DECLINE OF LANDOWNING FARMERS 221 



upon each acre, and calculating farmers found it profitable to rent 

 as much land as they had the money to stock rather than to lock 

 up their capital by investing it in high-priced land. In other 

 counties the yeomen farmers were crowded out by gentlemen 

 farmers men who, having made money in other pursuits, 

 became farmers because agriculture was the favored pursuit 

 among the wealthy classes of England. 



But taking England as a whole there was no marked decline 

 of the yeomanry until the third decade of the nineteenth century. 

 Between 1820 and 1875 the number of landowning farmers was 

 gradually reduced to insignificance. During this period the fact 

 of greater returns on investments in farm stock than in land 

 remained a constant factor. The neighboring landlords and men 

 of wealth generally were still ready to consolidate small estates 

 into large ones. But the condition which led to a rapid decline 

 during this period was the fall in prices. During the Napoleonic 

 wars, when prices were high and rising higher, it was possible 

 to buy land and pay for it out of the profits of farming. It was 

 then the common thing for the more successful farmers to invest 

 their savings in land. As a rule, they purchased more than they 

 could at once pay for and gave a mortgage to secure the payment 

 of the indebtedness thus incurred. It was also common among 

 the yeomanry for one son to succeed to the family patrimony 

 upon the payment of certain sums for the provision of his 

 brothers and sisters. Thus it was that a large proportion of the 

 yeomen farmers were burdened with indebtedness which the fall 

 in prices made it impossible for them to pay. Some sold their 

 encumbered farms within a few years. Others held out longer, 

 but in time they too gave up or died, and their farms were sold. 



Farmers rarely invested in land after 1820. The farms were 

 sold to wealthy men who wished to build up family estates. These 

 large estates were valued for the social standing which they confer 

 upon their owners as well as for their returns in the form of rent. 

 They are commonly kept intact by a system of entails so that once 

 the small estates become incorporated into the larger ones, they 

 rarely come into the market again. There is still land for sale in 

 England, but the price is so high, compared with the value of 



