cattle.--_Eastern Tour_, iv.
456.

[657] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, (2nd ser.), ii. 230.

[658] Ibid. iii. 430.

[659] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), ii. 270.

[660] See _Autobiography of Joseph Arch_.

[661] Ibid. ix. 274.

[662] In many districts, however, his food was better than this.

[663] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 276-7.

[664] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31
Vict. c. 130) had already brought the system under control.

CHAPTER XXI

1875-1908

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.--FOREIGN COMPETITION.--AGRICULTURAL
HOLDINGS ACTS.--NEW IMPLEMENTS.--AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.--THE
SITUATION IN 1908

About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of
free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and
there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the
eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A
new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and
1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast
stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing
rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of
transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and
meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner,
the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of
paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner,
farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held
up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they
have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d.,
and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s.
10d.[666]

Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and
the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only
fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since
been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of
the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.

The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the
worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and
southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth
above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and
chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or
were destroyed, f