260 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



gentlemen to keep this land in their families. The compli- 

 cated title to land made its transfer difficult and costly, so 

 that there was little breaking up of estates to correspond 

 with the constant buying up of small owners. To the 

 smaller freeholder, as has been noticed, the enclosure of 

 waste land did much harm, for it was necessary to his holding. 

 Again, smaller arable farms did not pay as well as large ones, 

 so they tended to disappear. The decay of home industries i 

 was also a heavy blow to the smaller yeoman and the 

 peasant proprietor. 



Under this combination of circumstances many of the 

 yeomen left the land. Yet though Young, less than a century 

 after King and Davenant, said that the small freeholder 

 had practically disappeared, there were at the end of the 

 eighteenth century many left all over England, who however 

 largely disappeared during the war and in the bad times 

 after the war. 1 But a contrary tendency was at work which 

 helped to replenish the class. The desire of the Englishman 

 for land is not confined to the wealthy classes. At the 

 end of the eighteenth century men who had made small 

 fortunes in trade were buying small properties and taking 

 the place of the yeomen. 2 In the great French War of 

 1793-1815, many yeomen, attracted by the high prices of 

 land, sold their properties, but at the same time many 

 farmers, attracted by the high prices of produce, which had 

 often enriched them, bought land. 3 During the ' good times ' 

 of 1853-75 many small holders, like those of Axholme, 

 noticed in the Report of the Agricultural Commission of 

 1893, bought land. 



A new class of small owners also has sprung up, who, 

 dwelling in or near towns and railway stations, have bought 

 small freeholds. The return of the owners of land of 1872-6 



1 Hasbach, op. tit. p. 71. 



2 Marshall, Review of Agriculture, Reports Western Department, p. 1 8. 



3 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 32. 



