3IO HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



in about 1875, may in short be said to have effected a minor 

 social revolution, and to have completed the ruin of the old 

 landed aristocracy as a class. The depreciation of their rents 

 may be judged from the following figures^ : 



Gross annual value of lands, including tithes, 



tmder Schedule A in England. 



1879-80 1893-4 



£ I 



48,533,340 36,999,846 



Decrease. 

 Amount. Per cent. 



11,533,494 237 



These figures, however, are far from indicating the full extent 

 of the decline in the rental value of purely agricultural land, as 

 they include ornamental grounds, gardens, and other properties, 

 and do not take into account temporary remissions of rent. 

 Sir James Caird, as early as 1886, estimated the average reduc- 

 tion on agricultural rents at 30 per cent. 



The loss in the capital value of land has inevitably been 

 great from this reduction in rents, and has been aggravated by 

 the fact that the confidence of the public in agricultural land 

 as an investment has been much shaken. In 1875 thirty years' 

 purchase on the gross annual value of land was the capital 

 value, in 1894 only eighteen years' purchase ; and whereas the 

 capital value of land in the United Kingdom was in 1875 

 ;^ a, 007,330,000, in 1894 it was ;^i,ooi,829,2ia, a decrease of 

 49'6 per cent. Moreover, landlords have incurred increased 

 expenditure on repairs, drainage, and buildings, and taxation 

 has grown enormously. On the occupiers of land the effect of 

 the depression was no less serious, their profits having fallen 

 on an average 40 per cent.^ Occupying owners had suffered 

 as much as any other class, both yeomen who farmed consider- 

 able farms and small freeholders. Many of the former had 

 bought land in the good times when land was dear and left a 

 large portion of the purchase money on mortgage, with the 



^ Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 22. Cf. p. 31911. 

 "^ Ibid, pp, 30-1. 



