hers.' As prices went
lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average
of the seasons'; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had
farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial
results.[697]

In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land
was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on
the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in
1901.[698] But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays
a rent of L240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the
occupier of a house rated at L120 a year. Yet the farmer's income
would very likely not be more than L200 a year, whereas the occupier
of the house rated at L120 might have an income of L2,000 a year.

In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the footsteps of
Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour through England.
He considered that, after foreign competition, the great danger to
English farming was the lack of labour,[699] for young men and women
were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the
nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the
pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of
the last generation than either landowner or farmer: he is better
housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with
discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a
reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward
movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The
quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the
labourer takes no pride in his work, and good hedgers, thatchers,
milkers, and men who understand live stock are hard to obtain[700];
and the reason for this is in large measure due to the modern system
of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to
take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good; near
manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from 18s. to 20s. a
week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from
13s. to 15s. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower
figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates,
though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is
L4 or L5 a year, rising to L7 and L8 near large towns. The wise custom
of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to