Agricultural Revolution 31 



decreasing as the profitableness of corn-growing increased. Many of 



them would be injured as consumers by the rising price of bread and 



flour, if, as in Lincolnshire, a holding of twenty acres was required to 



provide the necessary bread for a family in the bad years 1 . From 



these causes they would find their profits diminishing, though they 



might not be ruined. They were not forced to give up their holdings, as 



were the small tenant-farmers. But year by year they would find it more 



difficult to keep up their wonted standard of life, and it would appear 



impossible to improve their position in any way. Thus for example 



it was reported of the Derbyshire yeoman that " the smaller landowner 



(provincially "statesman")... finds his mind distracted how to preserve 



his estate, as well as the rank his father held, and how to improve his 



fortune on rational principles 2 ." They would look with envy at the 



flourishing estate of the capitalistic large farmer. They would see 



how he concentrated on the production of corn, and what increasing 



profits he drew from the sale of his wheat. They would see how the 



large farmer and even the tenant of a medium-sized holding came 



to attain the position of a gentleman, and could enjoy all modern 



comforts and allow himself all manner of expenditure on luxuries, 



while they themselves had to work harder than their forefathers for 



a smaller return. On the other hand, the price of land had risen 



enormously since 1760. The high corn-prices and the possibility of 



drawing high rents from arable holdings had produced a positive 



land-hunger in the upper classes 3 . The buying and selling of land 



had become a business in which some speculators succeeded in making 



thousands of pounds annually 4 . Even the large farmers often bought 



to add to the farms they already rented 5 . At the same time there 



was an increasing demand for land from persons who wanted to buy 



estates for the sake of their social and political advantages. The 



political influence bound up with the ownership of land, and its 



necessity for purposes of shooting and hunting, all helped to drive up 



its price even higher than its agricultural value had already made it. 



Again, it was the ambition of men who had made fortunes in trade or 



manufacture to raise themselves out of the position of parvenus into 



1 Vide supra, p. 17. 



2 Brown, Derbyshire, p. 14. 



3 See Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 6 ff. 



4 R. G. Welford, H<nv will Free Trade affect the Farmer? 1843, p. 31. 



5 Cp. e.g. J. Plymley, A General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire, 1803, p. 91 : 

 " The number of gentlemen of small fortune living on their estates has decreased... but then 

 the opulent farmer, who has purchased the farm he lives upon, and some smaller estate, 

 which he sets or holds, with the large one he before rented, is a character that has increased." 



