8l6 THE CONDITION OF 



of labour may be taken as fully compensated by the rise in 

 the price of other agricultural products, and the problem may 

 in this case be simplified by taking corn products only. In 

 the period of i s. an acre the farmer obtained, on taking wheat, 

 barley, malt and oats together, 9^. 6 %d. a quarter for each kind 

 of grain ; in the period of 6s. an acre, 22s. $\d. In the first 

 period, taking his produce constantly at 12 bushels an acre, 

 the produce would fetch 14^. ^\d. ; in the second, 33 s. &/., i. e. 

 be increased 132 per cent. He would therefore have 19^. $\d. 

 more money for the produce of an acre in the second than he 

 had in the first period, and would readily infer that he could 

 give a full fourth of this exalted price to the landlord in order 

 to secure the advantage of cultivating the soil. Of course this 

 calculation is on the hypothesis that the price was not due to 

 deficient harvests, that element of risk which economists 

 always allege to be frequent, which must be estimated as far 

 as possible in all profits, and is most dominant but least 

 calculable in agricultural profits. 



It would seem, that as, during the period before me, and 

 indeed in most farming for one or two generations later, one 

 third of a farmer's holding was in fallow, the average annual 

 value of the corn-crops procured in a 2OO-acre farm from such 

 land as was under the plough was 225 us. This assumes 

 a general rate of twelve bushels to the acre of merchantable 

 corn, the prices of such produce being taken from the records 

 which I have consulted and of actual market sales or purchases. 

 If we conclude that the cultivation of such a farm would require 

 the service of five hands, exclusive of the farmer's own labour 

 and superintendence, at 15 us. a year, the labour bill will 

 amount to j$, and the rent, at 6s. an acre, to 60. The 

 tithe will be 20, and the first charges on arable cultivation 

 will therefore be .158, leaving 67 us. as compensation for 

 the farmer's capital (say, at 2 an acre, 400) and for his own 

 labour Now in 1732 Lord Lovell of Holkham, in a year 

 when wheat was only 20^. a quarter, rye 14^., barley iu., 

 malt (including the tax, a little over 4^. the quarter) acxr., 



