SELF-HELP NOT PEOTECTION 213 



condition to English goods. If once the protective rates 

 were revised, which now exckide home growers from home 

 markets, English farmers would turn for profit to fresh 

 perishable produce; and if they do so, there is an additional 

 6 millions of imported bacon, hams, and cheese, in the best 

 qualities of which they might defy foreign competition. 

 This 06^ millions probably amounts to more than the 

 rental of farms in England and Wales in 1887. 



History proves that farming has twice before changed 

 its front. In the sixteenth century farmers turned from 

 the plough to pasture ; in the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries they reverted to tillage. Now, at the close of 

 the nineteenth century, livestock and dairy-farming must 

 supersede corn as the farmer's sheet-anchor. Changes 

 of front in the faces of watchful rivals are dangerous 

 manoeuvres, attended with risk and loss ; but the sooner 

 they are effected the better. There are signs that the new 

 ■departure has in fact commenced; and its inevitable result, 

 the decreased demand for agricultural labour, is lament- 

 ably manifest. The area of corn cultivation has decreased 

 by 618,000 acres upon the area in 1875-7 ; on the other 

 hand, more land is under rotation grasses, clovers, and 

 permanent pasture, or fruit orchards and market gardens. 



Under changed conditions, agriculture begins to show 

 faint symptoms of revival, which the scarcity of winter 

 food, compensated as it was by abundant pasture up to 

 December, has failed to check. Every county can pro- 

 duce instances of shrewd, industrious, persevering men 

 who now farm with profit by adapting low-rented land 

 to new requirements, by economy of labour and personal 

 supervision. Holdings have been reduced in size, and the 

 proportions of arable and pasture are better adapted to 

 varied and diversified husbandry. Land once more yields 



