40 Large and Small Holdings 



so was now "the engrossing of farms," and the large farmers were 

 dubbed with the same titles as had formerly been bestowed on 

 the hated forestallers 1 . Writers more gifted with penetration vainly 

 strove to show that the large farmers were not in a position to exercise 

 a harmful influence on the corn-markets, and that the most they could 

 do was to hinder a rapid fall of prices after harvest as a consequence 

 of their not threshing or selling their grain at once 2 . The people did 

 not believe it. They found it more satisfactory, and perhaps also 

 simpler, to ascribe the high prices under which they suffered to the 

 wickedness of men than to the caprices of the weather and the chances 

 of the harvest. Thus at the end of the eighteenth century a popular 

 agitation arose against the " monopolising " farmers in every year of 

 dearth, until in its last decade the true causes of the rise in prices 

 became too clear to be misread. 



The. anger of the people against the new methods was reinforced 

 by those writers who combated the rise of the large farm system 

 and the division of the commons as being a social evil. They were 

 indignant at the way in which the cottagers were robbed or cheated 

 of their rights. They had a distaste for the large farmer, with his 

 sense of superiority and his imitation of the ways of the gentry, com- 

 paring him" to "his disadvantage with the honest, hard-working small 

 holder 3 . They were sorry to see the rural population degraded to the 

 rank of a proletariat and leaving the field for the towns. They had 

 little to say from an economic standpoint. They could not claim that 

 the small farmer produced more corn than the large farmer, or that 

 the unenclosed fields were models of agriculture. They could only 

 point out the achievements of the small holders in the way of dairying 

 and market-gardening. Nevertheless they brought the question of 

 the proper size of the agricultural unit to the forefront of the politico- 

 economic discussion. It was clear to them that the question was 

 much more than the mere question of agricultural technique to which 



ranks of people." Also Uniting and Monopolizing Farms ', p. 17; Forbes, op. cit. p. 159; 

 Kent, Hints, p. 205 ; and Price, op. cit. pp. 373 f. 



1 Considerations on the Present High Price of Provisions, 1764, p. n: "Engrossing 

 farmers, or, which is the same thing, engrossers of corn." Also An Enquiry into the 

 Advantages etc., p. 25 ; S. Hodson, Address to the Different Classes of Persons in Great 

 Britain, 1795, p. 10; Two Letters on the Flour Trade, 1766, p. 19; Girdler, op. cit. p. 9; 

 An Humble Address to the King concerning the Dearness of Provisions, 1775, pp. 13 f., etc. 



2 Peters, The Rational Farmer, p. 115; (N. Forster), An Enquiry into the Causes of the 

 Present High Price of Provisions ', 1767, p. 91 ; also An Essay on the Causes of the Present 

 High Price of Provisions, 1773, pp. i8ff. 



* See e.g. Cursory Remarks, p. 22. 



