Contents. ix 



PAGE 



fall — Weight and relative Value of Corn-crops 

 — Examples of Soils of greatest and least natural 

 Fertility— and of an average Soil unmanured and 

 specially manured — Plants which predominate 

 in uncultivated Land ... 33 — 40 



CHAPTER IV. 



Distribution of Landed Property. 



Tendency to Diminution in Number of small Es- 

 tates — Proportion of Landowners to whole Popu- 

 lation as one in a hundred — These, being Heads 

 of Families, equivalent to one in twenty— Hence 

 one-twentieth of Population interested in Landed 

 Property — Increased to one-fifth by the Interests 

 of Tenant-farmers as part Owners of Agricul- 

 tural Property— One-fifth of the Land held by 

 the Peerage — Not cultivated by Owners but by 

 Farmers — relative Extent of their Holdings in 

 England and in Ireland — Trade and Colonies 

 enable us to dispense with Checks on Increase 

 of Population — That checked in Ireland by 

 Potato Famine — Decrease in Number of smallest 

 Holdings there on return of Prosperity — Diminu- 

 tion of Agricultural Population — and of Yeomen 

 farming their own Land — Experiment of Peasant 

 Proprietors in Ireland 41 — 55 



