Fifty Years' Progress of British Agriculture. 27 
birth, added probably a fourth to the weight of home-grown 
meat during the period of good prices. Landlords and farmers 
shared in the general prosperity, and the wages of labour and 
the bills of tradesmen increased in like fashion. 
There are two capitals employed in British agriculture, that 
of the landowner and that of the farmer. The first, which is 
the land itself, and the permanent improvements upon it, had 
hitherto been certain and safe, and therefore yielding a small, 
but regular, return ; the other, the live stock and crops, subject 
to risk of seasons, and speculative, and liable to competition 
prices, requiring a much larger percentage to cover risk. The 
capitalist is content with 3 per cent, for his heretofore secure 
investment, which carried with it also influence and social 
position. A farm worth oQl. an acre for the freehold needs a 
further 10/. an acre to provide the farmer's capital for its culti- 
vation. The landowner is satisfied with a return of 3 per cent, 
on his 50/., while the tenant looks for 10 per cent, for manage- 
ment and risk and capital, on his 10/. Let us suppose that 
the farmer has a capital sufficient to buy 100 acres at this 
price, and stock them ; he would get for his 5,000/. invested in 
freehold, 1 50/., and for his 1,000/. farm capital, 100/. ; together, 
250/. But if he followed the custom of this country and used 
the whole of his capital in cultivating another man's land, he 
would with his 6,000/. hire 600 acres, on which his return 
ought to be 600/. He in truth then trades on the capital of 
the landowner, practically lent to him at the moderate rate of 
3 per cent., which he converts into a trade profit on his own 
capital of 10/. 
The British landlord is thus the nominal owner of five-sixths 
of the joint capital embarked in agriculture, and upon him in 
the end the chief weight in any disaster must fall. But while 
his ownership is hampered by entail and settlement he cannot 
use his position with the freedom of absolute ownership, and is 
thus disabled from bearing his share of the strain that is now 
pressing on the land. The Settled Land Act of the late Lord 
Cairns has been a partial relief. But it is only by fee- simple 
ownership that a landowner in difficult times, such as the pre- 
sent, can do justice to his estate and his tenants. 
In regard to tenants, recent legislation in England and 
Scotland might have proved highly beneficial if its effect had not 
been practically limited to the "quitting" tenants, and thus to 
that portion of them, not one-tenth in number, who may be de- 
scribed as either the old, or the least prosperous and persevering 
ef their class. 
The hopes excited by the expressed intention of the Prime 
