ENGLISH FARMING AND ITS VICISSITUDES.* THE curiosity of mankind concerning

the past and future history of the human race is insatiable. Yearning as we nearly all of us do to look both before and after, we must at once recognise that the desire to search out the things of the past, and to learn what our fathers did in the old times, can to some degree be gratified, whilst the attempt to look into the future is a hopeless task. The energetic but too hasty utilitarian is apt to disregard both past and future. " Act, act, in the living present," is his eager cry. But this excellent precept is one that is easily seen to require some modification. For the present is the outcome of the past; and it is only by studying its records and conditions that we can rightly try to explain existing circumstances, and propose remedies for the evils that may accompany them. This, as regards English farming, is what Mr. Prothero has set himself to do in this small but admirable work. There is ample room for such a book, had it been double its present length. And how interesting is the subject discussed in its pages ! Our forefathers dwelt on the same land, walked over the same fields, and tilled the same acres as their descendants do now, and the question is brought very closely home to us why the aspect of the country is what it is to-day : why are lanes, fields, banks, and hedgerows as they are now P All these, or nearly all, have been decided by the necessities of agriculture ; and if, as some persons have been bold and disagreeable enough to prophesy, vast portions of the surface of England are to go out of cultivation, the aspect of the country must change in a corresponding degree. That change, it is to be hoped, is a matter of remotely future history. Past history, however, is called upon to explain the actual condition as much of agricultural as of political matters. Indeed, the two have been, and are often and intimately con- nected ; nor, considering the importance of husbandry as com- pared with any other occupation in the olden days, is this to be wondered at. In the Middle Ages, the only means of employ- ment for the general population, save fighting, was agriculture, of which, both in France and England, the monks were the pioneers in whatever progress was made.

The dweller in cities, as a rule, seems quite satisfied if his food-supply comes to him with regularity and cheapness, caring naught for its origin, and asking no questions as to its production, possibly " for conscience' sake," lest he may learn too much of the middleman who has managed to take all the profit in its growth and manufacturt, but more probably from lack of knowledge and interest sufficient to induce him to think about it at all. Yet even in these days, when the whole world has become a farm to supply the people of England with their daily food, there is hardly any subject of greater importance to the nation than the well-being and stability of those who cultivate the soil. Within the last fifteen years, the capital invested in farming has diminished by at least one hundred millions, or over one-third; whilst landowners are estimated by Lord Derby, a competent authority, to have

• The Pioneers and Progress of British Panning.. By Zowland E. Prothero. London: Longman, Green, and Co.

suffered an aggregate loss of three hundred millions sterling.

The magnitude of these figures shows how serious the commer- cial and economical aspect of the question is ; and that this is beginning to be felt may be gathered from the frequent issue of articles on home and foreign agriculture in many of the daily papers. Mr. Prothero's book ought to prove another step in the right direction.

The first part of the book consists of a compendious history of British farming. In early times, the land was cultivated by village communities or associations, on which the feudal system was superimposed after the Norman Conquest :—

" Henceforward the land'was divided into the private desmesne of the lord of the manor, the lord's wastes, and the tenemental land of the association. Rights of common were exercised not only over the commons, the soil of which was now vested in the feudal lord, but by each party respectively over the land of the other. If the lord of the manor farmed the demesne himself, his land was subject to the rights of common exercised over it by the manorial tenantry. If he farmed his demesne as a modern land- lord, he multiplied retainers by letting it out in small portions to farmers who were often holders at the same time of tenemental land. If he threw the demesne into the common stock, he made himself a partner in the joint venture of the agrarian association. Demesne and commonable land was intermixed in minute strips. So confused did the two portions become, that on the estates of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, three acres could not be found by the land registrars."

Under the common-field system, the returns were miserably poor, and it is evident that no advance in agriculture was possible. Whilst only enough land was tilled to support the people, famine and abundance naturally alternated with the seasons. Mr. Prothero informs us of the interesting fact that so late as 1879, " at Stogoursey, near Bridgewater, a village community were still cultivating six hundred acres of land on similar principles." After a time, enclosures began to be made, and " a new conception of agriculture dawned on men's minds." The decay of the feudal system began ; small farms were sought after; landlords withdrew from the associations, which were dissolved, the other members becoming peasant- proprietors. The Black Death and the losses in the Hundred Years' War raised the rate of wages enormously, and the golden age of the peasant began. Then came the first crisis in British agriculture, caused by the demand for English wool, and the profits attendant on its growth. As a consequence, arable land was converted into grass, wastes and commons were enclosed, small farms were thrown together, and an enormous mass of people who had lived by tillage lost their employment, and all this to make room for the shep-

herd, his dog, and his flock. Legislation was powerless to arrest the change; and for four hundred years Europe was clothed by English flock-masters, and wool became the chief source of England's wealth. Most fittingly might the Lord

Chancellor take his seat on the woolsack. Little progress was made in agriculture, however, until the seventeenth century, when increased attention was given to the manuring of the soil, whilst the art of gardening, which since the Wars of the Roses had nearly died out, was revived. It was no longer needful to import onions and cabbages, carrots, parsnips, and " collet:Lowers " from Flanders. After the Civil Wars, which caused very great distress, progress was almost continuous.

Many treatises on agriculture were written, and the cultiva- tion of turnips and clover was successfully introduced by Sir R. Weston, of Sutton, in Surrey, who thereby gave food to millions. But it was left to Lord Townshend, in the following century, to effect a revolution in agriculture through their means. With a growing population, with the exportation of wool forbidden, whilst duties were laid on foreign wheat, and bounties paid on the export of corn, a second crisis arose in the history of English farming early in the eighteenth century. Corn-growing was again resorted to ; and England not only fed her own increased population, but she became, for a period, the granary of Europe, ravaged at that time by war. At this crisis, Lord Townshend, abandoning politics, devoted himself to farming, introduced the famous four-course or Norfolk system of husbandry, and adopted many other improvements. But, as Mr. Prothero truly says :—

" Townshend's greatest achievement was the field cultivation of turnips and clover. A new vein of agricultural wealth was struck ; turnips became the most active agents as well as the surest indi- cators of good farming. Clover and turnips had hitherto been grown as experiments. Tall brought the cultivation of roots to comparative perfection. ' I introduced turnips into the field,' he says, 'in King William's reign ; but the practice did not travel beyond the hedges of my estate till after the peace of Utrecht. A similar prejudice existed against clover. Farmers,' as Tull states, if advised to sow it, would certainly reply, " Gentlemen - might sow it if they pleased, but they [farmers] must take care to pay their rent.' Townshend was the first great landlord who proved the value of green crops as the pivots of agricultural improvement. He initiated the Norfolk system, the merit of which depends on the judicious alternation of roots and grasses with cereals. The introduction of green crops en- couraged the farmers to observe what, in the absence of chemical manures, was the golden rule of never taking two corn crops in succession ; saved him from leaving a portion of his land every year unproductive ; enabled him to increase his live stock and maintain it without falling off during the winter. For the sands of Norfolk, turnips possessed peculiar value. Roots, fed off in the ground by sheep, fertilised and consolidated the poorest soil. Another portion of the crop, drawn off and stored for winter keep, enabled the farmer to carry more stock, supplied him with more manure, enriched the land and trebled its yield. It thus became a proverb that a full bullock yard and a full fold yard make a full granary.' Farming in a circle, unlike logic, proved a most productive process. Townshend adopted Tull's plan of drilling and horse-hoeing turnips instead of sowing them broad- cast. He was an exponent of the maxim that the more the irons are among the turnips until the leaves spread across the rows, the better.' His advocacy of turnips earned him the nick-name of Turnip Townshend,' and supplied an example for Pope's Horatian illustrations-

' Why, of two brothers rich and restless, one Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun ; The other slights, for women, sports, and wines, All Townshend's turnips and all Grosvenor's mines.' "

Fortunes were made by those who followed Townshend's example. Mr. Prothero devotes a chapter to Bakewell, who discovered the principle of selection, and about 1750 produced the famous Dishley flock, thereby doing as much to increase

the wealth of England as Arkwright or Watt, his better-known contemporaries. A great deal that is extremely interesting

will be found in what Mr. Prothero writes about Arthur -Young and Mr. Coke, of Holkham, both earnest pioneers in

the direction of modern farming. Their lead was energetically followed :—

" No new book escaped the vigilance of agriculturalists. Miss Edgeworth's Essay on Irish Bulls had not been published three days, when it was ordered by the secretary of .the Bath and West .of England Society of Agriculture. Nor were the clergy less enthusiastic. An archdeacon, finding the churchyard cultivated for turnips, rebuked the rector with the remark, This must not occur again.' The reply, Oh no, Sir, it will be barley next year,' proves that the eighteenth-century clergy were at least zealous for the rotation of crops."

During the French War, things remained prosperous enough, at any rate for farmers; but with the peace of 1812 began one of the most disastrous periods of English farming. It is also the period of Protection." Rents fell in some cases over 50 per cent. Multitudes of farmers were ruined. But after a time the general revival of trade began to reach agriculture; science came to the assistance of the farmer and supplied him with new and improved implements, with a system of thorough drainage, and with artificial manures. "Manures and drainage acted and reacted upon one another; the first encouraged the second. Both together enabled farmers to carry more stock, and taught the lesson that he who puts most into the land gets the most out. Manure, like charity, proved a blessing alike to the giver and receiver." Then came Free-trade, followed by another period of great distress, which was intensified by bad seasons. This was met by a larger diffusion of knowledge, by the adoption of high farming, and by the application of steam to agricultural imple- ments and machinery. The war with Russia and the Civil War in America cut off supplies from those countries ; whilst France required vast quantities of grain after the war with Germany was concluded. For a short time farms were at a premium, and extravagant rents were asked and agreed to. Prices kept up, and things went on prosperously enough until 1874, which was the last of a series of favourable seasons. Commercial .depression and disaster were followed by the failures of the Glasgow, South Wales, and West of England Banks. The

gold supply diminished, prices fell, and the depression became general. Then came foreign competition, completing the ruin of the English farmer. The difficulty of the day is low prices. It is next to impossible to produce corn, meat, or dairy pro- duce with a margin of profit. Like stage-coaches and galling- ships, agriculture on scientific principles seems to have become useless just when it reached perfection. Nowadays it is actually retrograding.

In a series of chapters of great interest, Mr. Prothero dis- eusses the remedies suggested for the present calamitous state of things. The peasant-proprietor, "the spoilt child of theorists," has suffered terribly, although in other countries he has had the benefit of Protection. Only under special con- ditions has he ever proved a success, and Mill's instances in favour of peasant-proprietorship belong to a past state of society, when foreign competition was undreamed of. Any sudden change in the tenure of land can do no good, and violent agitation has already scared away capital from the land. " Our system admits abuses, and lacks elasticity ; but capitalist landlords have proved the saviours, not the ruin, of farming." Without them, it is difficult to imagine the con- dition in which farm buildings, in which millions of money have been invested, would have been in all over the country to-day. That there is room for improvement in the existing relations between landlords and their tenants, and agricultural labourers, does not admit of doubt. But it does admit of the gravest doubt whether the State purchase of land would be an economical advantage, or whether it would not result in estab- lishing the money-lender, and not the agricultural labourer, as the actual proprietor of the soil. The reduction of the tithe-rent charge is a hopeless expectation. Its reversion belongs to the nation at large ; its redemption is a question which Mr. Prothero discusses with ability ; but it is to the readjustment of local burdens that our authOr looks for relief in the immediate future. " At the present moment, agricul- turalists are oppressed by Protection taxes upon Free-trade prices." When the whole community was heavily taxed, under Protection and the Poor-law prior to 1834, for the benefit of agricultural land, proportionately heavy taxes on the land were justifiable. Now Protection is gone, and the old Poor-law is gone, but the rates and taxes remain. Here Mr. Prothero shows a real and very heavy grievance, the relief of which has long been promised and cannot much longer be delayed. Other aids which the Legislature might give are the "removal of all artificial hindrances to the natural growth of small owners," by increasing facilities to transfer land through the establish- ment of land registries ; the extension of technical agricultural education, among labourers especially ; and the appointment of a Ministry of Agriculture. These are absolutely needful before the successful increase of either peasant-proprietors or peasant-tenants can be looked for. Legislation is also needed to prevent the importation and spread of disease among live stock. " So long as contagious diseases are not shut out, British farmers fight foreign meat-producers with one hand tied behind their backs. Railway rates tie up the other." It is to be hoped that the attempt now being made to deal with differential railway rates will succeed, and that English farmers will be granted access to home markets from which they have been so long excluded. Tenant-right will be demanded as soon as prosperity returns, and the opportunity now offered to farmers for equitable legislation on this ques- tion should not be lost. For it is not to be supposed that things will always remain as they are. With an ever-increas- ing population, when trade revives and freights improve, it is inconceivable that land at our doors should not also improve in value. Agriculture at the present moment is passing through another crisis ; corn-growing is being abandoned in favour of mixed husbandry, and England is again undergoing a change from tillage to pasture ; whilst smaller farms and lower farming, more suited to reduced capital, are becoming the order of the day. Mr. Prothero looks ahead at the future of English farming with confidence and courage. " Agricultural depression," he says, " in the strict sense of the word, is over for those who are not lured by the will-o'-the- wisp of Protection deeper and further into the Slough of Despond." It may be that he is somewhat more sanguine than the actual state of things warrants. But whether this be so or no, he has given us an excellent treatise, written in a pleasant and readable manner, abounding in sagacious remarks and suggestions, and worthy of perusal by landowner, tenant- farmer, and consumer.