Agricultural Revolution 13 



emancipate the labourer from feeling those effects at all, which 

 everyone ought to bear his share of 1 ." As though dearth and a rise 

 in the price of necessaries had not always hit the labourer harder 

 than any other class ! 



It is evident that, as might have been supposed, real wages having 

 fallen, the diet of the great mass of the people was changed for the 

 worse. Even by 1773 veal, lamb, bacon and pork, poultry, butter and 

 eggs could be described as "dainties" or "delicacies 2 ." But the impossi- 

 bility of any longer obtaining such provisions was not the worst which 

 the labourer had to endure. Although even by working his hardest 

 he was often unable to earn enough to provide himself and his family 

 with bread 3 , the attempt was made forcibly to limit his use even of 

 this. Whereas in the course of the first sixty-five years of the 

 eighteenth century the use of the more nourishing wheaten bread had 

 been substituted for that of black bread, the aim now was to use any- 

 thing else possible in the place of wheat 4 . The most various means 

 occurred to people as serving this end. Most usually beans, barley or 

 rice were mixed with wheat flour so as to form a pudding, or rice- 

 bread was substituted for the wheaten-bread which had now become 

 a luxury 8 . In some cases, for lack of bread, labourers had to content 

 themselves with raw peas for their dinner 8 . Meantime, although the 

 dearness of corn meant poverty and misery to the people generally, 

 the growers of corn found their wealth increasing rapidly from 1760 

 onwards. 



Corn-growing, as prices rose, became a main object of the 

 agriculturist. The profitableness of land under wheat increased with 

 every shilling by which the price of the quarter increased. 



On the other hand the profitableness of live-stock and dairy and 

 garden produce was decreasing. The mass of the people became less 

 and less able to buy meat, butter, cheese, poultry, or fruit ; their 

 consumption of these commodities had to be diminished in proportion 

 as the price of bread rose and wages failed to rise correspondingly. 



1 W. Pitt, A General View of the Agriculture of Staffordshire, 1796, p. 158. 

 a (J. Arbuthnot), An Enquiry into the Connection between the present Price of Provisions 

 and the Size of Farms, 1773, pp. 18, 19. 



3 Duncumb, op. cit. p. 137. 



4 Annals of Agriculture, Vol. xxxv, 1800, p. 206 : " I have much pleasure in in- 

 forming you that a great number of gentlemen, tradesmen and others in this country have 

 adopted the plan of having no bread consumed at one meal in the day in their families ; and 

 have also begun to use one-third barley, and even that with the utmost economy." 



8 Ibid., pp. 19 ff., 54, and 37 ff. Cp. also Vol. XXXiv, p. 440. 



8 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, 1790, Vol. II, pp. 117-8. 



