174 THE LANDED INTEREST. 



purchased from our thriving countrymen in the 

 north-west with the produce of our mines, our 

 manufactories, and workshops. The residential 

 advantages of this country will tend to maintain 

 the capital value of the land, which, with its 

 equable and healthy climate, its varied scenery, 

 and admirable combination of liberty and order 

 will have the further attraction of having be- 

 come one of the cheapest in which to live. 

 But its agricultural character will be changed. 

 Pasture will, over wide districts, have taken the 

 place of arable. This is now going on, and it 

 proceeds with greatest speed on the side of the 

 country best suited to grass. But this change 

 may not in the end prove injurious. The grass 

 counties yield a better rent and higher rate of 

 wages, with a smaller poor rate, than the corn 

 counties. On the line drawn by the author* 

 thirty years ago, separating the corn and grass 

 counties, the corn crops have in ten years 

 decreased by 3 per cent, in the former, and 

 10 per cent in the latter. In Ireland they have 

 diminished nearly 19 per cent. In all cases the 



* Caird's "English Agriculture," 1851. 



