Page:Landholding in England.djvu/158

A careful analysis of the annual volume of Agricultural Statistics for 1905 shows that in the thirty years from 1875 to 1905, not less than 49% of the area under wheat has gone out of cultivation; that for the whole of the corn crops (including wheat), 26% less land is used than was the case in 1875. Green crops are less by 15% than a generation ago. Yet the area under cultivation is increased by over 1,000,000 acres. "A glance at the table will show in what direction these acres have disappeared. They are now to be found in the permanent grass-land, which has increased by about 4,500,000 acres. In no other country do we find 60% of the cultivable laid land down as permanent pasture." It is often asserted that though we have less cereals, we have more cattle; but the increase in cattle is not at all in proportion to the increase in area. Considered from this point of view, there were 731 cattle to every 1000 acres in 1875, but in 1905, only 589. And if we take into account mountain and heathland used for grazing, there are only 337 cattle in the 1000 acres. "Since 1871 the numbers employed in agriculture have decreased by 31%." Again, it is said that our soil is too poor for corn, and our system too bad. But with the exceptions of Belgium, Holland and New Zealand, we can, even with our system, grow more bushels of wheat to the acre than any country in the world. Then it is said that we are a manufacturing people and that our population is too large; Belgium is also a manufacturing country, and has 972 persons to the 1000 acres, while we have but 558 in the United Kingdom. Yet Belgium feeds herself, and sends us over 1,000,000 cwts of wheat and flour yearly. It is obvious that the excuses put forward for the state of agriculture in this country will not hold water.^[1]

CHAPTER XXI.—THE WORKING OF ENTAIL

"The ideal, then, of the English land system in a rural district is that which has been attained in the district of North Dorset, just referred to, and in many other parts of the country. It is that of a large estate where the whole of one, and oftener of several, adjoining parishes are included in it; where there is no other landowner within the ring fence; where the village itself belongs to the same owner as the agricultural land ; where all the people of the district—farmers, tradesmen, labourers—are dependent, directly or indirectly, on the one landowner, the farmers holding their land from him, generally on a yearly tenancy, the labourers hiring their cottages weekly or yearly either from the landowner or from the farmer ; and where the village tradespeople are also dependent largely for their custom on the squire of the district, and hold their houses from him. It is

1. See an article by Mr R. Brown in Land Values for December 1906.