DECLINE OF AGRICULTURAL POPULATION 25 



and with the readjustment of rents arable farming has, 

 during the present century, again become remunerative 

 and attained a measure of prosperity that began to be 

 manifest about 1910 in a widespread demand for farms 

 and in rising rents wherever reletting took place. The 

 conversion of arable to grass did not, however, cease ; 

 the curve shows that it has continued at much the same 

 rate during the present century as in the preceding 

 twenty years ; in fact, it has even been accelerated 

 during the years immediately prior to the war, though 

 prices were then still rising. There can be no doubt 

 about the prosperity of the industry from 1910 to 

 the outbreak of war. Accounts are available show- 

 ing that good arable farmers were then making profits 

 of from 10 to 20 per cent, on their capital, yet the area 

 under the plough continued to decline. For this fact 

 several explanations may be adduced. In the first 

 place the cost of labour was increasing, and there were 

 difficulties in obtaining and keeping good men. Indus- 

 trial prosperity and the great agricultural emigration 

 to Canada during the years about 1910 drew many of the 

 younger and more energetic men away from the farms. 

 Speaking generally, farmers failed to recognize the 

 changed situation ; they only reluctantly and inade- 

 quately raised wages to meet the competition for their 

 men ; in many cases they preferred to reduce their 

 staff and lay down part of their land to grass. Though 

 they might admit that the higher prices ruling would 

 allow of increased wages, there has always existed a 

 strong personal feeling and even a certain amount of 

 social pressure on the side of the maintenance of the local 

 standard rate of wages, until the farmer felt it almost 

 a duty to his fellows to let a discontented man go rather 

 c 



