DECLINE OF LANDOWNING FARMERS 21 1 



very rarely cared to put it upon the market again ; and thus the 

 results of this temporary depression have been more permanent 

 than we should expect in a country where landownership on a 

 large scale does not involve so many social advantages, and where 

 systems of primogeniture and entail do not bind the large estates 

 together permanently. 



The yeomen farmers were gradually reduced in number, 1 

 decade after decade, until by the close of the third quarter of the 

 century they were found only here and there ; and tenancy was 

 the rule. 2 In 1883 John Rae estimated that probably not more 



bought ? I think by persons in trade in the towns, and so on." Question 9208 : 

 " Sometimes the yeomen's estates (in Somersetshire) have been bought by other 

 small proprietors, and sometimes by gentlemen of large landed properties." 

 Question 1703: "Who generally bought those estates (in Worcestershire) so sold? 

 Gentlemen in the neighborhood, principally for investment." Question 1704: 

 " Not small capitalists ? No, they have never purchased since those high times 

 in 1811 and 1812." Question 2534: "In former years when a freehold was sold 

 there was another freeholder at hand to purchase the property, but now they 

 have to get a purchaser from . . . some trading place." Question 8580 : "A great 

 deal has been bought in the Midland counties by manufacturers ; some have 

 been purchased for accommodation by adjoining proprietors, but generally by 

 manufacturers or the great landed proprietors." 



1 Formerly there were many small proprietors in England who formed an im- 

 portant class in the State; they were called yeomen, to distinguish them from the 

 landed gentry, who were called squires. These yeomen have almost disappeared 

 but not by any violent revolution. The change has taken place voluntarily and 

 imperceptibly. They have sold their small properties to become farmers, because 

 they found it more profitable; and most of them have succeeded; those remaining 

 will most likely shortly follow the example. Lavergne, "Rural Economy of 

 England," 1855, PP- "3- JI 4- 



2 The land of the United Kingdom may be said to be now (1878) almost 

 wholly cultivated by tenant farmers. The class of yeomen, or small landowners 

 farming their own land, is found here and there in England, but scarcely at all 

 in Scotland, and now bears but small proportion to the whole. Many of the large 

 landowners retain a farm under their own management for home supplies or for 

 the breeding of selected stock ; very few as a matter of business or profit. 

 James Caird, "General View of British Agriculture,"/. li.A.S. ., 1878, 2d s., 

 Vol. XIV, Pt. II, p. 32. 



A few quotations from the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, 

 as found in the parliamentary papers for the years 1881 and 1882, amplify this 

 statement of Caird's : 



" My report," says Mr. Coleman, in speaking of Yorkshire, " is noticeably 

 deficient in any information as to the status and prospect of peasant proprietors, 

 because this class does not exist in Yorkshire ; the nearest approach to them is 

 to be found in small freeholders far up the dells, whose position, as far as I could 



