deer suffered.  In some cases entire flocks of sheep disappeared.  The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the feet of men and animals.  Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best preventives.

Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot.  The misfortunes of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry.  Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had fallen upon the agricultural community.  Owner and occupier had alike been involved.  Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in some cases in different parts of the same counties.  Cheshire, for instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire.  The rainfall had been less in the northern counties.  In the midlands, the eastern, and most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall were not hardly hit.[668]

The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:—­

  1.  The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops
     deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock.

  2.  Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to
     the inferior quality of the home production.

  3.  Increased cost of production.

  4.  Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition
     of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate;
     and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in
     consequence of the abolition of turnpikes.  Some exceptionally
     bad instances of this were given.  In the parish of
     Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid
     for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was L26 6s. 3d.,
     for the five years ending March 31, 1878, L118 11s. 7d.  In
     the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial
     periods from 1850:—­

1850-1 L5,471 1860-1 5,534 1870-1 8,525 1878-9 10,089

On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates,
other than poor rates, amounted to 3s. 6d. in the L on the
rateable value.