Agricultural Revolution 39 



agricultural progress could not deny that the extension of large 

 farming meant rural depopulation. The Earl of Selkirk attempted to 

 show that the marked emigration of Highlanders which began in the 

 last years of the eighteenth century was caused by the formation of 

 large farms 1 ; while Donaldson, a whole-hearted defender of the 

 system, said that the one unanswerable objection to the large farms 

 was the depopulation of the land 8 . 



The social evils which " the engrossing of farms " brought upon the 

 mass of the agricultural population called out a furious hatred in the 

 minds of the lower classes against the new development of agriculture, 

 with its large farms and division of the commons. The rise in the 

 price of corn from 1760 onwards was immediately followed by open 

 revolt and rioting on the part of the people 3 . They saw the large 

 farm system developing hand in hand with the rise in prices. Nothing 

 was more natural than to confuse effect with cause. While in reality 

 the increasing profits of arable farming led to the formation of large 

 holdings, it was assumed that the large holdings caused the prices of 

 provisions to rise. For centuries corn-merchants and middlemen had 

 been blamed when corn-prices went up, and accused of holding back 

 grain from the market. Innumerable laws had been passed to abate 

 the nuisance arising from these dangerous speculators 4 . The large 

 farmers were now compared to these hated "engrossers." It was 

 claimed that they too raised prices, seeing that as cultivators of such 

 large areas they were in a position to keep great quantities of corn 

 out of the market 5 . As "the engrossing of corn" had been attacked, 



extent ; by forcing cottagers from their hamlets ; by pretending to make much profit with little 

 labour ; the agricultural system has depopulated, and is depopulating, the shires wherein it 

 prevails." Also Peters (Agricultural, p. 171 : "By monopolizing farms, and dearness of 

 provisions, thousands are yearly emigrating" ; and Girdler, op. cit. p. 28 : " These industrious 

 people have been turned out of their possessions, and so deprived of their subsistence : or, if 

 they subsist at all, are obliged to exist as labourers and servants to those who have deprived 

 them of their livings and added them to larger farms ; or are driven from their native homes 

 to seek for bread in some populous town." 



1 Selkirk, op. cit. p. 94. 



2 Donaldson, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 405. Cp. also Holland, op. cit. pp. 95 f. ; Vancouver, 

 op. cit. p. 364 ; and Mavor, op. cit. p. 482. 



3 Chalmers, op. cit. pp. 323 f. In 1768 Arthur Young describes the condition of the 

 working classes "in those counties where the riots were most remarkable." A Six Weeks? 

 Tour through the Southern Counties, title-page. 



4 I.e. the laws against forestalling and engrossing. The series begins in the reign of 

 Henry III, and the laws were re-enacted by George III in 1766. See the Annual Register, 

 [766, p. 224; and Thaer, op. cit. pp. 121 f. 



5 Arbuthnot, op. cit. p. 14: "The general outcry which has been made against the great 

 farmer, for keeping his corn from the market, has not failed to inflame the minds of almost all 



