4 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



remitted on a rental of ;^53,25i for 46,317 acres, and 

 1676 acres are in hand. ^ 



It is obviously, therefore, of importance in elucidating 

 the causes of the depression, both fundamental and con- 

 tributory, and in arriving at suggestions which may help 

 the future position of agriculture, to summarise the 

 evidence as to the special characteristics and stages of 

 the depression in the several parts of the country. 



Using for convenience the divisions adopted in the 

 agricultural returns, it is plain that the great tract of 

 arable land in Divisions i and 2, the chief corn-produc- 

 ing area, in which scientific agriculture has had its most 

 striking triumphs, has suffered most. And within this 

 vast area, it has been in the eastern and some of the 

 southern counties, that agriculture has been longest in 

 decay, and has sunk to the lowest stage of exhaustion. 

 To a large extent, the nature of the soil has been the 

 measure of the acuteness of the depression. The very 

 heavy clays which are hardest and most costly to work, 

 and the light lands which were artificially brought into 

 high cultivation under the stimulus of high prices for 

 corn have naturally been worst hit. This has been the 

 general result in Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, Wilts, 

 Hants, Berks, Beds, Northants, Hunts, and other counties. 

 Where, on the other hand, there is a rich and fertile soil, 

 which can be easily and cheaply worked, as in parts of 

 Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, and in some districts 

 of Northamptonshire, or where the nature of the soil has 

 led to mixed farming, there the losses and deterioration 

 of agriculture have been materially lessened. 



In Essex, within twenty years whole tracts of land, 

 previously yielding heavy crops and paying high rents, 

 have passed almost out of cultivation, while hundreds 

 of the men who have spent their lives in earning 

 those rents have been ruined and obliged to give up 

 farming. 



" No one can well conceive, who has not seen it, the 

 condition to which a large part of the land, which has- 

 been allowed to tumble down to grass, has been reduced. 



' Appendix A. II., Vol. I. 



