40 TUENIP TOWNSHEND AND THE NOKFOLK SYSTEM 



The climate worsened after 1764 ; the mean average rain- 

 fall from 1741 to 1750 was 18^ inches; from 1771 to 1780 

 it averaged 26 inches. The harvests were as unprosperous 

 as they had previously been favourable; the imports of 

 grain exceeded the exports. In no part of the country 

 did the purchasing power of wages rise with prices. The 

 allowance system set a premium on large families, and so 

 fostered the evil it was designed to alleviate. It was now 

 that the South fell hopelessly behind the North. Before 

 1770 the rate of wages was lower in the North than in the 

 South ; now the position was reversed. Wages remained 

 stationary in the South, eked out by mischievous allow- 

 ances ; while in the North they followed, though irregularly, 

 the rise of prices. The introduction of machinery threw 

 crowds of artisans out of work ; the enclosure of commons 

 again ruined thousands of small freeholders and copy- 

 holders. After 1814 the heavy fall of jd rices produced 

 severe distress among landlords and tenants. Two years 

 later the Board of Agriculture sent a circular letter 

 throughout the counties to ascertain the state of the king- 

 dom. The answers showed that landlords reduced their 

 rents 25 per cent., struck off arrears, gave farms rent free 

 for a year ; that still great quantities of land were thrown 

 up ; that improvements were at a standstill, live stock de- 

 creased, and the country was filled with gangs of depre- 

 dators ; that eveiywhere ' bankruptcies, seizures, execu- 

 tions, imprisonments, and farmers become parish paupers,' 

 were numerous. It is an extraordinary proof of the elas- 

 ticity of the country that within ten years the social balance 

 was restored. 



The exertions of men like Townshend, Bakewell, Young, 

 and Coke enabled farmers to meet the wants of a growing 

 population. With their names is associated the a^ricul- 



