348 HIGH FARMING, 1837-1874 



scarce a family in the parish, I mean of common labourers, but have 

 tea, once if not twice a day. ... In short, all labourers live above 

 their conditions." 



The same explanations with regard to all classes of agriculturists 

 were repeated in 1837, and have been periodically offered ever since. 

 The diagnosis of disease would not be so popular if it were not easy 

 and to some extent true. It is, to say the least, inadequate. When 

 the standard of living rises for all classes, agriculturists are not the 

 only men who spend money more lavishly than the prudence which 

 criticises after the event can justify. But the true explanation of 

 the distress lay in the conditions already described. The old instru- 

 ment of farming had failed ; the new had not been perfected. An 

 agricultural revolution was in progress, which was none the less 

 complete in its operation because it was peaceful in its processes. 



In 1837 agriculture was languishing ; farming had retrograded ; 

 heavy clay-lands were either abandoned or foul, and in a miserable 

 state of cultivation. Indifferent pasture, when first ploughed, had 

 produced good corn crops from the accumulated mass of elements of 

 fertility which they had stored. But this savings bank of wealth 

 had been soon exhausted. At peace-prices half crops ceased to be 

 remunerative, and the newly ploughed arable area was now recover- 

 ing itself from exhaustion to grass as best it could without assistance. 

 Lighter soils had suffered comparatively little ; turnips, and the 

 Norfolk system had helped the eastern counties to bear the stress of 

 the storm, yet, even there, farmers had " had to put down their 

 chaises and thek nags." Much of the progress made between 1790 

 and 1812 had been lost. Nor was this the worst feature. The 

 distrust which prevailed between farmers and their men had ex- 

 tended to tenants and their landlords. Men who had contracted 

 to pay war rents from peace profits were shy of leases. For at least 

 a generation confidence was shaken between landlord and tenant. 



The brighter side to the picture was that, in the midst of much 

 suffering, the ground had been prepared for new conditions. Small 

 yeomen, openfield farmers, and commoners could never have fed a 

 manufacturing population. They could not have initiated and would 

 not have adopted agricultural improvements, of which some were still 

 experimental, and of which all required an initial expenditure. It 

 was from these classes that the most bigoted opponents of " Practice 

 with Science " were recruited, and their contempt was heartily 

 sincere for the innovations of the " apron-string " farmer. Socially 



