3o6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



was a lamentable one. The Commission in their final report ^ 

 stated that the seasons since 1882 had on the whole been 

 satisfactory from an agricultural point of view, and the 

 evidence brought forward showed that the existing depression 

 was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices of farm 

 produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of 

 grain, particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. 

 It was not surprising therefore to find that the arable counties ^ 

 had suffered most ; in counties where dairying, market garden- 

 ing, poultry farming, and other special industries prevailed the 

 distress was less acute, but no part of the country could be 

 said to have escaped. In north Devon, noted for stock rear- 

 ing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15 per cent, since 1881, and in 

 many cases there had been no reduction at all. In Hereford- 

 shire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands, and 

 dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and 

 the reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent. ; 

 on the heavy arable lands, however, the reduction was from 

 30 to 40 per cent. 



In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no 

 general reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, 

 and in some cases reductions, of 10 per cent. 



In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an 

 area of the northern and western counties, were not badly 

 affected, though the depreciation in the value of live stock 

 and the fall in wool had considerably diminished farm 

 profits and rents. But of the eastern counties, those in which 

 there are still large quantities of arable land, a different tale was 

 told. In Essex much of the clay land was going out of cultiva- 



^ Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 



"^ Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included the 

 counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants, Hertford, 

 Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northampton, 

 Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, and the East 

 Riding of York ; the grass section, or western group, included the re- 

 maining counties. 



