376 ADVERSITY, 1874-1912 



a fall in the price of manufactured articles, a decline in wages drove 

 thousands out of the towns to settle as agriculturists on the virgin 

 soils of the West. 



English farming suffered from the same causes as every other 

 home industry. In addition, it had its own special difficulties. 

 The collapse of British trade checked the growth of the consuming 

 power at home at the same time that a series of inclement seasons, 

 followed by an overwhelming increase of foreign competition, 

 paralysed the efforts of farmers. For three years in succession, 

 bleak springs and rainy summers produced short cereal crops of 

 inferior quality, mildew in wheat, mould in hops, blight in other 

 crops, disease in cattle, rot in sheep, throwing heavy lands into foul 

 condition, deteriorating the finer grasses of pastures. In 1875-6 

 the increasing volume of imports l prevented prices from rising to 

 compensate deficiencies in the yield of corn. The telegraph, steam 

 carriage by sea and land, and low freights, consequent on declining 

 trade, annihilated time and distance, destroyed the natural monopoly 

 of proximity, and enabled the world to compete with English pro- 

 ducers in the home markets on equal, if not more favourable, terms. 

 Instead of there being one harvest every year, there was now a 

 harvest in every month of each year. In 1877 prices advanced, 

 owing to the progress of the Russo-Turkish War. But the potato 

 crops failed, and a renewed outbreak of the cattle-plague, though 

 speedily suppressed, hit stockowners hard. The tithe rent-charge 

 was nearly 12 above its par value. Rates were rising rapidly. 

 Land-agents began to complain of the scarcity of eligible tenants 

 for vacant corn-land. During the sunless ungenial summer of 

 1879, with its icy rains, the series of adverse seasons culminated in 

 one of the worst harvests of the century, in an outbreak of pleuro- 

 pneumonia and foot-and-mouth disease among cattle, and among 

 sheep a disastrous attack of the liver rot, which inflicted an enormous 

 loss on flockmasters. The English wheat crop scarcely averaged 

 15 bushels to the acre. In similar circumstances, farmers might 

 have been compensated for the shortness of yield by an advance in 

 price. This was no longer the case in 1879. America, which had 

 enjoyed abundant harvests, poured such quantities of wheat into 

 the country as to bring down prices below the level of the favourable 

 season of the preceding year. At the same time, American cheese 

 so glutted the market as to create a record for cheapness. Thus, 

 1 For the growth of foreign imports of food, see Appendix VIII. 



