RENT AND LABOUR 39 



larger holdings. Rents were high, 305. to 2 an acre, 

 and rising above that figure in some recent agree- 

 ments ; some of the land, too, was subject to a drainage 

 rate. Buildings were in general pretty poor ; labour 

 plentiful but well paid, even the day labourers should 

 make a pound a week on the average of the year. It 

 was by no means every one's style of farming, but 

 most of the land had been in the same hands for a long 

 time, farms were hard to get, and were likely to become 

 even more so if corn prices maintained their upward 

 tendency. The great characteristic of this Sussex 

 maritime country is, however, neither its sheep nor its 

 cattle, but its power of producing continuous heavy 

 corn crops ; no land and no farming we had seen so 

 far had given us the same impression of a busy manu- 

 factory of produce. 



