288 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



and do well, increasing the area as time went on. 

 There is one man not far from here paying ^^350 rent. 

 He and his wife were both farm servants." 



A foreman on Sir Richard Graham's estate at £14 

 the half-year, began to farm at £^S '"^nt, went to a 150 

 acre farm, and then, with a large family of children to 

 help him, took 500 acres. " At last a farm rented at 

 ;^iooo a year fell in, and he was able to take and stock 

 it all with his own money. He then took another 700 

 acres at i^iooo. By this time he was farming 2000 

 acres at a rent of ^2100 a year. The family are still 

 farming this acreage, and 1000 acres in addition. 



Many similar instances are reported by Mr Wilson 

 Fox. 



In the Appendix to his Report, one man tells the story 

 of his life, and how by steady industry he was able to 

 buy 80 acres and build a house out of the profits of 

 farming, and even to pay off the debts of relatives to the 

 amount of ;^2ooo.^ 



Others have done well, but complain that rents are far 

 too high, and that they have kept afloat by withholding 

 any wages from their children. 



" All round here the farmers' sons and daughters 

 work for nothing, I do not know one case where a 

 father pays his sons and daughters wages. They give 

 their sons a shilling or two to buy tobacco." ^ 



The last few years have been hard for small men with 

 insufficient capital. 



One man says : " Up to ten years ago we did well and 

 saved a lot of money, but for five or six years I could 

 not have done without the interest on the money saved." 



The same thrifty and industrious spirit is shown in 

 Northumberland, where many have risen from being 

 labourers and shepherds to large farmers. 



Those who have taken small farms recently have 

 suffered most, but " those who rose to the position of 

 small farmers between 1864 and 1873," says Mr Scott, 

 and made some money before the depression began, 



^ Wilson Fox, Cumberland. Appendix B i, p. 53. 

 ' Ibid., p. 39 



