VI OF THE SMALL LANDOWNER 123 



the final opportunity of the wealthy, who could now buy in 

 a falling market a market in which the poor man was 

 no longer a competitor. 1 ' I bought/ said Lord Penrhyn, 

 before the Agricultural Commission of 1881, 'as many as 

 twenty-five to thirty small farms. People said they were in 

 the hands of solicitors who had advanced them money, and 

 begged me to relieve them of their holdings. I did so, but 

 under pressure/ Some of those who sold became his tenants. 



The disastrous years of 1879-80 led to much the same 

 results. Speaking of the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of 

 small owners, Mr. Druce, the assistant commissioner, stated 

 that the freeholders only managed to survive because 

 solicitors advanced money to pay interest on mortgages 

 lest the mortgagees who had by their advice advanced 

 money on the lands should suffer, since, if mortgagees sued 

 the owners, they could not pay, and, if they foreclosed, the 

 land would not at the existing prices pay for the money 

 lent. 2 



Moreover, the tendency of late has been for pasturage 

 once rnore to predominate over arable farming. In 1880, 

 Caird estimated that the amount of corn growing had 

 declined ten per cent, in the previous ten years, and that of 

 the some fifty million acres under cultivation in England 

 the proportions were these : 25 millions permanent pasture ; 

 6|r millions grass under rotation ; 6^ millions green crops ; 

 12^ millions corn. This substitution of pasture for arable 

 farming has not certainly abated since, and it is well 

 known that the feeding of cattle requires much more 





good times often ceased to farm, and let their lands, and either took 

 to some other business or lived quietly on their income. 



1 Of. Report of Committee of 1833, especially Qs. 1262, 1691, 3103, 

 4862, 9196, 9269, 6056, 6156, 6957, 12216; Report on Agriculture, 

 House of Lords, 1836, Q. 505; Lord Penrhyn's evidence before 

 Committee of 1881, p. 250. 



2 Duke of Richmond's Commission. 



