Market Conditions and Production 79 



These figures show clearly that the position of the working 

 classes, regarded as consumers of bread and meat, had greatly im- 

 proved since 1880. 



What was saved on the more necessary articles of food could be 

 expended on other commodities, whether provisions or industrial 

 products. In the famine years of the Napoleonic wars white bread 

 had been a luxury to the English labourer, and meat a delicacy of 

 which he never dreamt. During the corn-law period white bread 

 became his ordinary food, but meat remained a luxury. Under Free 

 Trade bread and meat became his staple diet. But there remained 

 many articles of fare which were still luxuries, and many still un- 

 dreamt of by him. These it was which he began to consume after 

 1880. Chief of them were butter, new milk, fruit, poultry, eggs and 

 vegetables. As the well-being of the people increased they came to 

 form a regular and essential part of the labourer's diet. As Mr 

 Graham put it 1 , the man who forty years earlier had contented himself 

 with a chop now expected a chicken, and whereas then only the well- 

 to-do had dreamt of buying strawberries, millions of pounds were 

 now consumed in the cottages of working men. The same was true 

 of gooseberries, raspberries, apples and plums ; and of tomatoes, 

 cauliflowers and all other vegetables. Nor was the improvement in 

 dietary confined to the labouring classes : it extended to those in the 

 middle and upper ranks of society. The demand for meat of the 

 best quality increased ; in earlier times it had been a luxury enjoyed 

 by comparatively few rich people. Cream, too, came into much com- 

 moner use, till today the foreign visitor will find hardly a middle- 

 class household in which he will not be offered a jug of cream at 

 afternoon tea, and that of a quality which he would rarely meet in 

 Germany ! 



The growing demand for these particular products could only be 

 partly met, and in some cases could not be met at all, from abroad. 

 They offered a new field for home agricultural activity, now that the 

 production of corn and to some extent of meat had ceased to be 

 profitable. 



The first point to be aimed at was improvement in stock-farming. 

 The object was no longer to produce meat of medium quality, but 

 meat of first-class quality, and also butter, cheese, new milk and 

 cream. Pasture farming, instead of being combined with corn- 

 growing, became an end in itself. Permanent pasture increased from 



1 P. Anderson Graham, The Revival of English Agriculture, 1899, p. 9. 



