44 Large and Small Holdings 



that for labourers "to have one, two, or three acres... does a great deal 



of harm I consider it as one of the worst things that can or could 



happen to cultivation 1 ." Under these circumstances the movement 

 in favour of allotments naturally disappeared and left no trace 

 behind. 



A complete revolution in agricultural conditions had in fact been 

 brought about by the uninterrupted rise in the price of corn due to 

 the combined results of the bad harvests which ruled from 1760 

 onwards, the French wars lasting almost a quarter of a century, and 

 the Continental System. The enhanced price of corn had made 

 arable farming more profitable than any other branch of agricul- 

 ture. Accordingly the unit of holding most suitable for arable 

 farming, namely the large farm, became the rule. On the large 

 farm the methods and technique of wheat-cultivation were per- 

 fected to a degree which was the admiration and astonishment of 

 both English and continental agricultural experts. But the old 

 agricultural system had to be broken down before the new could be 

 built up. The small farms and peasant properties, and the little 

 holdings of the cottager and labourer, had to be sacrificed. The 

 industrious small agriculturist had to give way to the large farmer 

 possessed of capital and education. The distinction between manage- 

 ment and manual labour, hitherto almost unknown in agriculture, 

 became a visible fact. The small agriculturist had united both in his 

 own person. The large farm demanded the rise of a class of wage- 

 labourers obedient to the will of one organising mind. It thus led to 

 the development of the antagonism of class-interests on the land as 

 it exists at the present day. 



England was subjected to no such invasions as those which sacri- 

 ficed the continental country-people by the thousand to the ambition 

 of the great French conqueror. But nevertheless masses of its agri- 

 cultural population were brought from independence into social 

 slavery, not indeed by the power of the cannon, but by the power of 

 the plough. 



1 Annals, Vol. XXXVI, 1801, pp. 385 ff. ; and Billingsley, op. cit. p. 48. 



