Z.—: Rents in the Nineteenth Century (p. 724)

According to an estimate of Mr. R. J. Thompson printed in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Dec. 1907) the rent of agricultural land in England and Wales advanced by probably 40 per cent. in the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. After 1820 a period of depression ensued, followed in 1840 by the beginning of an upward movement which continued with little intermission till 1878, when a serious depression again set in. The average rent of agricultural land in 1900 was 34 per cent. below the maximum of 1877, and 13 per cent. below the figure of 1846. The average rent of farm land in 1900 was estimated at about 20s. per acre; subject to charges for repairs, &c., amounting on the average to 35 per cent.; so that the net rent probably averaged 13s. per acre. Estimating expenditure on buildings, fences, drainage, &c., at 12l. per acre, 3½ per cent. on this would amount to 8s. 5d., leaving 4s. 7d. per acre as “economic rent,” in the Ricardian sense of payment for the use of the “original and indestructible powers of the soil.”