276 The Agricultural Lessons of " The Eighties." 
hopes and possibilities. We might once more bask in sunny 
weather, and participate in the joys of an abundant harvest, 
which had, in the previous year, been denied us. Strange 
misgivings had forced themselves upon us. Was the climate 
going to alter permanently for the worse ? Were we about to 
be slowly eaten up with disaster, low prices, a chilly atmo- 
sphere, floods, fever, and famine ? If such memories appear 
distorted, they recall my own feelings at that period. After 
several discouraging years, which had given rise to serious dis- 
cussion on the future of British agriculture, came a season upon 
which no one can look back without experiencing a cold shudder. 
It seems to haunt us still like a spectre. Everything had gone 
disastrously wrong. Prices of corn, wool, and live-stock had 
fallen, the new-milk trade was congested, the cheese trade was 
bad, potatoes rotted in the ground ; for the first time, probably, 
in the history of Parliaments it was gravely suggested in the 
House of Commons that we might have " no harvest " ! or, in 
other words, that the promise of " seed time and harvest" was, 
for once at least, about to fail. Happily this intense gloom has 
passed away. Those of us who have been spared to see the birth 
of 1890 have once more seen the sun regain his power and free 
himself of his spots. Nay more, we have seen dry summers and 
longed for rain, as in 1879 and some of its predecessors we 
longed for a short cessation from drenching rains and sodden 
fields. 
AVithout detailing the story of the "Eighties," it may 
shortly be said that never has there been a period of greater 
activity of thought, of proposed alterations, of attention to 
agricultural matters, than we have witnessed during the last ten 
years. This has been in a great measure produced by the 
necessities of landowners, who found with dismay that their 
land was no longer sought after by eager competitors. Rent, 
which had been regarded as representing a solid interest upon 
the market value of land, was at last seen to depend 'entirely 
upon the profits of farmers, and as a consequence the market 
value of land also fell rapidly, as an uncertain investment. 
Landlords awoke to the gravity of the situation, and began 
to co-operate with leading tenants, in order, if possible, to find 
a way of escape from a serious dilemma. The effect has been 
salutary to a degree beyond what might have been expected ; 
so that, in spite of the fall in the price of wheat, we start upon 
a new decade in better spirits and with renewed hopes. 
The " Eighties" may be summed up as a decade of disaster. 
Many farmers have succumbed through bad prices, disap- 
pointing summers, and harsh, expensive winters. We are, 
