PART III 



RECONSTRUCTED RURAL ENGLAND 

 (ABOUT 1800-1914) 



CHAPTER IX 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



(Before the Agricultural Catastrophe] 



IT is important to realize clearly that already, at the 

 beginning of the century, England had ceased to be 

 a predominantly agricultural country. At 



that time ' indeed onl y about a third of 

 our population was engaged in the cultiva- 

 tion of the land, and England's main interest was 

 directed to manufacture and trade : moreover, during 

 the whole of the century the proportion of the country 

 people to townspeople steadily diminished. We are, 

 therefore, now considering the history of a comparatively 

 small and diminishing section of the English people. 



Although estates of the old manorial form were still 



common in many counties at the beginning of the 



XlXth century, and have continued in some 



The establish- places up to the present time, enclosure 



meat of the 



new system, went on so rapidly in the earlier years, 



that by 1820 rural England had become 

 in the main a country of enclosed fields, owned by 

 landlords and cultivated by tenant farmers. Of these 



