APPENDIX 



i 



THE RURAL EXODUS 



NOTE 



The following paper is the substance of an address delivered by the 

 author before the Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture at Norwich on May 6, 

 1899, when, after discussion, the resolution proposed in it was carried 

 unanimously. He reprints it here because it has occurred to him that it is as 

 well to give the great subject with which it deals somewhat more adequate 

 treatment than it has received in the foregoing pages, and still more because 

 he hopes that in future generations some readers may be interested in learning 

 the condition of the agricultural labour market in the Eastern Counties in the 

 year 1899. He may add that on May 30 he moved a very similar resolution 

 the alteration in its terms being merely verbal before the Central and 

 Associated Chambers of Agriculture in London, where, after criticism and 

 discussion, it was also carried unanimously ; a fact, he ventures to submit, 

 which shows in how serious a light this matter of the depopulation of the 

 rural districts is regarded by representatives of the agricultural interests 

 gathered from every part of England. That the state of affairs in the Eastern 

 Counties is in no ways exaggerated in this address will be proved by the 

 following paragraph cut from the ' Norfolk Chronicle ' in August 1899 : 



' A sale of standing crops of wheat and barley under circumstances unpre- 

 cedented in Norfolk, and, perhaps, in England, has taken place at Wacton. 

 On Monday Mr. Robert Borrett, instructed by Mr. Robert K. Fisher, offered 

 for disposal by public auction the growing crops of wheat and barley upon 

 about 170 acres of land in the parishes of Moulton St. Michael, Pulham 

 Market, Tivetshall St. Margaret, and Wacton. The land is in Mr. Fisher's 

 occupation, and the official notice of the sale stated that the crops were 

 offered in consequence of there being a scarcity of labour.' 



Could any domestic occurrence be of much more evil omen to agriculture 

 and all connected with the land than this strange sale of unreaped crops or, 

 indeed, had we but ears to hear, and eyes to see, to our country and its 

 inhabitants ? 



