Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/63

 This was caused in some measure by the restrictions imposed on the import of sheep by the Privy Council Orders, but was partly also due to the considerable fall in the price of mutton during 1868, arising from the large supply of sheep forced into the home market by the prospect of a dearth in the green crops. But the agricultural returns have revealed to us the gratifying fact, in relation to this important branch of the national food, that there is an immense elasticity in the production and supply of sheep, both at home and abroad, and that may be largely and quickly increased by a moderate rise in price.

The foreign supply of butter and cheese has continued very steady during the last eight years. It made a sudden rise in 1861,and had nearly doubled itself in 1862, but from that year the average supply has not materially altered. As the prices of those articles are still highly remunerative to the home producer, there is every inducement to him to develop yet further that branch of agricultural industry, on which the small and middle-class farmers are chiefly engaged.

The returns afford some indication of the results of large corn farms as compared with the more mixed husbandry and interests of small or moderate-sized farms. I have taken ten of the largest farm counties in England, and compared them with ten of the smallest farm counties, the total area in both cases being nearly equal. The general results may be broadly summarised thus. The large farm system embraces nearly twice the proportion of corn, and half the proportion of grass crops and grass. In other words, it is doubly dependent on the price of corn as compared with the middle-class farm system, which relies to a greater extent on its dairy produce, its fat cattle, its vegetables, and its hay. The result is, that the latter pays more rent or surplus for the use of the land, and a higher rate of wages to the labourer.

There can be no doubt that circumstances of soil and position are the chief cause of the distinctive modes of husbandry which have continued to characterise diffirent counties, notwithstanding the obvious change in the relative values of agricultural produce. The price of wheat is not higher now than it was one hundred years ago. Barley and oats have risen 50 per cent, and animal produce more than 100 per cent, in that time. And yet wheat maintains its prominence on the heavier soils where a bare fallow is still found the most perfect and economical preparation for that crop, and in the eastern, south midland, and northern counties,