Agricultural Revolution 23 



ceeding was the increase of rent 1 : and the very reason why this 

 consolidation of holdings was favoured by so many writers on the 

 subject was that they regarded the rise of rents as the clearest sign 

 of agricultural progress 2 . 



Nor was this the only gain to the landowners by the process of 

 "engrossing." At the present day much of the half-heartedness of 

 landlords over the question of small holdings is attributable to the 

 expenses they entail in buildings and repairs. In the eighteenth 

 century the same consideration contributed to quicken the progress 

 of consolidation*. The houses of the small holders were either pulled 

 down or used as dwelling-houses for the day-labourers demanded in 

 increasing numbers by the large farm system 4 . Very often, especially 

 in the case of the smaller cottages, they were simply allowed to fall 

 to pieces 6 . At any rate, the expense of repairs was lessened. Indeed, 

 even when the old buildings were still used as labourers' dwellings 

 they often received very little in the way of repairs. When one 

 became altogether uninhabitable, its occupants were simply turned 

 into another, so that finally three or four families would be found 

 inhabiting one of the old farmhouses'. 



Besides these two advantages to the landlord, namely the increase 

 of rent and the saving in cost of repairs, there was a third in the 

 greater ease with which rent was collected from a few large tenants 

 paying half-yearly, as compared with a large number of small men 

 with smaller capitals and consequently less able to pay regularly 7 . 



1 Davis, Wiltshire, p. 24: "The great object of consolidating farms is an increase of 

 rent." 



2 Billingsley, op. cit. p. 156 : "Let me ask the advocates for small farms, what occasioned 



that consolidation of them, which they so much reprobate Was it not because the large 



holders could afford to give more rent than the small? " 



8 Young, Farmer's Letters, pp. 119-20 : and Forbes, op. cit. p. 151. 



4 Report on Small Holdings, 1889, qu. 4032, and also qu. 6983. 



5 Strickland, op. cit. p. 42 : " It is much to be regretted, that the practice of suffering 

 cottages to fall to decay, and the disinclination to build new ones, should be so prevalent in 

 this part of the kingdom." Also Vancouver, op. cit. p. 98 : " In this district the cottages 

 are certainly in a state of alarming decrease." And Perry, op. cit. p. 20 : "A gentleman... 

 informed me, that in his native parish in Cambridgeshire, in 1803, forty-three fires were 

 extinguished, and as many comfortable cottages demolished, to each of which from two 

 to ten acres of land were attached, in order that a farm of 200 acres might be doubled 

 in size." 



8 Vancouver, op. cit. p. 94. 



7 Forbes, op. cit. pp. 151-2; and Kent, op. cit. p. 206. AlsoW. Pennington, Reflections 

 on the various advantages resulting from the draining, inclosing and allotting of large 

 commons, etc., 1769, p. 56. He sums up the reasons thus: "Engrossers generally give 

 more rent, and want less allowed, if anything at all, for repairs." 





