land with 
 the faulty title, but that which the Commis- 
 missioners have put in its place, and clothed with 
 all its liabilities. Certain notices must be 
 given ; the order of exchange is not confirmed 
 
EXCHANGES OF LAND. 119 
 
 until three months after the notice, and if during 
 that period any person dissents who is entitled 
 to any estate in, or charge upon, either of the 
 lands proposed to be exchanged, the Commis- 
 sioners withhold their confirmation while the 
 dissent continues. From time to time the 
 powers of the Commission have been extended 
 to comprise all cases omitted from the original 
 statute. All hereditaments, corporeal and in- 
 corporeal, may now be exchanged with ease and 
 at a very moderate cost. Inequality in value 
 to the extent of an eighth may be compensated 
 by a rent-charge annexed to the less valuable 
 and charged upon the more valuable property. 
 
 The extent to which this beneficial and Extent to 
 
 which it 
 
 inexpensive power is used is very considerable, is made 
 
 use of. 
 It is mostly in the rectification of boundaries, or 
 
 the exchange of intermixed lands, and in many 
 cases to facilitate building operations, and em- 
 braces annually from 6,000 to 10,000 acres, 
 having a value of from 400,000 to 500,000. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WASTE LANDS AND COPYHOLDS, 
 inclosure THE past result of the inclosure of waste lands 
 
 of waste 
 
 lands: under the control of the Government may be 
 learned from a return to an Order of the House 
 of Commons, made in 1873, which showed the 
 extent of commons and common field lands 
 then in England and Wales to be 2,632,000 
 acres, about one-fourteenth part of the whole 
 surface of that country. Probably one million 
 acres of the whole are capable of improvement 
 by reclamation, drainage, or planting. Previous 
 to the passing of the General Inclosure Act 
 of 1845, 2,500 inclosures had been sanctioned 
 by private Acts of Parliament, under which 
 2,142,000 acres of waste land were inclosed. 
 
 its extent, The inclosures since 1 845 have added 600,000 
 acres, so that up to the present time 2,757,000 
 acres altogether have been thus redeemed from 
 waste. Besides this, a very large extent of 
 
', 7 '/, 
 
 RESULTS OF INCLOSURES. \' , 121 // 
 
 1 "/ '< /^ 
 
 country has been reclaimed without ttye/ inter'-' .y , , 
 
 </ / > ^ i - 
 
 vention of Parliament. fjt 
 
 The results of the inclosures since 1845 pre- 4*?- 
 
 suits/, | 
 
 sent some interesting facts in regard to the 
 subdivision of land, and the addition made to 
 the number of small landowners in the country, 
 and the public works of improvement carried 
 out under the process of inclosure, which are 
 worthy of record. This is altogether indepen- 
 dent of the individual and public advantages 
 arising from the reclamation and agricultural 
 improvement of the land itself. The 600,000 
 acres dealt with since 1845 have been divided 
 among 26,000 separate owners, in an average 
 proportion, according to their rights, of 44^ 
 acres to each lord of the manor, and of 24 acres 
 to each common-right owner ; and, of the lands 
 sold to defray part of the expenses, 10 acres to 
 each purchaser. In many cases the expenses 
 were raised by rate among the persons inte- 
 rested, but this was optional, since such persons 
 had the alternative of selling a portion of the 
 land for that purpose. With that object 35,450 
 acres were sold, chiefly in small lots, to 3,500 
 
122 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 purchasers. The lords of the manors, 620 in 
 number, received as compensation for their 
 rights in the soil, on an average, about one- 
 fifteenth of the acreage of the wastes. These 
 wastes of manors were, under the Act of 1845, 
 made subject to the setting out of allotments 
 for public purposes, and in this respect were 
 distinct from the commonable lands, which are 
 undivided private property, and were not made 
 subject to public allotments. 
 Quality As this is the largest and most general 
 
 and occu- 
 pation of distribution of land into small properties that 
 
 persons to 
 
 whom has taken place in this country in recent times, 
 
 waste 
 
 lands it was desirable to know the quality and occu- 
 
 passed. 
 
 pation of the persons into whose hands these 
 lands have passed. To discover this, the legal 
 description both of allottees and of purchasers 
 of sale allotments, was taken from inclosures 
 in which that description is given, one in each 
 of the following counties, viz., Bucks, Cumber- 
 land, Chester, Devon, Essex, Hants, Herts, 
 Lancaster, Norfolk, Oxford, Stafford, Sussex, 
 Worcester, and, in Wales, Carnarvon and Car- 
 marthen. Upon this basis, and so far as such 
 
CREATION OF SMALL LANDOWNERS. 123 
 
 an average can be accepted, the proportionate 
 numbers of the different classes of the 26,000 
 landowners amongst whom the land has been 
 divided are as follows : Yeomen and farmers, 
 4,836 ; shopkeepers and tradesmen, 3,456 ; 
 labourers and miners, 3,168 ; esquires, 2,624 ; 
 widows, 2,016; gentlemen, 1,984; clergymen, 
 1,280; artisans, 1,067; spinsters, 800; charity 
 trustees, 704 ; peers, baronets, and sons of peers, 
 576; professional men, 512; and about 3,000 
 others in gradually diminishing proportions, but 
 comprising nearly every quality and calling, 
 from the Crown to the mechanic, quarryman, 
 and domestic servant. The influence of this 
 change has not been confined to particular 
 counties, but has been more or less felt in all. 
 It has made an appreciable addition to the 
 number of small landowners in England, bring- 
 ing upon hitherto comparatively unproductive 
 wastes the individual interest and intelligence 
 of a numerous and varied body of persons, by 
 whose industry the best of these lands have 
 been made not only useful to their owners, but 
 have become available for sale and purchase, 
 
124 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 and, in their improved condition, for bearing 
 their just share of county and parish rates and 
 public taxes. 
 Extent of More than two thousand miles of public 
 
 public 
 
 roads con- roads have been constructed in connection with 
 
 structed, 
 
 these enclosures since 1845, at the cost of the 
 common-right owners, in addition to the nu- 
 merous accommodation roads set out for their 
 special use in giving convenient access to their 
 several allotments. Other works of a public 
 nature, such as embanking and straightening the 
 course of rivers connected with inclosures, have 
 and value been executed. The value of lands devoted 
 
 of lands 
 
 devoted to to public objects, at the cost of the owners of 
 
 public 
 
 objects, at common rights, is equal to one-eighth of the 
 
 the cost of 
 
 the owners whole value of the land inclosed. 
 
 of common 
 
 rights, The total estimated value of the wastes 
 
 equal to 
 
 inclosed amounts to 6,140,000. The value of 
 
 tteknd the land taken from the best f tllis f r P ublic 
 
 ' e ' purposes (comprising land for recreation, field- 
 gardens, public quarries, fuel, schools and 
 churches, burial-grounds, public roads, and other 
 purposes) has been estimated at 282,140. To 
 this must be added the cash, raised by rate, or 
 
LANDS DEVOTED TO PUBLIC OBJECTS. 125 
 
 sale of property, and expended on the construc- 
 tion of public roads and other public works 
 connected with enclosures, 473, 500, making 
 together, 755,640. Comparing this with the 
 fee-simple value above mentioned, it appears 
 that nearly one-eighth of the whole value of the 
 wastes inclosed has, under the direction of the 
 Commissioners, and with the assent of the pro- 
 prietary interests, been devoted to objects of 
 public utility and convenience. Thus, in the 
 course of one generation, an extent of land 
 equal to that of a county has been redeemed 
 from a condition of waste, and has been divided 
 among a far larger and more varied body of 
 landowners than that of any county in England. 
 Valuable public roads of great extent have been 
 constructed, opening up for business and plea- 
 sure many otherwise inaccessible localities, and 
 at no cost to the public. The area of produc- 
 tion and employment has been increased, and in 
 the same proportion that of public and local 
 taxation has been extended. A great number 
 of small landed properties have been created, 
 and labourers' field-gardens in the rural districts 
 
126 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 have been afforded in larger proportion to the 
 extent of the land than appears by the Agricul- 
 tural Returns to exist elsewhere in England. 
 
 Though the best of the land was probably 
 first dealt with, there can be little doubt that 
 much of that which still remains uninclosed may 
 be advantageously brought under the operation 
 of the new law of 1876, which, in the altered 
 state of the circumstances since 1845, provides 
 . more fully for the public interests of the neigh- 
 bourhood, and especially of large populations ; 
 and at the same time may yet be found, in less 
 populous quarters, the useful instrument of 
 adding some considerable extent of available 
 land to the solid resources of the country. 
 
 Enfran- Lands or houses held by copyhold tenure 
 
 chisement 
 
 of copy- may be enfranchised through the copyhold 
 
 hold lands 
 
 or build- department of this Commission. These are held 
 
 ings. 
 
 by record in the book of the lord of a manor, 
 anciently on certain terms of service, now com- 
 muted into a money payment. The tenants of 
 a manor, which was held by the lord from the 
 Crown under ancient grant, gradually acquired 
 
ENFRANCHISEMENT OF COPYHOLDS. 127 
 
 the right to be placed on the court roll of the 
 lord on the same conditions as their prede- 
 cessors, and became entitled to demand copies 
 of these conditions, which, so long as they were 
 fulfilled, gave them a title to their estates. The 
 conditions of the tenure are governed by the 
 customs of the manor as shown in the rolls of 
 the Manor Courts, and by constant and imme- 
 morial usage ; and the title is simply a copy of 
 the court roll, authenticated by the steward of 
 the manor. Two conditions are essential : first, 
 that the lands are parcel of, and situated within, 
 the manor ; and secondly, that they have been 
 demised, or are demisable, by copy of court roll 
 immemorially. 
 
 The ease with which a title can be given is 
 the only advantage which this kind of tenure 
 possesses, the uncertain nature of its services, 
 reliefs, escheats, fines and heriots, and rights to 
 timber, being a great obstacle to any kind of 
 improvement. In 1841, the Legislature, with a 
 view of removing these disadvantages, passed an 
 Act for commuting manorial rights, and facili- 
 tating the enfranchisement of copyhold property. 
 
128 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Number This was amended and extended by subsequent 
 
 completed. 
 
 Acts of the Legislature. Since 1841 upwards 
 of twelve thousand enfranchisements have been 
 completed under the Copyhold Acts, and they 
 are now proceeding, through the instrumentality 
 of the Copyhold Commission, at an average rate 
 of 600 a year. Besides these, a very large num- 
 ber have been effected throughout the different 
 parts of the country, without the intervention of 
 the office, owing to the stimulus to voluntary 
 enfranchisement given by the Copyhold Acts. 
 But though the number seems large, it repre- 
 sents probably but a moderate proportion of the 
 whole, as wherever there is a manor there are 
 many copyhold properties ; and much yet 
 remains to be accomplished before this injurious 
 and obstructive kind of tenure shall altogether 
 cease to exist. The Copyhold Commission was 
 formed with the intention gradually to abolish 
 copyhold tenure, beginning by offering facilities 
 for voluntary enfranchisement, after which it 
 should proceed to its object of extinction on the 
 compulsory principle. Accordingly, after ten 
 years' trial of facilities under the voluntary 
 
EXTINCTION OF COPYHOLDS DESIRABLE. 129 
 
 system, compulsory powers were given to either 
 lord or tenant to demand enfranchisement, with 
 further facilities again in 1858, which led to a 
 rapid increase in the number of enfranchise- 
 ments. Under the present Acts either lord or 
 tenant (except where the copyhold is held 
 without a right of renewal) may now apply to 
 the Copyhold Commissioners to compel enfran- 
 chisement upon terms to be fixed by two 
 valuers, one appointed by each, or by their 
 umpire. And in small cases, not exceeding 20 
 of annual value, the amount may be assessed by 
 a single valuer, nominated by the Justices of the 
 locality. 
 
 The complete extinction of copyhold tenure Complete 
 
 extinction 
 
 is still far from accomplishment. And a great desirable. 
 bar will be presented to the profitable use of 
 copyhold property so long as any considerable 
 extent of the land of this country, embracing a 
 vast number of the smaller estates and houses, 
 remains subject to manorial fines, whether cer- 
 tain or arbitrary; ,to joint rights in timber, 
 under which the tenant cannot cut without leave 
 of the lord, nor the lord enter the land to cut 
 J 
 
13 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 without leave of the tenant ; and to vexatious 
 demands for heriots, and a species of control 
 worse than double ownership. These are evils 
 naturally most felt in the populous parts of the 
 country. The Copyhold Commission has now 
 been in operation for thirty-seven years, so that 
 full time has been given to prepare and provide 
 for the final extinction of this kind of tenure, 
 Mode of as originally contemplated by Parliament. The 
 
 accom- 
 
 simplest mode of doing so would be by enacting 
 that within some definite number of years, say 
 thirty, all copyholds then existing should become 
 freehold. Till the termination of that period the 
 right of either party to compel enfranchisement 
 should continue, and the obvious interest of the 
 lords to make the most of their opportunity 
 would quickly bring about this transformation. 
 
 The Tithe department of this Commission 
 also administers questions connected with tithes 
 for the support of religion. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHURCH, CROWN, AND CHARITY ESTATES. 
 IN the early period of Christianity in this Tithes for 
 
 support of 
 
 country, among other ecclesiastical laws intn> religion in 
 
 England : 
 
 duced from the neighbouring Continent, the 
 Scriptural principle of reserving for the support 
 of religion a tenth part of the produce of 
 industry was enjoined. This included not only 
 a tenth part of the produce of the crops and 
 stock payable in gross, but also a tenth of the 
 clear gains from manual occupations and trades. 
 This large proportion of the total produce of 
 those countries which had embraced Christianity 
 was apportioned, more than a thousand years 
 ago, into four divisions : one to maintain the 
 edifice of the Church, the second to support the 
 poor, the third the bishops, and the fourth the 
 parochial clergy. Originally all the land in the 
 country was titheable except such as belonged 
 to the Crown and to the Church itself. At the 
 time of the Reformation, much of the Church 
 
 lands in this country passed into the hands of 
 J2 
 
132 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 laymen, and continued exempt from tithe, and 
 from various other causes a considerable pro- 
 portion of the lands of the country has become 
 exempted. As the country became more 
 populous, and its demands upon the produce 
 of the soil more difficult to meet, the payment 
 of tithes in kind was found a great hindrance 
 to improved agriculture, as men were naturally 
 unwilling to expend capital for the purpose of 
 increasing the produce, while others who ran no 
 risk, and bore no part of the toil, had a right to 
 commuted share in that increase. Forty-two years ago it 
 
 from pay- 
 ment in was determined that this should cease, and it was 
 
 kind to a 
 
 money enacted that, instead of payment in kind, tithes 
 
 payment. 
 
 should be commuted into a payment in money, 
 calculated on the average receipts of the pre- 
 ceding seven years, the annual money value to 
 vary according to the annual price of corn on a 
 septennial average, but the quantity of corn 
 then ascertained to remain for ever as the tithe 
 of the parish. 
 
 A very important change of principle here 
 took place. Up to that time, the income of the 
 Church increased with the increased value 
 
COMMUTATION OF TITHE. 133 
 
 yielded by the land, the original object that the 
 Church should progress in material resources in 
 equal proportion with the land being thus 
 maintained. From 1836 that increment was 
 stopped. Since that time the land rental of 
 England has risen 50 per cent., and all that 
 portion of the increase which previous to 1836 
 would have gone to the Church has gone to the 
 landowners. A tenth of that would not, how- 
 ever, by any means adequately represent the 
 loss to the Church and the gain to the land- 
 owners ; for the tithe in kind was the tenth of 
 the gross produce, which was equal to much 
 more than a tenth of the rent of arable land. 
 
 In 1836 the money value of the tithe, as com- Unex- 
 pected 
 pared with the land rental, was as four millions effect of 
 
 this, in 
 
 sterling to thirty-three. In 1876 the tithe was preventing 
 
 a rise in 
 
 still four millions, but the land rental had risen the income 
 
 of the 
 
 to fifty. If the old principle of participation Church, 
 had continued, the annual income of the Church 
 would now have been two millions greater than 
 it is. Neither party anticipated a result to such 
 an extent when the Tithe Commutation Act 
 was passed, for not for twenty years after that 
 
134 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 time had the rent of land in England recovered 
 the heavy fall it experienced at the close of the 
 war in 1815. It was not until the vast develop- 
 ment of industry, under a policy of Free Trade, 
 had so increased the general prosperity, that the 
 value and rent of land began steadily to rise. 
 It then became plain that under the operation 
 of a law intended simply to encourage agricul- 
 tural improvement, the community, represented 
 by the Church, are gradually losing a part of 
 their natural inheritance. The same change is 
 in operation in the vicinity of the great cities 
 and towns, where population and wealth increase 
 and accumulate. An acre of land in such situa- 
 tions, which yielded in its natural state a rent to 
 the landowner of ^3, and to the tithe-owner 
 of i os., when converted to building may produce 
 a ground rent of 300, besides the reversion to 
 the landowner at the end of a long lease of the 
 whole of the property erected on it by his lessee. 
 No doubt, since the Reformation, the Church 
 has been limited by law to the agricultural 
 increased produce, and was not entitled to 
 demand a share of the building value. But 
 
PARISH CLERGY. 135 
 
 it was not contemplated that the landowners 
 should thus obtain the whole growing value of 
 the land without leaving any part of it for the 
 support of religion. The operation of this 
 change has been chiefly in favour of the better 
 class of lands, those which from their quality 
 and position have risen most in value. On the 
 poorest kinds of arable land the cold clays, 
 and the thinnest chalk the increased cost of 
 labour has brought about a lowering of rent, 
 while the tithe can undergo no diminution. 
 The landowner in such case has to bear the 
 loss, just as in the other he gets the gain. 
 
 In a country like this, in which the inevitable Parish 
 
 clergy 
 
 tendency of increasing wealth leads to the equivalent 
 
 in number 
 
 gradual diminution of small estates, there would to more 
 
 than one- 
 be some considerable loss to the ranks of small fourth of 
 
 the resi- 
 
 resident proprietors by any change which should dent land - 
 
 owners, 
 
 lead to the absorption of Church property. In over ^ 20 
 
 a year, 
 every parish of the kingdom there is a resident 
 
 landowner, who, as the clergyman of the parish, 
 receives in residence, glebe, and tithe, about a 
 tenth part of its rental, which he spends within 
 it, and in return for which he is the minister of 
 
136 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 rich and poor. The number may be about 
 12,000 in England alone, with an average 
 annual value of ^300. As their income is in 
 no way affected by the question of rent, their 
 position is one of perfect impartiality between 
 landowners and their tenants, and they are the 
 natural referees of the poorer inhabitants. In 
 proportion to the whole number of landowners 
 in England the removal of this numerous body 
 would strike out more than a fourth of those 
 receiving above ^"200 a year, and probably 
 much more than one-fourth of the resident 
 landowners. This, irrespective of the question 
 of religion, would be a change of great magni- 
 tude in its social effect, which deserves careful 
 consideration. 
 
 CROWN ESTATES. 
 Her Besides the domain and Great Park attached 
 
 Majesty's 
 
 Woods, to the Royal Castle of Windsor, 14,000 acres in 
 
 Forests, 
 
 and Land extent, and excluding the Duchies of Lancaster 
 
 revenue, 
 
 and Cornwall, there are comprised in the Royal 
 patrimony upwards of 70,000 acres of land in 
 the kingdom let in farms to agricultural tenants, 
 
CROWN ESTATES. / ,.137 
 
 0. f*v 
 
 and also house property in London, andll/ln^ let / y, 
 
 on building leases, and considerably more a / 
 100,000 acres of Royal forests. For the last 
 twenty years this great property has been 
 managed by two Commissioners, under the 
 superintendence of Her Majesty's Treasury, with 
 great judgment and care, and at the moderate 
 cost of less than 3 per cent, on the total receipts. 
 The gross revenue has for some years shown 
 a steady annual increase, and now amounts to 
 469,000. A large expenditure is annually 
 made in maintaining and improving the pro- 
 perty, but the surplus now paid annually to the now yield 
 
 a net 
 
 Exchequer has risen above, and is likely to revenue to 
 
 the public 
 
 continue more and more to exceed, the annual Exchequer 
 
 exceeding 
 
 amount of the Civil List. This is a sum assured tl 2 e m un ' 
 
 of theCivil 
 
 by Parliament to the Sovereign, at the beginning Llst - 
 of each reign, to defray the expenses of the 
 Royal Household, by an arrangement continued 
 from Sovereign to Sovereign from the time of 
 the Revolution in 1688. The surplus income 
 from the hereditary estates of the Crown, which 
 was then precarious and uncertain, is by this 
 arrangement during the reign of the Sovereign 
 
138 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 paid into the public Exchequer, and a fixed sum 
 f 385,000 is, in lieu of it, annually paid to the 
 Queen for the maintenance of her State, and for 
 the salaries and expenses of Her Majesty's 
 Household. In the period of forty years since 
 the commencement of the present reign, all ex- 
 penses, both public and private, have largely 
 increased, but no new demand for the Queen her- 
 self has been made on the public for an increase 
 of the Civil List. And as the hereditary estates 
 are now yielding to the public Exchequer more 
 than the Exchequer pays to the Queen, the 
 remarkable and probably unique example is 
 presented in this country of a great Sovereign 
 whose household and Royal dignity are thus 
 maintained without taxing her subjects. 
 
 I am indebted to the Earl of Powis for the 
 
 following interesting particulars in the business 
 
 relations of the Crown with its agricultural 
 
 General tenants : The average rental of the agricultural 
 
 conditions 
 
 on which land of the Crown Estates is at present rather 
 
 the Crown 
 
 Farms are more than 323. 6d. per acre. Nearly the whole of 
 
 let. 
 
 it is let in farms of various sizes, on agricultural 
 leases of 21 years' duration, subject to the 
 
CROWN FARMS. 139 
 
 reservation of all trees and substrata. The 
 tenants are to reside on the premises ; to culti- 
 vate according to the best mode of husbandry in 
 the district ; within the last three years of the 
 termination of the lease not to sow two white 
 crops in succession, or to plant on the same 
 land more than one crop of potatoes. The 
 tenants to be entitled to one-half of the money 
 expended by them in the last year of the term 
 in the purchase of linseed, cotton-cake, and rape- 
 cake consumed on the premises, but not to an 
 amount exceeding one-half of the average ex- 
 penditure for such articles during each of the 
 three preceding years. The right of shooting 
 and sporting is not reserved from the tenants, 
 except under very special circumstances. New 
 buildings are constructed, and existing buildings 
 improved, and under-drainage, roads, and other 
 permanent improvements executed at the cost 
 of the Crown. Terms of renewal are proposed 
 to desirable tenants, two years before the 
 expiration of lease. 
 
 Many private landowners would find just 
 and suggestive hints in these arrangements. 
 
140 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 CHARITY ESTATES. 
 Charity The value and extent of land held in trust 
 
 Estates : 
 
 for charities, in England alone, are very consider- 
 able. Inclusive of rent-charges and fixed annual 
 payments, the gross annual rental exceeds 
 1,558,000, derived from 524,000 acres of land, 
 and the houses built thereon. Besides this, the 
 Charity Trusts possess in Government Stock 
 and other personalty nearly 20,000,000, yield- 
 theirvalue. ing an annual income of 640,000. Their total 
 income from real and personal property is thus 
 close upon 2,200,000. 
 
 This great property is held in separate en- 
 dowments in all parts of England, in number 
 estimated at about 50,000, which are adminis- 
 tered by various bodies of trustees, such as 
 Municipal Trustees, Ministers, and Parish 
 Officers, and in many cases by persons who may 
 be termed private trustees, or such as are not 
 trustees in virtue of holding any especial office. 
 These have been placed by Parliament under 
 the general superintendence of a Government 
 Department, the Charity Commission, which 
 reports annually to Parliament upon the 
 
THEIR OBJECTS AND MAGNITUDE. 141 
 
 administration of the charities over which they 
 possess necessary power of control. 
 
 The principal objects to which the funds 
 w r ere appropriated by the founders of the 
 charities are education, apprenticing, and ad- 
 vancement of orphans ; endowment of clergy, 
 lecturers, and for sermons ; Church purposes 
 and repairs ; maintenance of Dissenting places 
 of worship and their ministers ; public parochial 
 uses ; support of almshouses and pensioners ; 
 distribution of articles in kind and money ; 
 medical hospitals and dispensaries. The pro- 
 perty which has thus in the past been volun- 
 tarily devoted by benevolent persons as an 
 endowment for charitable objects in England is 
 equal to more than one-half of that possessed 
 by the Established Church. If we add the Their 
 
 magnitude 
 
 amount annually expended in the United compared 
 
 with the 
 
 Kingdom on the relief of the poor and in aid of cost of 
 
 the civil 
 
 education, it appears that the annual expendi- adminis- 
 tration. 
 ture on objects of charity exceeds the whole 
 
 cost of the civil administration of the country. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 Home pro- THE question of the future for the landed in- 
 
 duction of 
 
 d terests anc * tne public, in regard to the supply 
 limited. O f f oodj rema i ns to be considered. The landlord 
 and the tenant will settle the rent between 
 them ; with returning activity in trade the 
 wages of labour will increase, and that will be 
 followed by increased consumption of bread and 
 meat. Hitherto there has been no correspond- 
 ing rise in the price of bread with that of 
 meat, because wheat has been poured in upon 
 us from fertile virgin lands in distant countries, 
 where the only cost of cultivation is labour. 
 The effect of this on home agriculture has been 
 to limit any increase on our production of corn. 
 In ten years, indeed, the growth of corn has 
 declined ten per cent, the diminution being 
 principally in wheat, and that chiefly in Ireland 
 
CHANGES IN AGRICULTURE. 143 
 
 and Scotland. In other respects the annual 
 home growth of corn keeps steady, barley alone 
 showing a gradual increase. The production 
 of wheat within these islands appears to have 
 reached its limit, and is gradually giving place 
 to a more profitable management. The growth 
 of barley, the dairy and market-garden system, 
 fresh milk and butter, veal and lamb, and beef 
 and mutton of the finest quality and early 
 maturity, and vegetables, and hay and straw, 
 are every year enlarging their circle around 
 the seat of increasing populations. These are 
 the articles which can least bear distant 
 transport, and, therefore, are likely longest 
 to withstand the influence of foreign com- 
 petition. 
 
 This country is becoming every ten years Country 
 
 becoming 
 
 less and less of a farm, and more and more of a less of a 
 
 farm and 
 
 meadow, a market-garden, an extension of town more of a 
 
 garden. 
 
 into country, and a place of public parks and 
 pleasure grounds. The deer forest, and grouse, 
 in the higher and wilder parts of the country, 
 and the picturesque commons in the more 
 populous districts, are already, in many cases, 
 
144 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 not only more attractive, but more remunerative 
 in health and enjoyment, than they probably 
 would be if subjected to costly improvement by 
 drainage, or by being broken up for cultivation. 
 The poor clay soils, which are expensive to 
 cultivate, and meagre in yield, will be gradually 
 all laid to grass, and the poorer soils of every 
 kind, upon which the costs of cultivation bear 
 a high proportion to the produce, will probably 
 follow the same rule. During the last ten years 
 the permanent pasture in Great Britain has, 
 chiefly from this cause, been increased by more 
 than one million acres. 
 Population On the other hand the population is multi- 
 
 at present 
 
 rate of plying at the rate of 350,000 a year, nearly a 
 
 increase, 
 
 thousand a day. Their consumption of food 
 improves, not only in proportion to their increase 
 in numbers, but also with the augmenting scale of 
 wages. Twenty-five years ago the agricultural 
 population rarely could afford to eat butchers' 
 meat more than once a week. Some of them 
 now have it every day, and as the condition of 
 the rest of the people has improved in an equal 
 degree, the increased consumption of food in 
 
PROSPECTS OF LANDOWNERS. 145 
 
 this country has been prodigious. In addition 
 to the whole of our home produce, we imported 
 in 1877 foreign food and corn of the value of 
 one hundred millions sterling, two-thirds of 
 which was in corn, and one-third live and 
 dead meat. It has become a vast trade, em- 
 bracing not only the nearer ports of Europe, 
 but those of India, Australia, and America, 
 which in corn has increased threefold, and in 
 meat and provisions sixfold. If this goes on will in 
 
 twenty 
 
 at the same progressive rate for the next years be 
 
 forty 
 
 twenty years, we shall have forty millions of millions. 
 people to feed, which will tax still more the 
 resources of all those countries which have 
 hitherto sent us their surplus, and can hardly 
 fail to be attended by some increase of the price 
 of provisions. 
 
 It would seem, under such circumstances, 
 not difficult to forecast the future condition of 
 the landed interests in this country. The Prospects 
 
 of Land- 
 position of the landowners is a truly advan- owner 
 
 good. 
 
 tageous one if they rightly appreciate, and 
 faithfully execute, the public responsibilities of 
 their position. Their property is the only 
 
146 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 exchangeable article within the British Isles 
 that admits of no increase in extent. So long 
 as England continues the centre of the Empire 
 the surplus wealth of her great dependencies 
 will flow hither, and aid in that accumulation of 
 wealth which is at once the source and reward 
 of industry. A large portion of that wealth 
 will constantly be seeking investment in land. 
 The climate of this country is not only one of 
 the healthiest in the world, but it admits of 
 out-of-door occupations and amusements for a 
 greater number of days in the year, and thus 
 promotes the attractions of a country life to 
 a greater extent than is found elsewhere. For 
 many centuries landed property has been more 
 secure here than in other countries, and a 
 sense of, and respect for, individual liberty, and 
 obedience to law, better understood. All cir- 
 cumstances combine to maintain the future value 
 of good land in this country. The cold clays and 
 poor soils will probably cease to be ploughed. 
 of Tenant The prospects of the tenant-farmer, the 
 
 farmer 
 
 more second of our landed interests, are by no means 
 
 doubtful. 
 
 so encouraging. While competition for the 
 
OF TENANT-FARMERS. 147 
 
 purchase of land is advantageous to the land- 
 owner, competition for its occupation diminishes 
 the margin of the tenant's profit. And he has 
 to contend against it on both sides, for other 
 attractions and the facilities of locomotion have 
 so altered the position of the labourer, that he 
 presses for higher wages. When the landowner 
 is offered a higher rent, and the labourer higher 
 wages, or a better chance of improving his con- 
 dition in our colonies, the position of the middle- 
 man who has to meet the demands of both 
 seems a difficult one. He, like any other 
 capitalist, may no doubt withdraw it from an 
 unprofitable business, and carry it to some other 
 country where good land is plentiful and cheap, 
 and where he may become a landowner, and 
 escape at least one of the competing forces to 
 which he is here exposed. 
 
 But while the business has these disad- 
 vantages, there is still competition for the 
 occupation of good land. It has many at- 
 tractions. A country life, personal ease and 
 independence, part ownership of agricultural 
 property, a comfortable home where most of the 
 
 K2 
 
148 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 necessaries of life are obtained at producers' 
 prices, and a freedom from that need to study 
 the feelings and prejudices of customers to which 
 most professions and trades are exposed. The 
 farmer is master of his position, has a certain 
 weight in his parish and neighbourhood, and is 
 looked up to by the people in his employment. 
 Men in all ranks of life in these islands are 
 attracted by the occupation of a country life. 
 When they become rich enough they buy land, 
 or if they cannot afford to buy they hire it. 
 There is thus a constant pressure of competition 
 to which the tenant-farmer is exposed, and from 
 which, as years go by, it is impossible he can 
 escape, except by becoming an owner of land, 
 or by securing himself in a lengthened leasehold 
 tenure. No tenancy-at-will, or with a year's 
 notice, however favourable the conditions of 
 compensation for unexhausted improvements, 
 can give the farmer security beyond the year. 
 The Agricultural Holdings Bill, with two instead 
 of one year's notice, would be a vast improve- 
 ment on the common practice of yearly tenancy, 
 and, if made compulsory, would place land- 
 
INCREASING PRESSURE OF COMPETITION. 149 
 owners and their tenants in a safer position His duty 
 
 to protect 
 
 to encounter foreign competition. But the himself by 
 
 a definite 
 
 sooner the principle of security of possession for and length- 
 ened term. 
 
 a definite and lengthened term becomes also 
 generally recognised in England, the better will 
 it be for the individual and public interests. 
 Writing with the responsibility of a practical 
 experience of forty years, and with a general 
 knowledge both personally and officially of the 
 agriculture of the United Kingdom, and of the 
 relations between landlord and tenant, I venture 
 with all becoming respect for the opinions of 
 others, to say with confidence that the good 
 understanding which has hitherto as a rule 
 protected the English farmer under a yearly 
 tenancy, will not for many years longer be able increasing 
 
 pressure of 
 
 to withstand the inevitable pressure of home and competi- 
 tion, 
 foreign competition. However unpalatable the 
 
 truth, the relation is and must become one of 
 business, and not merely of mutual confidence. 
 
 There are two modes, as I have said, of 
 meeting the difficulty, and we may shortly con- 
 sider the first, that of the tenant becoming 
 himself the owner of his farm. The Irish Land 
 
150 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 Facilities Act provides for such a change, and it has been 
 
 given by 
 
 Govern- recommended by an influential committee of 
 
 ment for 
 
 purchase the House of Commons that enlarged facilities 
 
 in Ireland. 
 
 for this object should be afforded in that country 
 
 by an increased proportion of the price being 
 
 advanced out of the public Treasury. If the 
 
 Ifextended security for repayment of the advance is good 
 
 to England 
 
 and Scot- in Ireland, it would be doubly good in Eng- 
 land would 
 be more land and Scotland, and if the infusion amongst 
 
 rapidly ap- 
 propriated, the body of landowners in the sister country 
 
 of some proportion of the Irish tenantry is 
 regarded as beneficial, much more would such 
 advantageous results be likely to be secured 
 by the addition of a body of more educated 
 and enterprising agriculturists to the landlords 
 of Great Britain. There is not a single reason 
 in favour of exceptional aid from the public 
 Treasury for Ireland that is not equally ap- 
 plicable to the rest of the United Kingdom, 
 and, if such aid can be given without injury 
 to other interests, the extension of the " Bright 
 Clauses " of the Irish Land Act to England 
 and Scotland would be followed by a much more 
 rapid appropriation of their advantages to the 
 
BUYING OR LEASING LAND. 151 
 
 farmer than they have yet met with in Ireland. 
 There are landed estates in almost every county 
 in Great Britain coming from time to time into 
 the market, which are not sufficiently residential 
 to attract great capitalists, but which would be 
 very eligible investments for resident tenant- 
 farmers, if they were placed on a par with their 
 Irish brethren in the facilities offered by the 
 Legislature for finding capital to buy them. 
 Outside of such exceptional assistance a British 
 farmer can still employ his limited capital to 
 greater advantage by hiring farms than by 
 buying them. 
 
 The second mode will probably, therefore, be 
 found in the end the most generally applicable, 
 viz., that of a lengthened leasehold tenure. 
 Time is required in the operations of agriculture. Time 
 
 essential in 
 
 Drainage, clean cultivation, manures of the the opera- 
 tions of 
 
 more lasting kind, and the costly and skilful agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 formation of a suitable live-stock, each demand 
 a considerable period of years for profitable 
 realisation. A well-organised farm is not only 
 the source of employment to the labour and 
 trades of the neighbourhood, but a school of 
 
152 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 practical education in which these are trained in 
 the details of work, and become apt in the 
 execution of the views of their employer. Both 
 employer and employed form family connections 
 and local associations, and have their due place 
 in the economy of the parish and district. 
 These should not be liable to be lightly broken 
 by the act of an inconsiderate landowner or his 
 agent. In some English counties, and notably 
 on the Crown estates in various parts of the 
 country, and on Lord Leicester's fine farms in 
 Norfolk, leases of twenty and twenty-one years 
 have long been given. 
 
 The system may be said to be universal in 
 Scotland, where the principle has been recognised 
 for several generations. In Ireland, as has been 
 previously shown, leases for lives, leases for ever 
 even, are not uncommon, but the rule now 
 becoming general is that of leases for twenty- 
 Security one or thirty-one years. In farms under ;ioo 
 
 against 
 
 disturb rental, where no lease for the usual statutory 
 
 ance in 
 
 Ireland. term of years is given, there is a security 
 against " disturbance " or removal, by very 
 stringent conditions upon the landowner, under 
 
EARL OF LEICESTER'S LEASE. 153 
 
 the late Irish Land Act. No such legal obliga- 
 tions are imposed in England or Scotland, 
 where, on this very important point, the farmer 
 is left, like other members of the community, 
 to make his own bargain. 
 
 The example of a lease which is equitable Lord 
 
 Leicester's 
 
 to both sides, and under which the farmer lease an 
 
 admirable 
 
 obtains reasonable security to continue good example in 
 
 its chief 
 
 cultivation from the commencement to the close, features, 
 is to be found in the farm lease of the Earl of 
 Leicester. It fully recognises that continuance 
 of interests to which I have referred, but most 
 properly leaves both parties free to withdraw which 
 
 admit of 
 
 from the contract at its termination. The freedom of 
 
 manage- 
 
 tenancy is for twenty years from the nth day of merit, and 
 
 provide for 
 
 October. It is to be terminable at the end of renewal 
 
 without 
 
 sixteen years, at the request of the tenant and exposure 
 
 to undue 
 
 with the consent of the landlord, the intention c . om P e ti- 
 
 tion. 
 
 being that, if both parties desire it, a new lease 
 may be granted from the end of the sixteenth 
 year for a fresh term of twenty years, at the old 
 rent for the first four (which completes the 
 original term), and for the remainder at such a 
 rent as may be agreed on. The tenant is to 
 
154 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 cultivate and manage the farm during the first 
 sixteen years according to his own judgment, 
 and to dispose of the produce as he finds best. 
 A power is reserved to interpose if this freedom 
 should be misused. During the last four years, 
 if a renewed lease is not entered upon, he is to 
 bring the farm into the ordinary four-course or 
 Norfolk system, with proper conditions of pay- 
 ment for unexhausted manures. He is to 
 effectually destroy all rabbits on his farm, 
 and other usual conditions, adapted to local 
 circumstances complete the arrangement. The 
 leading principle of this admirable lease is 
 applicable to all parts of the United Kingdom. 
 It supplies the great defect of most leases, 
 and especially those of Scotland, in giving 
 entire freedom to the action of the farmer 
 in the cultivation and disposal of the produce 
 up to four years preceding the termination, 
 when an opportunity is given to both to 
 consider the question of renewal. If that 
 is satisfactorily arranged, the same freedom of 
 management continues, and the farmer is not 
 exposed to that harassing competition, the 
 
THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 155 
 
 fear of which compels him to reduce the con- 
 dition of his land in the closing years of his 
 tenancy. If, on the other hand, it is found 
 expedient that a change should be made, 
 the farm is brought into the usual course of 
 husbandry. 
 
 In regard to the future of the third branch The 
 
 Labourer. 
 
 of the landed interests, the agricultural labourer, 
 his prospects will now harmonise with the 
 general prosperity of the country, and the 
 standard of wages. There is no impediment 
 in his way to move to a better field of employ- 
 ment, either in this country or abroad. Great 
 encouragement is offered, and cheap transit, 
 to agricultural labourers, by several of the 
 colonies. The extensive use of machinery His work 
 
 lightened 
 
 in the processes of farming has greatly and in- 
 telligence 
 lightened the severity of labour, and stimulated 
 
 by extend- 
 
 stimulated the intelligence of the workman, ed use of 
 
 machinery. 
 
 Co-operative farming has been much recom- 
 mended, but in one instance only, that I 
 have heard of, successfully carried into 
 practice. The labourer is now much more 
 
156 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 independent of local employment, and his 
 position in a wealthy country like this will 
 enable him in its future progress to obtain 
 his due share of the rewards of industry and 
 skill. The extension to the counties of house- 
 hold suffrage will, ere long, give him that 
 political position to which he is equally entitled 
 with his brethren, the artisans and labourers, 
 who are householders in towns. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS. 
 
 SINCE the last edition of this work appeared, we The bar- 
 
 vest of 
 have had in the harvest of 1879 the worst crop 1879 the 
 
 worst in 
 
 in the memory of the present generation of modern 
 
 experi- 
 
 farmers. The wheat crop of 1853 was perhaps 
 less in bulk per acre ; but it was better in 
 quality, and the extent was one fourth greater. 
 After deducting seed, it yielded one-half more 
 food than that of 1879, a l ar g e proportion of 
 which was unfit for bread. The importations of 
 1853-4 were six million quarters, and the 
 average price 725. The population was six 
 millions less than at present, but the quantity 
 available for consumption was only 4j bushels 
 per head. It has never since fallen so low. 
 After the abundant crop of 1868, when the 
 population was three millions greater than in 
 1853, there was over six bushels per head, and 
 the price had fallen to 483. With the excep- 
 tion of 1870 and 1874, the history of the home 
 
158 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 wheat crop since 1868 has been one of diminish- 
 ing acreage, and acreable produce, but attended 
 by such increasing importations as have kept the 
 supply close upon six bushels a head. 
 
 Nothing like the present depression among 
 the farmers has been seen since the repeal of 
 the corn laws. There have not before been 
 so many farms thrown on the market, and 
 never till now in our time have been seen in 
 England farms tenantless and uncultivated. 
 The continued rain and low temperature of 
 1879 not only acted destructively on the corn 
 and green crops, but damaged the hay crop be- 
 yond measure, and over many English counties 
 left behind it the seeds of disease, which, in 
 the winter and spring carried off by rot many 
 thousands of the sheep stock. The inferior 
 quality of the fodder crops shows itself in the 
 reduced condition of all kinds of live stock. 
 In nine years there have been seven defective 
 harvests, the last culminating in intensity, and 
 including in its grasp a portion of the animal 
 in addition to the vegetable produce of the 
 land. It is no comfort to the British farmer 
 
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION. 159 
 
 to be told that there is similar depression in the 
 agricultural districts of France and Germany, nor 
 is it any satisfaction to him to hear of the rapid 
 growth of agricultural wealth in the Western 
 States across the Atlantic, the competition of 
 which has prevented that rise of price which 
 has hitherto been some compensation to him for 
 unfavourable harvests. In England itself, where 
 the bulk of the wheat crop of the kingdom 
 is grown, there has been lost in the last ten 
 years, by unfavourable seasons, a fourth more 
 than a whole year's wheat crop ; a loss of over 
 thirty millions sterling to the British wheat 
 growers, which has heavily crippled their re- 
 sources. 
 
 That loss which has been brought upon us Produc- 
 tion of 
 by natural causes we may trust to nature with America 
 
 stimulated. 
 
 time to repair. But the agriculture of America 
 has been stimulated in an extraordinary degree 
 by the rising demand occasioned by this long- 
 continued diminution in our own crops, and 
 in those of Western Europe generally. The 
 magnitude which this has attained within the 
 last twenty years is shown by the average 
 
i6o 
 
 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 exports for the first half of that period com- 
 pared with those of the last. Wheat has in- 
 creased three-fold, Indian corn four-fold. But 
 the increase in the last three years has been un- 
 precedented. The United States have at pre- 
 sent ten times the acreage of wheat compared 
 with that of the United Kingdom. They pro- 
 duce double the quantity of corn of all kinds 
 compared with that of England and France 
 together. They have twice the number of 
 horses, one third more cattle, and nearly four 
 times more hogs than both countries. The 
 following table shows this in detail : 
 
 PRODUCE OF CORN IN BUSHELS, AND NUMBERS OF 
 LIVE STOCK, IN 1878. 
 
 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 France. 
 
 United States. 
 
 Wheat 
 
 102,000,000 
 
 240,000,000 
 
 420,000,000 
 
 Barley 
 
 82,000,000 
 
 52,000,000 
 
 42,000,000 
 
 Oats 
 
 160,000,000 
 
 210,000,000 
 
 413,000,000 
 
 Maize 
 
 
 216,000,000 
 
 1,388,000,000 
 
 Horses and Mules 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 2,900,000 
 
 12,651,000 
 
 Cattle 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 1 1 , 6OO, OOO 
 
 33,220,000 
 
 Sheep 
 
 32,500,000 
 
 26,000,000 
 
 38, 173,000 
 
 Pigs 
 
 3,768,000 
 
 5,232,000 
 
 34,734,000 
 
 In addition to these vast products the people 
 of the United States raise cotton, tobacco, and 
 sugar, worth nearly fifty millions sterling. 
 
THE "FERTILE BELT" OF THE GREAT WEST. 161 
 
 This prodigious development of agricultural 
 wealth has practically an unlimited power of 
 expansion. For, in addition to the vast areas 
 of the United States still untouched by ad- 
 vancing agriculture, there is the great region 
 of Manitoba and the " fertile belt " of North 
 Western Canada, stretching in a block of fertile 
 land 700 miles westward from the Red River 
 of the North, watered by navigable rivers, in 
 extent many times larger than the British 
 Islands, with abundance of coal, now at last 
 brought into prominent notice by the Canadian 
 Government* 
 
 The war in America interrupted progress for 
 a time, but its attractions are now beginning to 
 be realised. A railway from Lake Superior to 
 the Red River is completed, and another in 
 progress which will tap the produce of this vast 
 region, and, after a run of 500 miles of land- 
 carriage, place it on board large steamers 
 which, traversing the lakes and the St. Law- 
 rence, will tranship it to ocean-going steamers 
 
 * See Appendix, page 181, for description of this new 
 country. 
 
 L 
 
1 62 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 for the ports of the United Kingdom. This is 
 rendered practicable by the works now in pro- 
 gress for widening and deepening the canals 
 which pass the navigation clear of Niagara and 
 the lower rapids of the river. And this, with 
 the economy of fuel effected by the improve- 
 ments in marine engines, has immensely 
 diminished the cost of transportation. The 
 The natu- natural protection which the British farmer 
 
 ral protec- 
 tion of long possessed fifteen years ago in the cost of 
 
 carriage is 
 
 bein s transport has thus been reduced, on the produce 
 
 gradually 
 
 reduced. o f an acre o f w heat, from 563. to 263. This is 
 still nearly equal to the rent, but the land, in 
 this country of old cultivation, must be regularly 
 manured and carefully and expensively culti- 
 vated ; while the farmers of those foreign lands 
 whose virgin soil is rich enough to yield corn for 
 many years in succession without manure, and 
 with little labour, are thereby able to compete 
 successfully with the British farmer in his own 
 market. It is the unexhausted natural fertility 
 of his soil which gives the advantage to the 
 prairie farmer of the north-west, and this is 
 constantly being aided by the increasing in- 
 
COMPETITION IN CORN AND MEAT. 163 
 
 genuity and enterprise of the engineer, ship- 
 builder, and shipowner. 
 
 And it is not in corn only, but also in all 
 kinds of animal produce that this competition 
 has to be met. The imports of animal produce 
 inclusive of wool, last year, exceeded sixty 
 millions in value, a sum closely approaching to 
 the entire land rental of this kingdom. The 
 imports of corn of all kinds during the last 
 three years give an annual average slightly 
 exceeding sixty millions in value. The enor- 
 mous volume already reached shows at once 
 that this country still affords the best market, 
 but also that, in the face of some decline 
 of price, there is no cessation of supply, the 
 reduction being met by scientific appliances 
 which minimise the cost of transport, and 
 lessen the risk of bringing fresh meat from 
 the great grazing grounds of America, North 
 and South, and the more distant plains of 
 Australia. A recent French patent has 
 proved that, without the direct use of ice, 
 the temperature of fresh meat can be kept so 
 
 reduced that it is beginning to be transported 
 L 2 
 
164 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 with safety from the most remote fields of 
 production. 
 
 The seasons in the United States during the 
 last few years have been the most productive 
 ever known. The yield of wheat and Indian 
 corn has been unprecedented, and this has been 
 concurrent with fair prices and a ready European 
 market, the home supply in which has been con- 
 tracted by unfavourable seasons. But though 
 this has encouraged the building of railways 
 A fall in still further west, and the extension of wheat 
 
 price in 
 
 America and corn cultivation, it is a remarkable fact that, 
 
 has been 
 
 met by in the last sixteen years, while the average price 
 
 larger 
 
 acreage of o f both has fallen in the latter half of that period 
 
 corn, and 
 
 increased ^ o to A.O per cent., the acreage has increased 50 
 
 produc- 
 
 to 60, the average yield per acre in both cases 
 continuing the same. As yet the prairie-land 
 shows no sign of exhaustion, and that not in 
 the newly-broken lands only, but also in those 
 which have been in continued cultivation for a 
 considerable time. In the comparatively old 
 State of Illinois the yield of wheat per acre 
 has never been higher than in the last three 
 years. It is now twenty-two years since Pro- 
 
THE AMERICAN CROPS, 165 
 
 fessor Voelcker analysed for me four samples 
 of prairie soils from Illinois, which proved richer 
 in nitrogen than any of which he could find 
 record. It is thus not merely the vast extent 
 of corn land, but its highly productive quality, 
 that European agriculture must in future com- 
 pete with. 
 
 The American wheat crop of 1878 was 
 52,000,000 quarters four times that of a full 
 crop in the United Kingdom. That of 1879 
 was still greater, and the extent sown in the 
 present year is reported at 13 per cent, increase ; 
 and the coming crop on the Pacific slope pro- 
 mises to be the largest ever grown. Their 
 production of Indian corn is more than three 
 times greater than that of wheat, the crop of 
 1878 having yielded 173,000,000 quarters, capable, 
 if used solely for that purpose, of feeding four 
 times the population of the United States. It 
 chiefly contributes to the food of the 500,000 
 tons of pork packed and cured yearly, of which 
 considerably more than one-half comes to this 
 
 country. 
 
 The competition to which not only British 
 
1 66 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 but European agriculture is thus exposed in- 
 cludes nearly all the principal articles of con- 
 sumption. The enlarged demand of Western 
 Europe, during a period of unproductive seasons, 
 has been met by a correspondingly increased 
 development in America of her western agricul- 
 ture, favoured by a succession of good seasons. 
 This equalising of supply has been of immense 
 benefit to the consuming classes in Europe, who 
 in recent times of depression of trade must other- 
 wise have been sorely pressed. American states- 
 men recognise in it what they term a revolution in 
 America the economic conditions of European agricultural 
 
 expects to 
 
 be able to industry. They see that, though their home 
 
 control the 
 
 European consumption is increasing, it is not so to any- 
 
 corn trade. 
 
 thing like the extent necessary to absorb their 
 enormous increase of crops. America, they say, 
 is rapidly gaining control of this trade, and can 
 maintain it even at the unprecedentedly low 
 prices there of 33. 3d. a bushel, or 2 2s. an 
 acre, for " this cheapness is the result of their 
 abundance, which thus enables them to transport 
 grain across the ocean, and undersell the farmers 
 of the high-priced lands of Europe." 
 
MANITOBA AND THE SASKATCHEWAN. 167 
 
 The Canadian Government have circulated 
 widely in this country certain reports of tenant- 
 farmers delegated from Scotland and the north 
 of England to visit, during last autumn, the 
 great " wheat-growing belt " of Manitoba and the 
 Saskatchewan. These gentlemen, all of them 
 men selected for skill and judgment, speak in 
 the most confident terms of the unequalled 
 productive quality of the soil, and the ease with Fertility of 
 which it can be cultivated. The question of 
 rent in this country, they say, will always be 
 more than met by the cost of transport ; but as 
 the natural produce of an acre there is equal to 
 that here, which has to be constantly kept up 
 to the mark by costly expenditure, it is in this 
 cheapness of production that the advantage is 
 found to lie. Wheat can be grown with a profit 
 there at a price which will admit of it being de- 
 livered at Liverpool for 35. 6d. to 45. a bushel ; 
 beef, from Canada and the United States, at 6d. 
 to /d. a pound ; and cheese of fine quality at 
 6d. With the exception of wheat, which, since 
 the establishment of Free Trade, has never fallen 
 below an average price of 5s., these prices were 
 
1 68 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 common in this country twenty-five years ago. 
 But the cost of production has since that time 
 very considerably increased. Rent and rates 
 have risen, and the cost of maintenance and 
 repairs. Wages have increased to the individual, 
 but labour-saving machines have fully met this 
 advance. I have now before me the accounts 
 of a large corn farm within twenty miles of 
 London, on which the labour bill averages 523. 
 an acre, from which it has very little varied, and 
 not increased, for twenty years. If that land is 
 to be kept in its present management, the cost 
 of labour cannot be much altered. Higher farm- 
 ing has induced heavier expenditure in feeding 
 stuffs and manure. We have been forcing the 
 ground in this country beyond its natural power, 
 and so long as the cost of transport from abroad 
 exceeded the cost of this operation it was profit- 
 able. The average yield of wheat per acre in 
 America has been twelve bushels, against which 
 our superior produce of twenty-eight bushels, 
 plus the cost of transport, afforded us a safe 
 margin. But this " fertile belt " of the Canadian 
 north-west is said to give naturally a crop of 
 
'<&> 
 
 " ' / J * 
 
 CHANGE IMPENDING. '/ 169 ' / 
 
 // ** 
 
 wheat equal to ours ; and if that prove.s/ t;o 
 true, and when measures are completed 
 shall place it in this country, with profit to the 
 grower, at 33. 6d. a bushel, that margin will be 
 gone. We must then turn to articles which will 
 bear neither long storage nor carriage milk, 
 early wheat, vegetables, hay, straw, potatoes, 
 sugar beet, grass farms, dairying, and market 
 gardening. As the summer heat on those 
 north-western plains ripens barley and oats too 
 rapidly, there is still hope for them, and for 
 sheep, because there will be less pressure of 
 competition against them, and because the barley 
 and the sheep go well together. 
 
 We must not deceive ourselves. A great 
 change in the agricultural position is impending. 
 The older States on the eastern seaboard of 
 America are rapidly going out of cultivation by 
 the competition of the richer virgin soils of the 
 west. That competition is nearer to our doors 
 now, by the cheapening of transport, than it was 
 to theirs twenty years ago. The time has come 
 when it must be promptly met, if we would 
 avoid the same fate. The control of the " dead 
 
170 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 hand " must be removed. All the interests in 
 land, whether of owner, occupier, or labourer 
 should be disenthralled, and left free to make 
 the best of their position. In those new 
 countries land can be bought and transferred in 
 the land-office in a few minutes, and at little 
 cost. Trusts, and the Law Courts hamper it 
 here. A man can neither buy nor sell land 
 without the help of the lawyers, and the possi- 
 bility of a lawsuit. That is the reason why 
 agricultural land in this country sells at a lower 
 price than in France or Holland.* It was 
 
 * "A measure which would not only permit the sale of 
 encumbered estates, but facilitate and simplify the transfer 
 of land, would be more beneficial to all concerned than any 
 question connected with agriculture that has yet engaged the 
 attention of the legislature. We have the experience of neigh- 
 bouring countries to show that their system of registering real 
 property, and the comparatively cheap cost of transferring 
 it, makes it the most eligible security either for purchase or 
 loan. In this country, on the contrary, consols are the most 
 available security. The owner of real property who is in 
 need of temporary assistance finds himself embarrassed at 
 every step by technical difficulties of title and legal doubts, 
 which compel him to pay a high rate of interest or abandon 
 the attempt altogether. These expensive, and sometimes in- 
 extricable, doubts and difficulties are the cause of the market 
 price of land in this country being lower than on the continent. 
 
EVILS OF LIMITED OWNERSHIP. 171 
 
 shown by the Prime Minister in one of his great 
 speeches in Scotland that the value and tax- Cause of 
 
 value of 
 
 able income from land had risen with greater land rising 
 
 more 
 
 rapidity in France than in England, and he rapidly in 
 
 France 
 
 attributed this chiefly to its much greater sub- than in 
 
 England. 
 
 division in the hands of a small proprietary, and 
 to the more garden-like cultivation of the land 
 under this system. Now this embraces the two 
 qualities in which the position of the landowner 
 and tenant-farmer in this country is most de- 
 fective. The landowner, tied up by settlement, 
 cannot improve his property except through a 
 costly and cumbrous process, and the capital of 
 the farmer cannot yet be expended in cultiva- 
 tion with the same security as that of the 
 peasant proprietor. Put an end to limited The cure 
 
 for this. 
 
 ownership, give the occupying tenant the con- 
 trol of ground game, and make that portion of 
 his capital which cannot be removed from the 
 soil secure. Encumbered and unwieldy estates 
 
 We see no reason to doubt that, if the transfer of land were 
 simplified, its value might be increased by at least five years' 
 purchase, a rise in value which would free many an em- 
 barrassed landlord from his difficulties." Caird's "English 
 Agriculture" 1851. 
 
172 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 will be broken up and sub-divided, out of which, 
 if there is a demand for them, numerous small 
 properties may be formed. Land will become 
 more valuable when it becomes possible to pass 
 it easily from hand to hand. And the substitu- 
 tion of active and intelligent landowners, whose 
 chief interest would be engaged in rendering 
 their farms fully productive, either in their own 
 hands or in those of tenant-farmers whose 
 capital, when wisely expended, would be subject 
 only to ordinary trade risk, would lead to rapid 
 improvement. 
 
 When this has been accomplished, the landed 
 interest will be better able to meet the coming 
 change. Within ten years it is expected that 
 the Canada Pacific Railway will be completed, 
 and will tap the " fertile belt " by that, or by 
 a shorter route, open for at least three months 
 of the year from Port Nelson by Hudson's Bay. 
 Whatever may be the result on the value of land 
 in this country, nothing probably can stop the 
 inevitable outflow to it of a considerable pro- 
 portion of our agricultural strength. A territory 
 of great fertility, better adapted for the pro- 
 
NEW FIELD FOR EMIGRATION. 173 
 
 duction of wheat than the United States, healthy, 
 and entirely suited to the British people, within 
 a short and pleasant passage of a fortnight, will 
 open to the farmers and labourers of those king- 
 doms prospects which they do not yet fully 
 realise. Many difficult social problems, gradually 
 growing into prominence, will here find a natural, 
 solution. Workers of every class in the old 
 country, who have been growing up uneasy, and 
 discontented with the difficulty of supporting 
 their families, may there plant themselves on a 
 homestead, where no preliminary clearance of 
 forest, as in the older settlements in Canada, is 
 required, but on which with little labour, and 
 that of the simplest kind, they can in the first 
 season extract from the rich soil abundance 
 of food. The movement is begun ; labourers 
 and farmers' sons, carrying some capital with 
 them, are preparing to go. It may be five years 
 or it may be ten before the full current sets 
 in, which, before it ceases to flow, will alter 
 the existing conditions of agricultural pro- 
 perty in this country. As a state we shall 
 be richer by the abundance of cheap food, 
 
174 THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 purchased from our thriving countrymen in the 
 north-west with the produce of our mines, our 
 manufactories, and workshops. The residential 
 advantages of this country will tend to maintain 
 the capital value of the land, which, with its 
 equable and healthy climate, its varied scenery, 
 and admirable combination of liberty and order 
 will have the further attraction of having be- 
 come one of the cheapest in which to live. 
 But its agricultural character will be changed. 
 Pasture will, over wide districts, have taken the 
 place of arable. This is now going on, and it 
 proceeds with greatest speed on the side of the 
 country best suited to grass. But this change 
 may not in the end prove injurious. The grass 
 counties yield a better rent and higher rate of 
 wages, with a smaller poor rate, than the corn 
 counties. On the line drawn by the author* 
 thirty years ago, separating the corn and grass 
 counties, the corn crops have in ten years 
 decreased by 3 per cent, in the former, and 
 10 per cent in the latter. In Ireland they have 
 diminished nearly 19 per cent. In all cases the 
 
 * Caird's "English Agriculture," 1851. 
 
CONCLUSION. 175 
 
 diminution has been chiefly in wheat, which has 
 fallen 16 per cent, in England, and nearly 40 per 
 cent, in Scotland and Ireland. The people are 
 at the same time altering rapidly in the propor- 
 tion in which they use bread and meat. Bakers' 
 shops are diminishing, and butchers' shops in- 
 creasing. Vegetables fresh from our own fields, 
 or brought by fast steamers from the ports of 
 the neighbouring continent, are more and more 
 displacing bread. That proportion which thirty 
 years ago the richer classes in this country alone 
 could afford to spend on other articles of house- 
 hold consumption than bread, is being rapidly 
 reached by the working class. Our agriculture 
 must adapt itself to the change, freely accepting 
 the good it brings, and skilfully using the ad- 
 vantages which greater proximity to the best 
 market must always command. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE following Tables have been carefully 
 compiled from authentic sources and Parlia- 
 mentary Returns, and may be found useful for 
 reference : 
 
 Table showing the Rent of Cultivated Land, the Price 
 of Provisions, the Wages of the Agricultural 
 Labourer, the Rent of Cottages, and the average 
 Produce of Wheat, in three periods during the 
 last hundred years in England. 
 
 
 1770. 
 
 1850. 
 
 1880. 
 
 Rent of Cultivated Land per acre 
 
 s d. 
 13 o 
 
 s. d. 
 
 27 o 
 
 s. d. 
 
 30 o 
 
 Price of Bread per Ib 
 
 o xj 
 
 o ii 
 
 l\ 
 
 Meat ,, 
 
 o 3i 
 
 o 5 
 
 o 9 
 
 Butter ,, 
 
 o 6 
 
 I 
 
 i 8 
 
 Agricultural Labourer's Wages per week 
 
 7 3 
 
 9 7 
 
 14 o 
 
 Rent of Labourer's Cottage ,, 
 
 o 8 
 
 i 5 
 
 2 
 
 Produce of Wheat, per acre, in bushels 
 
 Bushels. 
 23 
 
 Bushels. 
 96} 
 
 Bushels. 
 28 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
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 '79 
 
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i8o 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Table showing the Annual Yield of Wheat per acre 
 in the United Kingdom during each of the last 
 thirty years, and in three periods of ten years each, 
 reckoning 28 bushels as an average crop, and 
 representing that by the number 100. 
 
 Produce per Acre. 
 
 
 Each Year. 
 
 In Ten Years. 
 
 184.0 
 
 I2Q 
 
 
 1850 
 
 I O2 
 
 
 i8c;i 
 
 no 
 
 
 l8C2 
 
 7Q 
 
 
 iScjQ 
 
 71 
 
 
 181x4 
 
 127 
 
 
 i8cc 
 
 06 
 
 
 i8c;6 
 
 y 
 
 96 
 
 
 i8c7 
 
 124 
 
 
 !8c8 
 
 116 
 
 
 
 
 
 igro 
 
 02 
 
 1,044 
 
 !86o 
 
 78 
 
 
 1861 . 
 
 92 
 
 
 !862 
 
 1 08 
 
 
 1863 
 
 141 
 
 
 1864 
 
 127 
 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 no 
 9 
 
 
 1867 
 
 74 
 
 
 1868 
 
 126 
 
 
 
 
 I 038 
 
 1869 
 
 1 02 
 
 
 1870 
 
 112 
 
 
 1871 
 
 9 
 
 
 1872 
 
 92 
 
 
 1873 
 
 80 
 
 
 1874 
 
 106 
 
 
 1875 
 
 78 
 
 
 1876 
 
 76 
 
 
 1877 
 
 74 
 
 
 !878 
 
 108 
 
 
 
 
 018 
 
 In 30 years.... 
 ^879 
 
 3,000 
 
APPENDIX. 1 8 1 
 
 THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY OF CANADA. 
 
 IN 1859 I published a small volume on American 
 Prairie-farming, in which I gave the following account 
 of this region, which is now coming into prominent 
 notice : 
 
 "There is a subject much agitated in Canada at 
 present, and which is also of national importance, the 
 opening of a direct route through the British territory 
 from Canada to the Pacific. Hitherto, the vast territory 
 proposed to be opened up by this route has been 
 represented to be unsuited by climate for settlement, 
 and capable of producing only furs and hides. It has 
 been so used by the Hudson's Bay and North-west 
 Companies ever since the French were expelled from 
 Canada. And the urgent efforts of Lord Selkirk, so 
 early as 1805, to colonise a tract which from his 
 personal knowledge he estimated as capable of sup- 
 porting thirty millions of people, were by a combination 
 of obstructions and disasters finally extinguished in 
 favour of the fur trade. More recent investigation has 
 shown that the climate is not unfavourable to settle- 
 ment, the summer temperature on the Saskatchewan 
 being the same as in the fertile region of Northern 
 Illinois and Southern Wisconsin, while the buffalo 
 winters in the belts of woodland on these northern 
 
1 82 APPENDIX. 
 
 rivers as safely as in the latitude of St. Paul's. It is 
 said that all the grains of the cool, temperate latitudes 
 can be produced abundantly. It is the great resort 
 of the buffalo herds, the presence of which in vast 
 numbers sufficiently attest the plentiful supply of grass 
 on the plains at all seasons.. Those who take perhaps 
 a sanguine view of the subject, assert that there is 
 here a country four times the size of the British 
 Islands, with a fertile soil, navigable rivers, and 
 abundance of coal, now almost wholly unoccupied, which 
 is perfectly adapted to settlement. They compare the 
 state of this unnoticed territory to that of Europe at 
 the period of the earliest Roman expansion, when 
 Gaul, Scandinavia, and Britain were regarded as in- 
 hospitable regions fit only for barbarians, and antici- 
 pate an early rush of colonists from the old country to 
 seize upon its natural advantages. 
 
 " The evidence is sufficiently strong to show that 
 this vast region ought no longer to be left unknown 
 and unexamined. An exploring party is said to have 
 already visited the sources of the South Saskatchewan, 
 and there must be abundance of information regarding 
 the whole territory in the possession of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company. The descendants of the first colony 
 planted by Lord Selkirk in 1812 still maintain their 
 ground on the Red River, though they have ex- 
 perienced many vicissitudes, chiefly by plagues of 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 grasshoppers, which have more than once nearly 
 destroyed their crops. Notwithstanding these cala- 
 mities, and though they have no market for their 
 produce beyond a small demand by the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, the Selkirk settlement is in a flourishing 
 condition. 
 
 "I had the pleasure of meeting at St. Paul's (250 
 miles from the Red River) Mr. Kitson, the Mayor of 
 that city, a man of great intelligence, who is engaged in 
 the fur trade at Pembina, on the American side ot 
 the boundary line at Red River. He has been at 
 the British settlement during all seasons of the 
 year, and knows no country in which the people 
 live such an abundant and easy life: their farms 
 extend for 30 miles along the river; with very 
 little labour they produce everything that they re- 
 quire ; the rivers and lakes swarm with fish, and 
 the land has an abundance of game. But the 
 summer is short and the winter long. The chief 
 danger in the climate arises from early frost, which 
 sometimes prevents the corn from ripening. The 
 crops, however, are rarely lost from this cause. The 
 grasshoppers are more to be feared. But the popula- 
 tion increases. Mr. Kitson had never been on the 
 Saskatchewan, but had often heard the country de- 
 scribed as very fertile. The soil in all that country 
 that he had seen is a rich black loam, and near the 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 rivers there is timber. The country as far as the 
 Rocky Mountains, 700 miles, is said to be so level 
 that the journey may be made the whole way in a 
 carriage." 
 
 Professor Voelcker described the general cha- 
 racter of four Prairie soils he analysed for me in 1858 
 as " very rich in nitrogenised organic matter. In- 
 deed, I have never analysed before soils which con- 
 tained so much nitrogen, nor do I find any records 
 of soils richer in nitrogen. It is this large amount of 
 nitrogen, and the beautiful state of division, that 
 impart a peculiar character to these soils, and dis- 
 tinguish them so favourably." 
 
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