98 THE LANDED INTEREST. 



This vast increase in. the value of landed 

 property within the short period of twenty years 

 is very remarkable. It has been already shown 

 that the improvement expenditure effected by 

 loans has been fifteen millions. If we assume 

 that even three times as much has been effected 

 during the same period by private capital with- 

 out loans, we here see that the capital wealth of 

 the owners of landed property has been in- 

 creased by three hundred and thirty-one millions 

 sterling in these twenty years, at a cost to them 

 which probably has not exceeded sixty millions. 

 This increase, as elsewhere explained, has arisen 

 chiefly from the great advance in the consump- 

 tion and value of meat and dairy produce, 

 and is thus only in part the result of land 

 improvement. 



Greatest But though in the aggregate the landowners 



been in of England have become richer by more than 



counties, one-fifth, and those of Scotland by more than 



Scotland : one-fourth, the progress has not been uniform. 



of this. In the purely corn districts, and on the chalk 



and sands of the drier counties, where grass does 



not thrive, the increase has been small. On the 



