620 Typical Farms in Cheshire and North Wales. 
argued, if this be the case, the landlord suffers by submitting to 
a lower rent, because the restrictions reduce the returns. But 
the tenants are placed at a disadvantage also, and in many 
instances are within measurable distance of making no rent at 
all. To avert this, changes of some sort must be effected. One 
such that is likely to prove of advantage is free trade in the 
husbandman’s avocation. Agriculture itself is sorely depressed, 
and its followers are despondent, and the time has arrived for 
the general recognition of freedom of cultivation and free sale 
of produce. Land may be exhausted under such conditions, 
but this may also be the case under existing ones. It is the 
farmer’s interest to sustain the fertility of the land, provided 
he is protected from the fruits of his energy and outlay being 
confiscated. In the event of free cultivation and sale being 
the established rule, the owner could make an exception with 
regard to the latter privilege at the end of the tenancy, and thus 
in some degree retain the means to repair impoverishment. He 
could stipulate that the land should be kept clean. Given clean 
land, chemistry has taught us how to restore fertility rapidly, 
if not so thoroughly as by means of long-continued good farming. 
These Cheshire farms have passed through the existing crisis 
with less disastrous consequences than others in adjoining 
counties, and one of the reasons for this is the immunity from 
restraint, tacitly ceded, with regard to the sale of commodities 
that can be replaced at a lower cost. The moderate expenditure 
in labour as compared with the returns is the last, but not the 
least, factor in Cheshire’s agricultural success. The labour bill 
varies from 20s. to 35s. per acre, but in reality in but few 
instances is the tale all told by these figures. The work of the 
masters and mistresses, and of the sons and daughters, is not 
debited, and, if it were, probably the balances standing to the 
credit side of the account at the end of the year on many a 
holding would be transferred to that of the debit. The amount 
of indoor and summer Irish labour is also a special feature. 
Most of the farmers employed several men and lads indoors, 
and Irish quarters are specially provided at the homesteads. 
Probably this style of labour is economical, if well-directed 
and supervised, but, to a stranger in the land of peasant small 
holdings, it was somewhat of a revelation. 
The farms visited were a credit to the agriculture of the 
country, and the writer, in concluding, has to thank the occupiers 
and the members of the Chester Local Committee for the kind- 
ness and assistance he received during his tour of inspection. 
J. Bowen- Jones, 
