was not
without great operation on the productive powers of land.'

Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit came to the
aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have seen, were before the
war inclined to an extravagance that amazed their older
contemporaries; now we are told, some insisted on being called
esquire, and some kept liveried servants.[535]

It is somewhat curious to learn that one of the drawbacks from which
farmers suffered at this time was the ravages of pigeons, which seem
to have been as numerous as in the Middle Ages, when the lord's
dovecote was the scourge of the villein's crops. In 1813 there was
said to be 20,000 pigeon houses in England and Wales, each on an
average containing 100 pairs of old pigeons.[536]

Another pest was the large number of 'vermin', whose destruction had
long before been considered important enough to demand the attention
of the legislature.[537] Some parishes devoted large portions of their
funds to this object; in 1786 East Budleigh in Devonshire, out of a
total receipt of L20 1s. 8-1/2d., voted L5 10s. for vermin killing.
That now sacred animal the fox was then treated with scant respect,
farmers and landlords paying for his destruction as 'vermin'[538]; the
parish accounts of Ashburton in Devonshire, for instance, from
1761-1820 include payments for killing 18 foxes and 4 vixens, with no
less than 153 badgers.

But the edifice of artificial prosperity was already tottering. After
1812 prices fell steadily,[539] the abundant harvest of 1813 and the
opening of the continental ports accelerated this, and by December,
1813, wheat was 73s. 3d. Yet agriculture had made solid progress. The
Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the state of the
corn trade in 1813 stated that through the extension of, and
improvements in, agriculture the agricultural produce of the kingdom
had increased one-fourth in the preceding ten years.[540] The high
prices had attracted a large amount of capital to the land, so that
there was very rapid and extensive progress, the methods of tillage
were improved, large tracts of inferior pasture converted into arable,
much, however, of which was soon to revert to weeds; there were many
enclosures, and many fens, commons, and wastes reclaimed. But there
was a reverse side to this picture of prosperity, even in the case of
landlord and farmer. The burden of taxation was crushing; a
contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-