large
migration of manufactures from centres with abundant water-power to
centres in close proximity to coal-fields.

[Pageheading: _PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE._]

The progress of British agriculture during the period under review was
almost as marked as that of British manufactures. Under the impulse of
war prices, and of the improvements adopted at the end of the eighteenth
century, the home-production of corn almost kept pace with the growing
consumption, and between 1801 and 1815 little more than 500,000 quarters
of imported corn were required annually to feed the population. No
doubt, when the price of bread might rise to famine-point, the
consumption of it fell to a minimum per head; still, the rural
population continued to multiply, though not so rapidly as the urban
population, and neither could have been maintained without a constant
increase in the production of the soil. This result was due to a
progressive extension of enclosure and drainage, as well as to wise
innovations in the practice of agriculture. Not the least important of
such innovations was the destruction of useless fences and straggling
hedge-rows, the multitude and irregular outlines of which had long been
a picturesque but wasteful feature of old-fashioned English farming.
This was the age, too, in which many a small farm vanished by
consolidation, and many an ancient pasture was recklessly broken up,
some of which, though once more covered with green sward, have never
recovered their original fertility. Happily, the use of crushed bones
for manure was introduced in 1800, and the efforts of the national board
of agriculture, aided by the discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy, brought
about a far more general application of chemical science to agriculture,
partly compensating for the exhaustion of the soil under successive
wheat crops. Not less remarkable was the effect of mechanical science in
the development of new agricultural implements, which, however, retained
a comparatively rude form of construction. The Highland Society of
Scotland took a leading part in encouraging these gradual experiments in
tillage, as well as in the breeding of sheep and cattle, with a special
regard to early maturity. Had the farmers of Great Britain during the
great war possessed no more skill than their grandfathers, it would have
been impossible for the soil of this island to have so nearly supported
its inhabitants before the ports were freely thrown open.

The gr