2iS READINGS 1\ RURAL ECONOMICS 



occupied by tenant farmers ; while about three and one-half million 

 (3,427.158) acres, or 13.9 per cent, was occupied by owners. 1 

 But of this three and a half million acres no great extent was 

 occupied by yeoman farmers. Indeed, the Iand6wning farmers 

 are at the present time very rare in England. By making close 

 inquiry while passing through more than half of the counties of 

 England in 1899, the writer found a scattering few who owned 

 the land which they cultivated, but such farmers were extremely 

 rare. The greater part of the land designated as " occupied 

 by owners" was composed of the " home farms " of landlords, and 

 of farms which they had not been able to rent since the depres- 

 sion. In this way the Duke of Grafton occupied five farms be- 

 side his home farm, in 1899. The five farms aggregated five 

 thousand four hundred and ninety acres. Each one of these 

 farms, as well as the home farm, had a bailiff upon it. There 

 were more than seventeen thousand (17,189) farm bailiffs in 

 England according to the census of 1891. Tenant farmers who 

 keep bailiffs are very rare. The vast majority of these bailiffs 

 were, doubtless, operating land which is recorded in the agri- 

 cultural returns as ''occupied by owners." Between 1871 and 

 1 88 1 the number of bailiffs increased nearly three thousand 

 (2889), which may fairly be looked upon as the number of farms 

 which could not be rented, and which the landlords preferred to 

 farm in this way rather than leave the land to grow up in weeds. 

 This gives some notion of the extent to which land has been 

 compulsorily cultivated by landlords. 2 



The agricultural returns for 1898 indicate that 25 per cent of 

 the farm land of Kent was occupied by owners. In commenting 

 upon this fact Mr. Whitehead says, " Much of this land occupied 



1 Parliamentary Papers, 1901 (House of Commons), Vol. LXXXVIII, p. 38. 



2 In 1899 the writer met many estate agents desirous of finding tenant 

 farmers who would rent the farms which were then being farmed by bailiffs, and 

 hence reported in the agricultural returns as land cultivated by owners. 

 Between 1895 and 1900 the percentage of the land under crops and grass 

 in England which was occupied by tenants increased from 85.1 per cent to 86.1 

 per cent, which shows that about one-fifteenth of the land farmed by owners in 

 1895 was in the hands of tenants in 1900 (Parliamentary Papers, 1896, Vol. XCII, 

 p. 48; ibid., 1901, Vol. LXXXVIII, p. 38). 



