After the Repeal of the Corn-laws 57 



Agricultural Society, and of individuals J. B. Lawes, Pusey, Mechi 

 and Voelker. Instead of more or less exhausting the soil, as had 

 still been common even up to 1846, scientific analysis of its quality 

 was now undertaken, and the principle applied of replacing as far as 

 possible what was taken from it 1 . Lastly, the use of agricultural 

 machinery was rapidly and profitably extended*. In addition to 

 these efforts of their own, the farmers were helped in their attempt 

 to reduce cost of production by the cheapening of transport, and 

 especially by the great extension of the railway network. 



In regard of technical progress the agriculture of 1846 to 1879 

 stands in sharp contrast to that of the corn-law period. " The abo- 

 lition of the Corn Laws in 1846 may be taken as the critical date 

 in the history of the agriculture of the century," writes Professor 

 Somerville. " Since that time its progress has been steady, and for 

 many years its results were satisfactory*." 



But it is possible that not all these improvements together would 

 have made the great change which actually was achieved in English 

 agriculture if it had not been for another development, which may be 

 said to have appeared as altogether a new phenomenon after 1846. 

 Pasture-farming came to the front. Throughout the corn-law period 

 it had been a neglected branch of agriculture; but from 1846 onwards 

 it became an object of the greatest interest to farmers and land- 

 owners. Its profitableness increased continually, and contributed 

 essentially to the remarkable advance made by English agriculture 

 in the first thirty years of free trade. 



This success of pasture-farming depended on the greatly increased 

 demand for meat after the year 1846. English industry, which had 

 not only not increased its exports, but at times had even found them 

 diminishing between 1815 and 1846, experienced a great revival after 

 the abolition of the duties on the necessaries of life 4 . The imports of 

 foreign provisions were balanced by the export of the products of 

 home industries. The value of British and Irish exports rose from 

 47,284,488 in 1842 to 189,953,957 in 1869. Further, with the 

 increasing well-being of the working classes the effective demand of 

 the home market increased. Wages, both on the land and in the 



1 Caird, The Landed Interest, 1878, pp. 22 ff. 



2 Besides the authorities cited in Levy, op. cit., see also John Noble, Fiscal Legislation, 

 1842-1865, 1867, pp. 158-162. 



3 Wm. Somerville, Agricultural Progress in the Nineteenth Century, in The Bath and 

 West and Southern Counties Society 's Journal, Vol. XII (1902), p. 15. 



* Spencer Walpole, op. cit. Vol. v, pp. 151-153. 



