22 DECLINE OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE 



fallen to 10,306,467 acres a loss of 26 per cent. 

 This process was undoubtedly brought about in the 

 earlier part of the period by the great fall in prices 

 which set in during the later 'seventies and 'eighties. 

 Arable farming as then practised ceased to be re- 

 munerative on the heavier and poorer soils ; meat 

 and milk maintained their values better ; so that 

 the only way open to the farmer to obtain a profit was 

 to reduce his labour bill and to take the small but com- 

 paratively certain return that the land would yield 

 under grass. Naturally, the process went on unequally 

 in different parts of the country ; the arable farming 

 was chiefly maintained in the East, where the rainfalls 1 

 are light, thus rendering the grass less remunerative, 

 and where operations of cultivation and harvest are 

 least interfered with by the weather. Still, even the 

 Eastern Counties like Essex, where heavy clay soils 

 predominate, were largely laid down to grass, while 

 areas of light soil in the West, such as parts of Shrop- 

 shire, continued their arable farming. 



The change from arable to grass has been accom- 

 panied by an increase in the number of cattle kept 

 but by a decrease in the number of sheep, which, 

 in English agriculture, are for the main part associated 

 with arable farming and fed upon green crops grown 

 on the plough land. With the loss of the arable 

 acreage the gross output of food has declined, more in 

 quantity than in value, because corn has been replaced 

 by meat and milk of which the fall in price has been 

 less pronounced. In Table V. a comparison is made 

 between the output of 1913 and that of 1872, assuming 

 the prices of 1908 (see Table III) and the same yields 

 per acre and production from a given head of stock in 



