According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest on capital, and get a living.  Yet prices of what he had to sell had gone up greatly:  wheat in Herefordshire in 1760 was 3s. a bushel, in 1805, 10s.; butcher’s meat in 1760 was 1-1/2d. a lb., in 1804, 7d.; fresh butter 4-1/2d. in 1760, 1s. 3d. in 1804; a fat goose in Hereford market in 1740, 10d.; 1760, 1s.; 1804, 4s.; a couple of fowls in 1740, 6d.; 1760, 7d.; 1804, 2s. 4d.[548] The winter of 1813-4 was extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great importations kept the price down.  Many sheep, however, were killed by the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period.[549] At Smithfield beef was 6s. to 7s. a stone, mutton 7s. to 8s. 6d.  With the peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an end, a large amount of paper was withdrawn from circulation, which lowered the price of all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed.  The first sufferers were the agricultural classes, who happened at that time to hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once; the incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many annihilated.[550] At the same time the demand for our manufactures from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less from the farmer.

The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in January, 1816, wheat was 52s. 6d., and the prices of live stock had fallen considerably.  In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under 80s. a quarter, and other grain in proportion.[551] However, it was of no avail; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for information on the state of agriculture.

According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average 25 per cent. and agriculture was in a ’deplorable state.’[552] Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many farmers had become parish paupers.  Rent was much in arrear, tithes and poor rates unpaid, improvements generally discontinued, live stock diminished; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged the country.  The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and ‘flock farms’ had suffered less than others, though they had begun to feel it heavily.

All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords could not get many of their rents; the farmer’s stock had depreciated 40 per cent.[553]; many labourers, who during the war had been getting from 15s. to 16s. a week and 18s. in summer,[554] were walking the country searching for employment.  Many tenants threw up their farms, and it was often noticed that landlords, ’knowing very little of agriculture and taken by surprise,’ could not manage the farms thrown on their hands, and they went uncultivated.  Some farmers paid up their rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice; others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their household furniture in the night without settling.[555]