78 YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



instances, even the park-grazing about the mansion of the land 

 lord is let out, as well as the arable land. The tenants are often 

 men of such wealth that they would probably live upon their 

 resources in this country, except so far as they might be en 

 gaged in looking after their investments. The average interest 

 obtained by landlords upon the cash value of their land, high 

 as the rents appear to us, perhaps rarely exceeds three per cent. 

 Farmers expect to invest their money in agriculture so as to 

 make it pay them ten per cent, if possible ; the average profit 

 they realize may vary from eight to ten per cent. Really, it is 

 only a very rich man who can afford to own land in England, 

 and several instances were given to show how property there 

 gravitates toward the country, including a farmer mentioned 

 by Mr. Colman, who was paying an annual rent of $85,000 ! 



Taxes and tithes are to be added to the rents the farmers 

 pay, these rents varying from a dollar or two per acre, under 

 the least favorable circumstances, to ten, twelve, and fifteen 

 dollars for choice locations in good farming districts, and reach 

 ing for the whole island an average of six dollars. Some of 

 the Scotch moors are rented according to the number of sheep 

 they will carry per acre, at so much per head for the sheep. 



During the eighty years preceding Mr. Caird's investigations 

 in 1850-51, it was found that the rents of twenty-six counties 

 had increased a little more than one hundred per cent., while 

 the wages of laborers showed an advance of thirty-four per 

 cent. ; the price of bread was about the same ; meat had appre 

 ciated seventy per cent., butter one hundred per cent., and 

 wool still more. The production of wheat only showed an 

 advance from the average of twenty-three bushels per acre 

 reported by Arthur Young, to that of twenty-six and a half 

 reported by Mr. Caird an explanation of which is found in the 

 fact that only the very best fields were then put into wheat, 

 while now the area on which it is grown is immensely increased, 

 and the whole, bad and good, made to yield fifteen per cent, 

 more than the selected parts did previously. 



