WHEAT A GUINEA A BUSHEL 343 



In 181 1 the whole of July and part of August were wet 

 and cold; and in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155^-^ the 

 finest Dantzic selling at Mark Lane for i8oo.,and oats reached 

 84J. As our imports of corn then chiefly came from the 

 north-west of Europe, which has a climate very similar to 

 our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons in 

 the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. 

 On the other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the 

 best market regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn 

 at this time came from France. Corn in 1812 was seized on 

 with such avidity that there was no need to show samples. 

 As high prices had now prevailed for some time and were still 

 rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion that 

 they would be permanent ; so that this is the period when 

 rents experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having 

 increased fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were 

 most general. Land sold for forty years' purchase, many 

 men of spirit and adventure very different from farmers ' were 

 tempted to risk their property in agricultural speculations^,' 

 and large sums were sunk in lands and improvements in the 

 spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was considered as 

 a kind of manufacturing establishment, and ' such powers of 

 capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility 

 itself to become fertile.* Even good pastures were ploughed 

 up to grow wheat at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless 

 land was sown with corn. Manure was procured from the 

 most remote quarters, and we are told a new science rose up, 

 agricultural chemistry, which, ' with much frivolity and many 

 refinements remote from common sense, was not without 

 great operation on the productive powers of land.' 



Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit 



came to the aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have 



seen, were before the war inclined to an extravagance that 



amazed their older contemporaries ; now we are told, some 



^ Inquiry into Agricultural Distress (1822), p. 38. 



R % 



