290 = 24 
British Agriculture. 
increase of profit, and chiefly in rise of wages and expenses, and 
local rates. Within the last twenty-five years, the capital value 
of the live-stock of the United Kingdom has risen from one 
hundred and forty-six to two hundred and sixty millions sterling, 
a gain of one hundred and fourteen millions, 
and in that It will be subsequently shown, when treating of the value of 
of land. land, that within a somewhat shorter period the increase of the 
land-rent of this country, when capitalised at '60 years' purchase, 
shows an increased value of three hundred and thirty-one millions 
sterling. When we add to this the increase of farm-capital, 
through the rise in the value of live-stock, one hundred and 
fourteen millions, there is the amazing sum of four hundred and 
forty-five millions sterling as the gain to the agriculturists, — 
the landowners, and farmers — and, in higher wages, to the agri- 
cultural labourers of the United Kingdom, from the improvement 
of land and the general prosperity of the country. I may, perhaps, 
be excused for quoting the concluding words of my volume, 
written in 1851, at a time of great agricultural depression, when 
I stated that I believed the landlords and tenants of England 
possessed energy and capacity sufficient to meet and adapt them- 
selves to the Free-trade policy, " which, in its extraordinary 
effect on the welfare of all other classes of the community, would» 
sooner or later, bear good fruits also to them." 
CHAPTEE III. 
Eitent of the 
country, and 
proportions of 
various crops. 
as influePced 
by climate, 
Soil, Climate, and Crops. 
The total extent of the United Kingdom is 76,300,000 acres 
of which 26,300,000 are in mountain pasture and waste 
and 50,000,000 in crops, meadows, permanent pasture, an( 
woods and forests. Of the crops, one-fourth is in variou 
kinds of corn, one-eighth in green crops, one-eighth in gras 
under rotation, and one-half in meadows and permanent pasturi 
About a thirtieth of the whole surface of the Kingdom is 
woods and forests. These proportions show the prevailin 
system of husbandry, and reveal the cause of its increasing pn 
ductiveness. Three-fourths of the whole are green crops, whic 
feed and clean, or grass which rests and maintains, the remaii 
ing fourth in corn. This preponderance of restorative ov 
exhaustive crops greatly exceeds that of any other country, ai 
is very much due to the climate. 
The climate of the eastern side is drier than that of the we 
the fall of rain at equal altitudes being as 25 inches in the ej 
to 35 in the west. The drought and heat are greatest in t 
