standing crops, took the money, and so cleared his profit and saved
himself trouble. It was, in fact, a period of inflation. Like stocks and
shares, everything was going up; everybody hastening to get rich.
Shorthorns with a strain of blue blood fetched fancy prices; corn crops
ruled high; every single thing sold well. The dry seasons suited the soil
of the estate, and the machinery he had purchased was rapidly repaying its
first cost in the saving of labour. His whole system was succeeding, and
he saw his way to realise his cent. per cent.

But by degrees the dream faded. He attributed it in the first place to the
stagnation, the almost extinction, of the iron trade, the blowing out of
furnaces, and the consequent cessation of the demand for the best class of
food on the part of thousands of operatives and mechanics, who had
hitherto been the farmers' best customers. They would have the best of
everything when their wages were high; as their wages declined their
purchases declined. In a brief period, far briefer than would be imagined,
this shrinking of demand reacted upon agriculture. The English farmer made
his profit upon superior articles--the cheaper class came from abroad so
copiously that he could not compete against so vast a supply.

When the demand for high-class products fell, the English farmer felt it
directly. Cecil considered that it was the dire distress in the
manufacturing districts, the stagnation of trade and commerce and the
great failures in business centres, that were the chief causes of low
prices and falling agricultural markets. The rise of labour was but a
trifling item. He had always paid good wages to good men, and always meant
to. The succession of wet seasons was more serious, of course; it lowered
the actual yield, and increased the cost of procuring the yield; but as
his lands were well drained, and had been kept clean he believed he could
have withstood the seasons for awhile.