History of Agricultural Rent in England 39 



or yeomen. Two centuries later the first 

 set of enclosures produced over England the 

 same outcry, as in the nineteenth century 

 in Scotland, over the expulsion of men for 

 sheep and the sacrifice of the customary 

 rights of the peasantry. Gradually, how- 

 ever, the landowners became themselves 

 improvers of the land, and up to the 

 nineteenth century they took the lead. In 

 the course of that century, in England, the 

 tenant farmers gradually obtained the repeal 

 of the laws that still survived in favour of 

 the owner, and the enactment of laws in 

 favour of the security of their own capital. 

 But coincidently with this, taking the 

 average, the great landowners continued 

 to sink money in their land, and to take 

 the first shock of agricultural depression 

 by the remission of rents. So that in 

 some cases, as in the Bedford estates, 

 though there is nominally a large gross 



