AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 



307 



tion ; many farms, after lying derelict for a few years, were let 

 as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent. The rent of an 

 estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from ^1,314 

 in 1879 to £415 in 1892, or from 18s. 6d. an acre to ^s. lod} 

 The net rental of another had fallen from £'jfi8% in 1881 to 

 £2,124 in 1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 

 13,009 acres in 1892-3 was is. an acre. The balance sheet of 

 the estate for the same year is an eloquent example of the 

 landowner's profits in these depressed times : - 



In the great agricultural county of Lincoln rents had fallen 

 from 30 to ys P^^ cent.^ The average amount realized on 

 an acre of wheat had fallen from ;^io 6s. ^d. in 1873-7 to 

 £2 i8j-. 11^. in 1892 *; and the fall in the price of cattle between 

 1882 and 1893 was a little over 30 per cent. Many of the 

 large farmers in Lincolnshire before 1875 had lived in consider- 

 able comfort and even luxury, as became men who had invested 

 large sums, sometimes ^20,000, in their business. They had 

 carriages, hunters, and servants, and gave their children an ex- 

 cellent start in life. But all this was changed ; a day's hunting 



' Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1894), xvi (l), App. B. ii. 

 " Ibid. App. B. iii. ' Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169. * Ibid. p. 164. 



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