20 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



brief sketch of the progress of British agriculture during 

 the fifty years 1846-96, and I will not attempt to go over 

 the same ground again. It was a period starting with the 

 most gloomy forebodings, for the Repeal of the Corn Laws 

 was commonly believed to be the end of all things agri- 

 cultural. In looking back we can see that it was an 

 event which falsified the predictions both of those who 

 supported and those who opposed it, for it neither ruined 

 agriculture nor immediately reduced the price of wheat. 

 The real blow to agriculture came not by legislation, but 

 by the resistless march of the world's progress — the 

 steamship, the railway, the refrigerating chamber — 

 which abolished for many of his products the preferential 

 advantage, which the British farmer had up to the 

 " seventies," of proximity to his markets. And the 

 period closed, in the mid- " nineties," in depression 

 almost as deep as that which marked the " twenties." 

 Since then the tune of British agriculture has been 

 pitched in a lower key. We have heard no more of 

 " high farming," the flow of capital into the land has been 

 reduced, the fine fervour of improvement has been 

 moderated, and farmers have adopted, so far as possible 

 in the conduct of their business, the motto of " small 

 profits and quick returns." No farmer can read the 

 story of the last three-quarters of a century without a 

 feeling of pride. On the whole, it forms the best vindica- 

 tion of the farming class against the aspersions some- 

 times made upon them, for it demonstrates the enter- 

 prise, the intelligence, the technical skill, and the pluck 

 with which British farmers have made the most of good 

 times and the best of bad ones. 



