2 2 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



;^3290 in 1882 to £26(^1 in 1893, and from ;^2256 to 

 ;^I4I5 But on estates in the north the fall has been 

 trifling. An instance quoted gives a drop from £^7^77 

 to;^35,584. 



" Some farmers who kept accounts plainly said that 

 these accounts showed such a bad result that they were 

 indisposed to produce them, and many others gave the 

 general answer that each year had shown a loss." ^ 



Farm accounts obtained by Mr Hope show serious 

 losses. Thus, on a farm in the Lothians, 400 acres, while 

 an average annual profit of £677 had been earned up to 

 1882, for the next ten years the average was only ;^I2I, 

 and in 1893 there was a loss of £17^, although rent had 

 been reduced 25 per cent. ; on a Berwickshire farm, 400 

 acres, there was a net loss of ;^373 on ten years ; on five 

 other farms in the Lothians, Roxburgh, and the north, a 

 loss of capital ; while there was about 3 per cent, interest 

 on capital earned in one case, and " a fair profit over a 

 twenty-three years' lease " in another. 



The loss of capital by farmers is further shown by 

 numerous instances in which their stock is really owned 

 by auctioneers and dealers. 



Taking them all over, rents have fallen 25 to 30 per 

 cent., but the fall is insufficient. 



On a Roxburghshire farm of 541 acres, the tenant 

 says " the farm left double the profit in 1 877 at a rent of 

 ;^i865 that it does now at ;iCiooo." 



" The farmers consider that the proper adjustment of 

 the rent lies at the root of the present agricultural 

 question." 



The heavy loss from low price of potatoes is illustrated 

 by Mr Hope's own evidence. With potatoes at 30s a 

 ton, and rent at £4. los per acre, Mr Hope says he was 

 losing in 1893 about j^io an acre. 



In the Lothians, Mr Riddell, whose highly worked 

 farm kept up its value while other similar farms fell from 

 30 to 40 per cent, in annual value, stated that there had 

 been a great number of farmers who became bankrupt, 

 and have retired during the depression.^ 



> Roxburgh, &c., p. 17. pp. 23-28. » See pp. 47, 48, 193, 194. 



