56 Large and Small Holdings 



the same sense. Their expectations were quite correct in theory, 

 but in practice they remained unfulfilled. The assumption on which 

 all such deductions were based did not prove justified. 



Contrary to all expectation, there was no serious fall in the price 

 of wheat in the thirty years following the abolition of the corn-laws. 

 Between 1847 and 1881 wheat was at about 52^. a quarter. This 

 was not much below the average for the period 1815 to 1846, which 

 was between 56^. and 57J. 1 In spite, however, of the small change in 

 wheat-prices, considerable alterations in English agriculture did begin 

 with the year 1846. But they were of a different kind from those 

 which had been expected. The significance of the first thirty years 

 of agricultural free trade was that corn-production, far from being 

 abandoned, was made more profitable than ever. 



In the corn-law period a price of 52^. had always produced the 

 cry of agricultural distress 2 . But after 1846 the same price saw 

 agriculture flourishing, so much so that the years from 1850 to 1880 

 have come to be regarded as " the good old times " of arable farming. 

 The question arises as to why it was that the same price produced 

 such different results in the two periods. The present writer has 

 attempted to answer this question in another place 3 , and must refer 

 the reader to that earlier publication if what is here said on the 

 subject appears to be too concise. 



The changes which began in 1846 were of various kinds. For 

 one thing, the economic conceptions of the farmers themselves under- 

 went a considerable revolution. Under the corn-laws they had 

 reckoned on high prices and regarded relatively low prices as an 

 exception. Now they reckoned on low prices, and it was the 

 relatively high prices which were regarded as exceptional. The 

 general expectation of a fall in prices consequent on the abolition of 

 the protective duties set the corn-growers seeking some way of 

 meeting such a fall. The obvious means was to diminish the cost 

 of production. But as in fact prices only fell very slightly, a large 

 profit was made out of the lowered cost thus originated. Chief 

 among the improvements made with this end in view was drainage. 

 Caird states that between 1848 and 1878 about 10,000,000 was 

 expended for this purpose 4 . Artificial manures were also brought 

 into common use, and agriculture generally was put upon a scientific 

 basis. Among the great contributors to this result were the Royal 



1 Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 109 and 128. 



2 Ibid., pp. 19 f., 48 and 63. 3 Ibid., pp. noff. 

 4 Caird, The Landed Interest, 1878, pp. 82 f. 



