28 Fifty Year* Progress of British Agriculture, 
Minister, Mr. Gladstone, in 1881, to deal with the devolution of 
land, the transfer of land, the registry of land, and the mode of 
borrowing on land, all disappeared under the pressure of the 
Irish land question. It has been assumed by an influential class 
of politicians that the agricultural system in that country can be 
rendered sound and prosperous by the conversion of the landlord 
and tenant system into that of cultivating ownership. And the 
main part of the time of the Legislature, so far as the land is 
concerned, has since been engaged towards that object, to the 
exclusion of those questions which so pressingly affect the wel- 
fare of the agricultural interests of Great Britain. 
It would, however, be a great error in regard to British agri- 
culture, whatever may be the final decision in regard to Ireland, 
to take any legislative step which should tend further to alter 
the well-recognised rule that the landlord makes all the perma- 
nent outlays required, and the tenant finds only the capital for 
cultivation. And it would be an equally mistaken policy to 
take any course which should diminish the landowner's interest 
in the continued improvement of his property. The landowner 
in this country has two capitals in the land : the soil and all 
that is beneath it, and the buildings and other permanent works 
made by his capital upon it, and required for the accommodation 
of the people and the stock and crops of the farmer. On good 
agricultural land, worth 50Z. an acre, the land will represent 
35Z. of that value, and the buildings and other permanent 
works 157. It is seldom that the farmer can command more 
capital than is needed for that fuller cultivation which our ex- 
posure to foreign competition demands. It is therefore most 
important that such measures should be devised as will best 
tend to the continuous increase of production, by giving a 
distinct but united interest to both landlord and tenant in ob- 
taining that result. The experiment being tried in Ireland of 
Government advances to tenants for the purchase of their 
farms might, however, with great advantage be offered to the 
farmers of Great Britain. This might be done with the view of 
increasing the proportion of occupying landowners, and might 
be limited to those occupiers who were prepared to pay down 
one-fourth of the price. 
After 1871 agricultural prosperity began to wane through 
an unprecedented series of bad seasons. In eight seasons, end- 
ing in 1882, there were only two good crops, and among the 
bad was the crop of 1879, the worst of this century. During 
this period much agricultural capital was lost. And there was 
no compensaf ion by higher price, for the loss of crops in Western 
Europe stimulated in an extraordinary degree the extension of 
