158 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



In the years between 1876 and 1886 the annual 

 income of the three classes interested in agriculture 

 was estimated by Sir James Caird to have diminished 

 by 42,300,000. But the hard times were not then 

 over : from 1891 to 1894 repeated spells of bad weather 

 went far to destroy the crops. Many farmers were 

 ruined, and others, seeing no prospects before them, 

 gave up their farms in order to migrate to the towns 

 or to the colonies. Some land went out of cultivation, 

 and of that which remained much was diverted from 

 corn land to pasture. This conversion has continued 

 until the beginning of the war, about one-fifth of the 

 thirteen million acres devoted to corn in 1880 being 

 then in pasture. Enterprising farmers here and there 

 found remedies for their difficulties : some turned their 

 attention, with success, to the production of fruit and 

 vegetables, whilst others, by the use of self-binders 

 and other improved machines, saved labour, and so 

 expense. The position of their class was rendered 

 somewhat easier by the fall of rents, and when the 

 rise of prices came in the early years of the XXth 

 century farmers began to do better. 



This agricultural catastrophe produced a widespread 

 discontent, and many remedies were suggested. On 



the one hand there was a demand for the 

 Remedies reintroduction of the Corn Laws, whilst 

 and adopted, another class of thinkers asked, like the 



peasants of the XlVth and XVth centuries, 

 for fixity of tenure, or at least full compensation for 

 improvements effected by tenants. Some reformers 

 urged that a partial remedy for the farmers' troubles 

 would be found in co-operation, whilst the labourers and 

 those who represented their views urged the State to 



