(f) Weekly Rent. 2s. 0d. 1s. 6d. 1s. 0d. 1s. 0d. 2s. 0d. 1s. 4d.
(g) Total Weekly wage after deduction of Rent. 6s. 0d. 6s. 6d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 8s. 6d. 5s. 8d.
(h)Weekly income per head. 1s. 6d. 1s. d.
1s. 9d. 1s. 9d. 1s. d.
1s. d. SECOND VILLAGE
(a) Children. 6 6 8 4 3
(b)Number of Members in Family. 8 8 10 6 5
(c) Weekly Wage of the Men. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d.
(d) Weekly Wage of the Children. 1/-,
1/-,
— — —
(e)Weekly Income of the whole Family. 10s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d.
(f) Weekly Rent. 1s. 6d. 1s. d.
1s. d.
1s. d.
1s. d. (g) Total Weekly wage after deduction of Rent. 8s. 6d. 5s. d.
5s. d.
5s. d.
5s. d. (h)Weekly income per head. 1s. d.
0s. d.
0s. 7d. 0s. 11d. 1s. 1d.
THIRD VILLAGE
(a) Children. 4 3 0
(b)Number of Members in Family. 6 5 2
(c) Weekly Wage of the Men. 7s. 0d. 7s. 0d. 5s. 0d.
(d) Weekly Wage of the Children. - 1/- 2/- 1/- (e)Weekly Income of the whole Family. 7s. 0d. 11s. 6d. 5s. 0d.
(f) Weekly Rent. 1s. 0d. 0s. 10d. 1s. 0d.
(g) Total Weekly wage after deduction of Rent. 6s. 0d. 10s. 8d. 4s. 0d.
(h)Weekly income per head. 1s. 0d. 2s. d.
2s. 0d.
The repeal of the Corn Laws gave a marvellous impulse to English agriculture. Drainage on the most extensive scale, new methods of stall-feeding, and of the artificial cultivation of green crops, introduction of mechanical manuring apparatus, new treatment of clay soils, increased use of numeral manures, employment of the steam-engine, and of all kinds of new machinery, more intensive cultivation generally, characterised this epoch. Mr. Pusey, Chairman of the Royal Agricultural Society, declares that the (relative) expenses of farming have been reduced nearly one half by the introduction of new machinery. On the other hand, the actual return of the soil rose rapidly. Greater outlay of capital per acre, and, as a consequence, more rapid concentration of farms, were essential conditions of the new method. At the same time, the area under cultivation increased, from 1846 to 1856, by 464,119 acres, without reckoning the great area in the Eastern Counties which was transformed from rabbit warrens and poor pastures into magnificent corn-fields. It has already been seen that, at the same time, the total number of persons employed in agriculture fell. As far as the actual agricultural labourers of both sexes and of all ages are concerned, their number fell from 1,241,396, in 1851, to 1,163, 217 in 1861. If the English Registrar-General, therefore, rightly remarks: “The increase of farmers and farm-labourers, since 1801, bears no kind of proportion ... to the increase of agricultural produce,” this disproportion obtains much more for the last period, when a positive decrease of the agricultural population went hand in hand with increase of the area under cultivation, with more intensive cultivation, unheard-of accumulation of the capital incorporated with the soil, and devoted to its working, an augmentation in the products of the soil without parallel in the history of English agriculture, plethoric rent-rolls of landlords, and growing wealth of the capitalist farmers. If we take this, together with the swift, unbroken extension of the markets, viz., the towns, and the reign of Free-trade, then the agricultural labourer was at last, post tot discrimina rerum, placed in circumstances that ought, secundum artem, to have made him drunk with happiness.