206 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



which evidence gives a clear account of the effect of the depres- 

 sion in this respect. 



There still existed large numbers of landowning farmers in the 

 various parts of England in I833. 1 Many of these men held 

 estates which had been handed down from father to son for many 

 generations, 2 while large numbers had purchased the land they 

 occupied/ 5 Hut these yeomen farmers were hard pressed and 

 many had sold their land before 1833. When we go carefully 

 through the minutes of evidence given before the committee we 

 are especially impressed with the rapid decrease in the number of 

 landowning farmers which had taken place after the war and 

 before 1833. In Cumberland and Westmoreland the number had 

 " considerably diminished." 4 Up to the war, properties had con- 

 tinued long in the same families, 5 but in 1833, Mr. Blamire said 

 he believed that since 1815 a greater change had taken place in 

 the proprietorship of the small farms than in any antecedent 

 period of much longer duration. 6 In 1837, Blamire was again 

 before the committee, and says : M The condition (of the land- 

 owning farmers in Cumberland) is generally speaking most piti- 

 able. At the present moment they are as a body, in fact, ceasing 

 to exist at all." 7 Mr. Merry, the owner and occupier of a three- 

 hundred-acre farm in the North Riding of Yorkshire, stated that 

 in the different dales in the district where he lived the farmers 

 had nearly all been " ancient freeholders " ; but the number of 

 such farmers had been " regularly lessening for ten years," during 

 which time they had been reduced about a seventh. 8 From 

 Mr. W. Simpson we learn that the landowning farmers were 

 " nearly all gone " near Doncaster, Yorkshire. 9 In Nottinghamshire 

 there were " comparatively very few remaining." 10 In Leicester- 

 shire, Northumberland, and the Midland counties, generally, small 



1 Parliamentary Papers, 1833, Vol. V, questions 6695, 2346, 5819, 5820, 412, 

 413, 41.}, 415. 8474, 1691. 2.113, 2196, 2202, 7375, 6405, 9486, 8823, 1262, 9196. 

 ' 2 //'/</., 1702, 6061, 416, 1696, 2420, 9930. 



3 Ibid., questions 3105, 3106, 12, 216, 7902, 5820, 416, 532, 2197, 9928, 4862- 

 4866; //'/>/., 1X36, Vol. VIII, questions 1192, 1268-1269. 



4 //'/,/., 1833, Vol. V, question 6697. 



5 Ibid., question 6958. 8 Ibid., 1833, Vol. V, questions 2439, 2533. 



6 Ibid., question 6701. 9 Ibid., question 3105. 



7 Ibid., 1837, Vol. V, question 5107. 10 Ibid., S. Wooley, questions 12, 216. 



