Agricultural Revolution 9 



Bread, accordingly, was cheap. Meantime, while this most im- 

 portant article of consumption 1 was at a low price, wages were rising 

 considerably. Whereas from 1660 to 1720 a day's wage would on the 

 average buy f of a peck of wheat, from 1720 to 1750 the fall of price 

 and rise of wage were such that a day's wage would purchase a whole 

 peck a . IMs increased purchasing power of wages would naturally 

 mean an increased consumption of agricultural produce on the part of 

 the working classes ; and in fact the social reformers of the end of the 

 century show that it was not only the upper classes who had increased 

 their consumption of meat, butter, eggs and poultry at this period, by 

 their complaint that now, in face of the rise in the price of corn, 

 labourers could no longer afford such articles. The complaints would 

 have no point if the people had not formerly, at the time when corn 

 was cheap, been accustomed to make these animal products an im- 

 portant part of their consumption. 



Thus it is very natural that nothing should be heard as to diffi- 

 culties of the small farmers in the first half of the eighteenth century. 

 The conditions of the market were favourable for their produce. And 

 the smallest holders, who worked outside their own holdings and did 

 not grow corn enough for their own needs, had the advantage of a 

 high wage, while the price of bread was lower than it had ever been 

 before. 



The large farmers, whose chief business as a rule was the sale of 

 corn, found their position less satisfactory. This was obviously the 

 result of the fall in the price of corn as compared with the end of the 

 seventeenth century. It was the old story, and one which was often 

 to be heard again. High prices had led to the breaking-up of land 

 hitherto unploughed, and rents had risen. Then, when with good 

 harvests prices fell, the farmers were unable to continue to pay the 

 rents based on the higher prices. Hence between 1715 and 1765 there 

 were frequent complaints from them of distress and from the land- 

 lords of the fall of rents which they had to endure. From 1731 to 

 1733 and again in the years just after 1740 these complaints are 

 particularly audible. But they always concern only corn-growing and 

 the arable farmer 3 . 



1 Wheaten bread became the most important article of food in the dietary of the labouring 

 classes during this period ; cp. the authorities cited by Tooke, op. cit. p. 60 ; and also M. Peters, 

 The Rational Farmer, 2nd ed. 1771, p. 118. 



' 2 Tooke, op. cit. p. 61. On the rise of wages along with falling corn-prices cp. Adam 

 Smith, Wealth of Nations, 2nd ed. 1817, Vol. I, p. 333; and Thorold Rogers, Work and 

 1885, p. 121. 



1 The causes of agricultural distress at this time may be clearly traced in various publica- 



