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THE

NATIONAL REVIEW.

No. 57. NOVEMBER, 1887.

THE DECAY OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

PICTURES FROM LIFE DRAWN BY A LANDOWNER.

In writing an article for your Review I cannot help feeling that the homely style which I intend to adopt, is hardly consistent with the polished diction of the essays which are generally contributed to all our leading monthlies. It is my intention to write from beginning to end exactly as my thoughts prompt me, and I daresay it may shock some of your contributors to hear that I intend to say a good deal about myself. Some will call this egotism, and others will think that I wish to advertise my own name and doings into notoriety.

I will at once clear the ground by saying that I do not care in the least what others think of me, provided that I have a full sense of the justice of the cause I advocate. I simply introduce any personal matter for the sake of allowing your readers to judge whether my motives are likely to be selfish or otherwise.

I am the senior partner in a large commercial house in London and Liverpool, whose business it is to sell imported corn, and my money interest in this is greater than my stake in English land. When I bought my first 2,000 acres, fifteen years ago, I had no great opinion of English agricultural land as a desirable investment. I simply bought an estate with a view to healthy recreation and political study. Like most other Radicals (for I was a Radical) I was then under the conviction that landowners had far too many advantages accorded to them, and that they paid far too little to the support of the country. I also wished to discover for myself, whether an estate could not be so managed as to support a much larger community, and also whether British land could not, with careful management and a proper application of commercial principles, be made to compete successfully with foreign.

VOL. X.

20

The estate which I first bought was situated in the wilds of Devonshire, between the ranges of Dartmoor and Exmoor, but nearer to Dartmoor of the two. It was then twelve miles from the nearest railway station. Those farms which were let on annual tenancies commanded a rental of about 15s. to 20s. per acre on the inland, with a moorland run of small value given in; but many of the farms were held by the tenants on 99 years leases, dating from the early part of this century, terminable however on the decease of the last three lives named in the leases. For these leases, a lump sum had been paid at the commencement, and the rent was simply a small annual acknowledgment. It will therefore be seen that the greater part of the property was a reversionary one, and that in giving only a very moderate price for 2,000 acres of land I was buying the future possession only, and therefore at a much higher price than the actual payment indicated.

The character of the land was mostly poor, but very improvable; the soil was grassy, and the business of the tenants, most of whom seemed in comfortable circumstances, was to rear cattle and keep them till three years old, when there was generally a good sale for them at from £17 to £20 each, according to the variations of the markets. For the rest, a few ewes were every autumn bought in, and both ewes and lambs were fattened and sold during the succeeding summer. Dairy work, poultry, and pigs made up the complement of the business. The tenants were thrifty, hard-working men, who satisfied most of their wants from the produce of the farms. It was an established custom to grow all the wheat required by the family as well as some for sale. The climate was not very suitable for the production of wheat, but I could never persuade them, although most of them were free-traders, that it was better to buy their flour, and grow on the land something more useful to the cattle. I daresay they would have argued, besides, that the wheat crop suited the land better, that the manuring required for it would carry it through an oat crop as well, and that its tillage filled up that part of the year when other work was scarce.

The foregoing account will give to your agricultural readers some idea of what sort of estate it was, and when I add that the houses and buildings were in many instances falling into decay, and were everywhere thatched, they will judge that I had plenty of Occupation with which to test my Radical theories.

On a careful survey, now, of my first deal in land I may say that if I had the choice now, of buying it at the same price and terms, or of leaving it alone, I would choose to buy it. The price I gave, certainly did not represent the amount of money that had been laid out by the previous owners and their

tenants in converting the enclosed land from moorland into cultivated acres, in draining the fields, making and planting the banks and hedges, building the houses, cattle-shippons, &c. In fact, I bought the land and the improvements upon it at less than the price which the improvements would cost at present value of labour and materials, with the one disadvantage, that I only had a very small rental until certain persons died.

It so happened that many of these persons did die soon, and I thus found myself in the possession of 800 to 1,000 acres, which I was induced to farm and improve, thinking that I could thereby apply my commercial knowledge, and that my agricultural knowledge could be got from books. As usual, I employed an agent, and as is too frequently the case, my agent's great delight seemed to consist in spending money. I consider that during the first three years my mistakes in outlay cost me about £2,000 of money, almost thrown away, but at all events, I had the faculty of quickly learning that I was losing money, and I made up my mind to manage my own property entirely myself.

Long before I had the honour of Lord Tollemache's acquaintance, or even knew his name, I had made a commencement in small holdings. When the thatch on a cottage required mending, I replaced it with slate, and added the necessary out-buildings; and I allowed every labourer who desired it, to have a field or two adjoining his cottage at a very moderate rental, in fact, at what it was worth to a large farmer. The land was wonderfully suitable for this experiment. It could quickly be made into garden ground by spade cultivation, and I have seen as fine potatoes, cabbages and beans from the cottagers' gardens as from many far more highly-rented soils. It was also well suited to mangolds, turnips and oats. I can fully confirm Lord Tollemache's experience by saying, that if you allow a labourer to have suitable ground around his cottage, he will, somehow or other, always find money to buy the cow; but I can go farther than this. If one labourer has saved money enough to buy a cow, and another wants one, the man with the money often invests it in a cow, and lets it to the man who wants it, at a fixed price per annum. The price varies with the milk-giving qualities of the cow. The system adds greatly to the happiness of the men, and also of their wives and children. It keeps men from the publichouse, and between their masters' work and their own, they do a very hard day's work; the only drawback and objection being, that they are rather apt to spend more of their strength on their own work, than on that for which they have their day's wage. I have never found out a means of remedying this, except the plan of letting out as much of the farm-work as is possible, by the job, and

ganging the men for the purpose. I have always given to my hind or headman (generally a labourer himself), a small interest in the success of the farm. After some years' experience I com→ menced to make a moderate profit on my farms, and I let my hinds (for I kept one at each of the two rather large farms I had in hand) know the exact result, and rewarded them accordingly. I also pitted them one against the other, and when one had been successful I took care to let the other know. I also compared the results of the dairies very closely. One woman will do a good deal better than another in this pursuit.

When farm-work failed, as it often did in the winter, I turned the men to planting the moorland, and draining where required. All this work was regulated by piecework price. In my early attempts at draining I was taken advantage of. People always are taken advantage of, who are not intimately acquainted with the work done.

It so happened that, four or five years after I had bought the property, a railway company, calling itself the Devon and Cornwall Company, wished to justify its name by running a narrow gauge line into Cornwall. Two or three routes were open to it. Amongst others, to go through my property; I asked two or three neighbouring landowners to join me, and we offered to the directors to give our land for nothing, and to contribute towards the expense of the Bill, when the work was completed, provided they came our way. That brought the railway through our properties. It went through mine for the distance of two miles, and cut through a rather valuable run of stone. I made far more than the value of the land and the contribution to the expenses, by the stone they had to buy of me outside their boundary. They built their station on the centre of my property, and thenceforth Halwill became a well-known place. The means of access being so greatly improved, I was encouraged to bring more land into cultivation, and I was not disappointed with the results. I went on building more cottages, with cow-shippons and pig-sties attached.

It is true that I made but a very small interest on my outlay in these additional buildings-seldom more than 3 per cent. I was well aware that, from my commercial point of view, it was nothing like enough; but I was also well aware that the cottagers would find it difficult to pay more. Everything was done in a serviceable manner, and no money thrown away in these operations.

One man vied with another in improving his little farm, and most were ever anxious to increase the holding. My arrangement with them was, that I, as the large farmer, should pay all tithe rates and taxes on the fields occupied by them in the

assessment of the farm of which they formed a part, and that they should pay their own rates and taxes on the cottages and buildings. The rent of the land was treated as a farm receipt, and thus the farm Hind could not complain at the loss of certain outlying parts of the farm. There is an understanding between us that the rent shall not be raised on the improvements of any tenant during his lifetime; but that in case of a general rise in prices, I have the right to such an advance as will give me about one-third part of the advantage, and leave two-thirds for the tenant.

I believe that a similar arrangement, with a Land Court to settle disputes, would go far to settle the English land question.

I have offered them all written leases, but none of them would go to the expense of the stamp. They have power to leave at three months' notice; but if I give them notice to leave, I have to pay them for everything on the ground, and all tillages done. I may add that I have never yet had occasion to give any of them notice to leave.

I have planted more than 300 acres with fir trees (larch, Scotch and spruce). I plant on the Scotch notching system. I consider my plan of notching an improvement on the Scotch. The men not only plant the tree, but also protect it with sods of turf on every side at the price. It is all done by piecework, and it has given the men good wages when no farm work was available. Some of them have become so handy at the work that they will plant 800 trees (or rather plants, for they are very small) in a day. At this rate they can earn 4s. a day. Those plantations which have had ten years' growth look very promising now. I think the younger ones promise to be as good.

I have also reclaimed a great deal of moorland, more, in fact, than, under present circumstances is likely to be profitable, and I have kept the whole of the small tenants (other than one or two who have got into trade for themselves) regularly employed. All this affords a fairly pleasing picture. The population has in-creased from 243, at which it stood when I bought the property, to 450 now. In all the surrounding parishes it has decreased -considerably during the same period. In one of them it has gone back from over 900 to less than 600, in another from 300 to 190, and others in proportion. The poor rate levied on the parish has, for many years, amounted to more than five times what is paid back in relief. In fact, the only relief required has been that of two infirm widows.

The men and their families are undoubtedly far more contented than in many other parts, of the country. The labour on their own holdings hardly costs them anything, for they put no value

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