[695] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 53, 85.  Sir Robert Giffen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat pay be partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and consumption of meat.

[696] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv.  App. iii.  Table viii.  From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31.4 per cent. of the total outlay.

[697] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 106.  But see above, p. 271.

[698] 59 & 60 Vict., c. 16; I Edw.  VII, c. 13.

[699] Rural England, ii. 539.  Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881, and 1891 gave no support to the idea that young men were leaving agriculture for the towns.  See Parl.  Reports (1893), xxxviii. (2) 33.

[700] The author speaks from information derived from answers to questions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts of England, to whom he is greatly indebted.

[701] It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done, that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is unskilled.  A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much more skilled worker than many who are so called in the towns.

[702] Parl.  Reports (1893), xxxv.  Index.

[703] 7 Edw.  VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887 and 1890 and the Small Holdings Act of 1892.  The Allotments Act of 1887 defined an ‘allotment’ as any parcel of land of not more than 2 acres held by a tenant under a landlord; but for the purposes of the Acts of 1892 and 1907 a ‘small holding’ means an agricultural holding which exceeds one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50 acres, is of an annual value not exceeding L50.  At the same time the Act defines an allotment as a holding of any size up to 5 acres, so that up to that size a parcel of land may be treated as a small holding or an allotment.

[704] Jebb, Small Holdings, p. 25.

[705] Jebb, op. cit., p. 28.

[706] Allotments and Small Holdings (1892), p. 19 et seq.

[707] The gross income derived from the ownership of lands in Great Britain, as returned under Schedule A of the Income Tax, decreased from L51,811,234 in 1876-7 to L36,609,884 in 1905-6.  In 1850 Caird estimated the rental of English land, exclusive of Middlesex, at L37,412,000.  Cf. above, p. 310.

[708] According to the Commission of 1894, the amount expended on improvements and repairs alone on some great estates was:  On Lord Derby’s, in Lancashire, of 43,217 acres, L200,000 in twelve years, or L16,500, or 7s. 8d. an acre, each year.  On Lord Sefton’s, of 18,000 acres, L286,000 in twenty-two years, or about L13,000, or 14s. an acre, each year.  On the Earl of Ancaster’s estates in Lincolnshire, of 53,993 acres, L689,000 was spent in twelve years, or 11s. 7d. an acre each year; and many similar instances are given.—­Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 287-9.