308=42 
British Agriculture. 
Settlements 
.nd incura- 
lances hinder 
. he free action 
if many land- 
wners in the 
aanagement of 
heir property. 
Expedients 
adopted to 
overcome this. 
State loans for 
drainage and 
reclamation of 
land, and in 
Ireland for 
huildings also, 
issued on 
favourable 
terms : 
CHAPTER VI. 
La2;d Improvement. 
Having now endeavoured to explain the respective positions 
of the three interests engaged in the cultivation of the soil in 
each of the three countries forming the United Kingdom, I will 
proceed to consider the circumstances which embarrass the free 
action of a large proportion of the landowners, and the modes by 
which these are more or less overcome. A very large proportion 
of the land is held by tenants for life under strict settlement, 
a condition which prevents the power of sale, and it is also fre- 
quently burdened with payments to other members of the family, 
and in many cases with debt. The nominal income is thus often 
very much reduced, and the apparent owner of five thousand a 
year may have little more than half of it to spend. In such cases 
there is no capital available for the improvements Avhich a 
landowner is called upon to make, in order to keep his property 
abreast of the advance in agricultural practice. This was press- 
ingly felt at the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the 
withdrawal of protective duties from native produce. Parlia- 
ment, therefore, when it enacted a free import of the necessaries 
of life, provided State loans on favourable terms to the land- 
owners for the drainage and reclamation of their estates. 
The potato disease of 1846 and 1847 was a serious calamity 
at the time, but it was the occasion from which arose the great 
stride made in agricultural enterprise in this country during the 
last thirty years. It led at once to the removal of all protective 
duties on foreign agricultural produce, and obtained for the 
people of this country access to supplies from foreign lands, wliere 
wages were lower and good land more abundant. Landowners 
and farmers bestirred themselves to meet the inevitable compe- 
tition to which they became exposed ; and their efforts were 
promptly aided by the State with reproductive loans to tide them 
over the early years of trial. As the sums voted by Parliament 
for these loans became exhausted. Land Improvement Companie 
were formed to carry on the good work on the principles which 
had already proved successful, though the Companies necessaril} 
charged somewhat higher terms than those which the credit o 
the State had enabled it to afford without loss. 
The State loans were limited, in Great Britain, to drcainag 
and reclamation, the landowners being left to their own re 
sources for buildings, roads, and fences. In Ireland tbes 
were and still are included, that country having always bee 
favoured in matters of State assistance. The rate of paymer 
was by annual instalments of 6^ per cent., which in twenty 
two years redeemed the principal, and at tlie same tim 
I 
