ENGLISH LAND CULTIVATION. 61 



the suddenly arising cheap competition from 

 the products of virgin lands in the New World 

 — products which, with the new cheap means of 

 communication, could be carried to a Free Trade 

 market at a slight cost. 



It was the tilling of virgin lands, responding 

 with crops to the very slightest cultivation, and 

 the exploiting of the new methods of transport, 

 that made British farming so little profitable, 

 and the " cheap food " epoch possible. Free 

 Trade of itself could have done neither. The 

 crisis in agriculture caused by the opening up 

 of the virgin soil of the American west, it is well 

 to keep in mind, was not confined to Great 

 Britain. It was felt even in the eastern States 

 of the American Republic and in old Canada, 

 where many farms were abandoned altogether, 

 or, like English wheat farms, went under grass. 

 On the continent of Europe, where the farmer 

 was barricaded against the flood of competition 

 by high tariffs, the crisis was not so severe. 



Now if it be true that the depression in 

 British agriculture was in large part due to the 

 sudden withdrawal in the past of labour, of 

 capital, and of intelligence from the land to new 



