1 6 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



speaking from long experience, states that at present 

 prices profits are unattainable. 



" I happen to keep books, and last year I showed that 

 I had made no money on all this land of mine, and paid 

 no income tax at all." Farmers are poorer, and farming 

 has deteriorated. More farmers would throw up their 

 farms, but the poorer they get the more reluctant they 

 are to lose their homes and realise their losses. And 

 although rents have not fallen in any proportion to 

 prices there is a keen competition for farms, mainly from 

 those " who have not yet burned their fingers." 



There is no doubt that the fall in prices of cattle and 

 sheep, etc. in recent years has pinched agriculture most, 

 and that the reason why things are not as bad as farther 

 south is that there is a considerable reserve force to 

 draw upon in the thorough farming of the past. " The 

 land has for many years been exceedingly well farmed, 

 and hence is more able to bear economy of labour, 

 manure, and feeding stuffs." ^ 



Cumberland, one of the few districts reported by 

 the Richmond Commission to be in a prosperous con- 

 dition, has suffered little, except from the contracted 

 corn prices, and their inevitable effect on some of the 

 heavy land. But cattle and sheep, which have fallen 

 least, have been the staple products, and the patient 

 industry and economy of the northern farmers has kept 

 things fairly straight. 



Turning to the south-western and western counties, 

 farming has had more channels to work through, and 

 has not fared so badly. 



Dorset, with nearly 300,000 acres of permanent pasture, 

 and less than 200,000 of arable land, and of that only 

 89,000 in corn crops, and being more a breeding than 

 a grazing county, has suffered chiefly from the fluctua- 

 tions in the price of stock and the heavy fall in the price 

 of wool. There has been an inevitable depression in the 

 letting and selling value of land ; tenants have lost 

 capital, and here and there are examples of ruin and 

 acute depression. 



^ Wilson Fox, Glendale, p. 10. 



