YEOMAN FARMING IN OXFORDSHIRE 191 



until 1832, though too much should not be made of this. The 

 increase between 1804 and 1832 is largely in group decrease. It 

 is perhaps safest to think of the amount as remaining nearly 

 stationary during these years. 



The situation is somewhat different when we turn from the 

 amount of land held by occupying owners to the number of the 

 latter. From 1785 to 1804 the tendency is as before. The total 

 increases from 1322 at the former date to 1538 at the latter, each 

 group showing an advance. From 1804 to 1832, however, the 

 total drops to 1262, a figure even smaller than that for 1785. 

 Hence the general conclusion for the county must be that during 

 the first nineteen years of our period there was a marked increase 

 both in the number of occupying owners and in their holdings, 

 but that during the last twenty-eight years the occupying owners 

 decreased in number though the area tilled by them did not. 



The interpretation of these facts is, of course, that there was a 

 return to the soil attendant upon the higher price of food products 

 during the French wars. Men bought land and tilled it. In the 

 period of comparative agricultural depression which followed, this 

 land was sold again, but not to the landlord. It came into the 

 hands of the more stable of the independent farmers, who thus 

 increased their holdings. The period made for the prosperity of 

 this class, if not for its numerical increase. It was not a time of 

 the growth of large estates at the expense of the occupying owner. 

 The latter, once getting control of the land, did not relinquish it, 

 unless to a fellow occupier. 



Large estates did develop in several places, but almost always 

 through acquisitions made from other non-occupying owners. The 

 list subjoined indicates those townships in the county in which the 

 largest estate shows increased assessment between 1785 and 1832. 

 In all other townships the largest estate remained unchanged or 

 declined in value. Though these large estates increased their tax 

 to the extent of ^290, not more than ,40 of this could have 

 come from occupied estates purchased from yeomen. 



For an accurate conception as to whether the tenacity of the 

 yeoman has continued from 1832 to the present, an examination 

 of the Land Tax returns at intervals during the period would be 



