Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall.  Wheat land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted to pasture or ‘tumbling down’ to grass, while a large quantity was used for oats.  The price of live stock was now falling greatly before increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese, butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in.  Farming, too, was now suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to lowering prices.[679] The enormous gold premium in the Argentine Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor.  As Mr. Prothero says, ’Enterprise gradually weakened, landlords lost their ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power.  The capital both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford to spend an unnecessary penny.  Land deteriorated in condition, drainage was practically discontinued ... less cake and less manure were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area contracted.’[680] The year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring; from March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense.

In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed, whose description of the condition of agriculture was a lamentable one.  The Commission in their final report[681] stated that the seasons since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices of farm produce.  This fall had been most marked in the case of grain, particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily.  It was not surprising therefore to find that the arable counties[682] had suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped.  In north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15 per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at all.  In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands, and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent.

In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases reductions, of 10 per cent.