314 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



47-0 per cent, to 88-3 per cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 

 1873 and 1890, from 44-4 per cent, to 184-3 P er cent - J an d 

 many similar instances are given, illustrating very forcibly 

 the economic revolution which has led to the transfer of a 

 larger share of the produce of the land to the labourer. 



On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that 

 the farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease 

 in cost of cake and artificial manure, while the low price of 

 corn had led to its being largely used in place of linseed and 

 cotton cakes. 



Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is 

 well to state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there 

 was no higher authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that 

 high farming would counteract low prices. ' The result of all 

 our experiments,' he said, ' is that the reverse is the case. As 

 you increase your crops so each bushel after a certain amount 

 costs you more and more . . . the last bushel always costs 

 you more than all the others.' As prices went lower ' we 

 must contract our farming to what I should call the average 

 of the seasons ' ; and in the corn districts, the higher the 

 farmer had farmed his land by adding manure the worse had 

 been the financial results. 1 



In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural 

 land was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half 

 the rates on the land apart from the buildings, which Act was 

 continued in I9OI. 2 But the system is still inequitable, for 

 a farmer who pays a rent of 240 a year even now probably 

 pays more rates than the occupier of a house rated at ,120 

 a year. Yet the farmer's income would very likely not be 

 more than ^200 a year, whereas the occupier of the house 

 rated at 1 20 might have an income of ,2,000 a year. 



In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the foot- 

 steps of Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour 



1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 1 06. But see 

 above, p. 271. 



2 59 & 60 Viet., c. 16 ; I Edw. VII, c. 13. 



