CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE DECLINE OF LANDOWNING FARMERS IN ENGLAND 



Two hundred years ago landownership on the part of farmers 

 was common in England, but by 1900 it was very rare. 

 According to the estimates compiled by Gregory King, there 

 were 180,000 landowning farmers and 150,000 tenant farmers 

 in England in 16S8. Ownership did not in all cases mean the 

 same in England at that time that it does in the United States 

 to-day. A man was classed as an owner if he paid about two- 

 thirds the value of a piece of land for the right to the free use of 

 the land so long as any one of three persons named in the lease 

 lived. This was said to be leased out on lives. Again, there 

 were copyhold tenures which gave a perpetual right to the use 

 of the land with the provision, however, that certain payments 

 — which frequently became nominal in amount — were made 

 to the manorial lord from time to time in accordance with the 

 customs of the manor. The tenure was permanent, and where 

 all these payments were brought together and compared with a 

 regular annual rent, they were very often small. It is fair to say, 

 therefore, that toward the close of the seventeenth century more 

 than half the farmers of England belonged to the landowning 

 class. 



In 1900, 86 per cent of all the land under crops and grasses 

 in England was occupied by tenant farmers; while slightly 

 less than 14 per cent was occupied by owners, but the owners 

 were generally the great landlords, not landowning farmers. 

 By making close inquiry while passing through more than half of 

 the counties of England in 1899, the writer found a scattering 

 few who owned the land which they cultivated, but such farmers 

 were extremely rare. The greater part of the land designated 

 as " occupied by owners " was composed of the " home farms " 

 x 3°5 



