So The Landed Interest. 



improvements which a landowner is called upon 

 to make, in order to keep his property abreast of 

 the advance in agricultural practice. This was 

 pressingly felt at the time of the repeal of the 

 Corn Laws, and the withdrawal of protective 

 Expe- duties from native produce. Parliament, there- 



dients 



adopted to fore, when it enacted a free import of the neces- 



overcome 



this. saries of Hfe, provided State loans on favourable 



terms to the landowners for the drainage and 

 reclamation of their estates. 



The potato disease of 1846 and 1847 ^^'^s a 

 serious calamity at the time, but it was the 

 occasion from which arose the great stride made 

 in agricultural enterprise in this country during 

 the last thirty years. It led at once to the 

 removal of all protective duties on foreign agri- 

 cultural produce, and obtained for the people of 

 this country access to supplies from foreign 

 lands, where wages were lower and good land 

 more abundant. Landowners and farmers be- 

 stirred themselves to meet the inevitable com- 

 petition to which they became exposed ; and 

 their efforts were promptly aided by the State 

 with reproductive loans to tide them over the 



