296 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LI ORTICULTURAL SOCILTY. 



the real wages of the working classes — the purchasing-power of the 

 money received by them — fell; there was appalling poverty, and as a 

 consequence the demand for the products of small-holdings dwindled 

 away. The repeal of the Corn Laws produced no immediate reaction, 

 the price of wheat having fallen only very gradually, with many 

 fluctuations, from 74s. 6d. in 1819, to 45s. in 1882, and it was not 

 until 1884 that prices broke heavily. Wheat-growing then became 

 unprofitable, and the large-farm system built up on arable land 

 collapsed. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century, labour-saving 

 machinery and the system of concentrating the workers in factories 

 were introduced into many industries, with the result that the 

 supremacy of corn-growing as a speedy road to fortune was challenged, 

 and a tempting bait in the form of higher wages was offered to the 

 wretchedly paid farm labourers ; this may be said to be the com- 

 mencement of the exodus from country to town. Even whilst the 

 large- farm system was still flourishing it found a powerful rival in 

 manufactures and commerce, to the exploitation of which most of the 

 energy, brains, and capital of the country were becoming directed. 

 With the great fall in the price of corn this movement in favour of 

 commerce was intensified, agriculture and all in connexion with it 

 becoming almost completely neglected — a neglect from which it is still 

 suffering. Vast tracts of fertile land have been allowed to revert more 

 or less to a state of nature, or are being so inefficiently cultivated that 

 instead of the bulk of our foodstuffs being produced at home, as they 

 could and ought to be, importations from abroad have now reached 

 the proportion of four-fifths of our requirements. 



This matter of the food supply of the people shows signs of soon 

 becoming a more serious affair than many people imagine. The 

 world's consuming power is rapidly overtaking its producing power. 

 In all civilized countries the classes who are consumers of foodstuffs 

 are getting more and more disproportionate to those who are food 

 producers. Everywhere agriculture is receiving less attention than it 

 ought by reason of the attraction of the higher-paid industrial arts and 

 the allurements of city life. As an instance, the Secretary of the 

 American Board of Agriculture — Mr. Willet M. Hays — says that in the 

 United States only one-third of the population can now be described 

 as food-producers, the other two-thirds being consum.ers, whereas only 

 two generations ago the conditions were exactly the reverse. In no 

 country, however, has the situation become so acute as in England, 

 and the indications are that the time is not far distant when, unless in 

 the meantime we repopulate the deserted countryside, we shall be 

 faced with the problem : How are the people to be fed ? 



Nor is the question of food-production the only matter of serious 

 import in this connexion. We are also faced with the fact of a con- 

 tinuous lowering of the average stamina and physique of the whole of 

 the nation. The rural population — the hitherto inexhaustible source 

 of our physical excellence — has steadily drifted away, partly to the 



