duction of

bread and

meat limited.

THE FUTURE.

Home pro- THE question of the future for the landed interests and the public, in regard to the supply of food, remains to be considered. The landlord and the tenant will settle the rent between them; with returning activity in trade the wages of labour will increase, and that will be followed by increased consumption of bread and meat. Hitherto there has been no corresponding rise in the price of bread with that of meat, because wheat has been poured in upon us from fertile virgin lands in distant countries, where the only cost of cultivation is labour. The effect of this on home agriculture has been to limit any increase on our production of corn. In ten years, indeed, the growth of corn has declined ten per cent., the diminution being principally in wheat, and that chiefly in Ireland

CHANGES IN AGRICULTure.

143

and Scotland. In other respects the annual home growth of corn keeps steady, barley alone showing a gradual increase. The production of wheat within these islands appears to have reached its limit, and is gradually giving place to a more profitable management. The growth of barley, the dairy and market-garden system, fresh milk and butter, veal and lamb, and beef and mutton of the finest quality and early maturity, and vegetables, and hay and straw, are every year enlarging their circle around the seat of increasing populations. These are the articles which can least bear distant transport, and, therefore, are likely longest to withstand the influence of foreign competition.

This country is becoming every ten years Country becoming less and less of a farm, and more and more of a less of a

meadow, a market-garden, an extension of town into country, and a place of public parks and pleasure grounds. The deer forest, and grouse, in the higher and wilder parts of the country, and the picturesque commons in the more populous districts, are already, in many cases,

farm and

more of a garden.

Population at present rate of increase.

not only more attractive, but more remunerative in health and enjoyment, than they probably would be if subjected to costly improvement by drainage, or by being broken up for cultivation. The poor clay soils, which are expensive to cultivate, and meagre in yield, will be gradually all laid to grass, and the poorer soils of every kind, upon which the costs of cultivation bear a high proportion to the produce, will probably follow the same rule. During the last ten years the permanent pasture in Great Britain has, chiefly from this cause, been increased by more than one million acres.

On the other hand the population is multiplying at the rate of 350,000 a year, nearly a thousand a day. Their consumption of food improves, not only in proportion to their increase in numbers, but also with the augmenting scale of wages. Twenty-five years ago the agricultural population rarely could afford to eat butchers' meat more than once a week. Some of them now have it every day, and as the condition of the rest of the people has improved in an equal degree, the increased consumption of food in

PROSPECTS OF LANDOWners.

145

this country has been prodigious. In addition to the whole of our home produce, we imported in 1877 foreign food and corn of the value of one hundred millions sterling, two-thirds of which was in corn, and one-third live and dead meat. It has become a vast trade, embracing not only the nearer ports of Europe, but those of India, Australia, and America, which in corn has increased threefold, and in meat and provisions sixfold. If this goes on Will in twenty at the same progressive rate for the next years be forty twenty years, we shall have forty millions of millions. people to feed, which will tax still more the resources of all those countries which have hitherto sent us their surplus, and can hardly fail to be attended by some increase of the price of provisions.

of Land

It would seem, under such circumstances, not difficult to forecast the future condition of the landed interests in this country. The Prospects position of the landowners is a truly advan- owner good. tageous one if they rightly appreciate, and faithfully execute, the public responsibilities of their position. Their property is the only

K

of Tenantfarmer

more

doubtful.

exchangeable article within the British Isles.
that admits of no increase in extent. So long
as England continues the centre of the Empire
the surplus wealth of her great dependencies
will flow hither, and aid in that accumulation of
wealth which is at once the source and reward
of industry. A large portion of that wealth
will constantly be seeking investment in land.
The climate of this country is not only one of
the healthiest in the world, but it admits of
out-of-door occupations and amusements for a
greater number of days in the year, and thus
promotes the attractions of a country life to
a greater extent than is found elsewhere.
many centuries landed property has been more
secure here than in other countries, and a
sense of, and respect for, individual liberty, and
obedience to law, better understood. All cir-
cumstances combine to maintain the future value
of good land in this country. The cold clays and
poor soils will probably cease to be ploughed.

For

The prospects of the tenant-farmer, the second of our landed interests, are by no means so encouraging. While competition for the