leaving a total addition of 17a. 2г. 33p; and the total rent was put at 570l. The farm was then held on a lease for twelve years, commencing with 1874. It is situated on one of the hilly slopes near Bath, and it was not spared by the disastrous year of 1879. In the year 1879-80 377. were remitted from the rent; in 1881 it was reduced to 500l. for a period of three years, and the reduction was continued until the expiration of the lease in 1886, when 21a. 12 p. were taken out of the holding. This deduction left a total acreage of some 4 acres less than the farm had contained in 1877-78, and a new lease was concluded for another period of twelve years, at a rent of 380l., being some 1757. less than the rent of 1877-78, and representing a reduction of some 32 per cent., or, on a rough calculation for the decrease of acreage, 30 per cent.

X.-Summary of the Results of the Depression.

We may now bring together into one table the results, which we have been separately examining, with reference to the rack rent farming tenancies among the college property. This table will show the rent (omitting shillings and pence) at the beginning and the end of the period under review, the percentage of reduction, and the rent per acre:

In this table it will be noticed that in two cases the tenant still paid the tithe in 1890, and that in three the college in 1890 discharged this payment, which was borne by the tenant at the beginning of the period. Allowance has been made for the changes caused in the latter class of cases by increasing the rent paid at the beginning of the period by the tithe at the time, calculated according to the official average. But, in order to obtain really similar conditions for all the estates comprised in the table,

and to ascertain the true average rent per acre for all the rack
rent farms of any size amongst the college property, the tithe
calculated according to the average should be added to the rental
at both periods in those cases where the tenant bore this charge
in 1876-77, and continued to bear it in 1890. The result of this
would be to make the fall from 40 to 41 per cent., and the rent
per acre a little over 17. in 1890, as compared with 1l. 158. in
1876-77. As we have noticed in detail in particular instances,
allowance has been made in the table for any changes in the
acreage of the different estates, and therefore it is with some
confidence that the assertion may be hazarded of a fall in rent of
40 to 41 per cent.

XI.-Arrears and Abatements.

But this fall of 40 to 41 per cent. does not represent the full - consequences of the depression; for abatements have been made in successive years to meet contingencies which, it was hoped, would prove to be of a temporary nature, and the arrears of rent outstanding at the close of each financial year have undergone considerable fluctuations. In Table XI these arrears will be shown, together with the increase or decrease in their amount at the close of one year compared with that at the close of another; and this will be followed by another table, giving the rental, the abatements, the increase or decrease of arrears, and the resulting receipts from the landed estates of the college year by year. In order to arrive at the figures more easily, the estate numbered 16, the revenues of which do not form part of the corporate revenue of the college, but belong entirely to a trust, has been omitted.

3,492 11 88,808 6 10 8,930 14 8 8,875 15 5 7,821 9 3

The fact, which is brought into greater prominence perhaps than any other in these tables, is the disastrous character of the year 1879. In 1879-80 the rental, which had amounted to 10,466l. 68. 8d. in 1877-78, and 10,462l. 158. 9d. in 1878-79, fell to 9,6811. 78. 3d. This represented a fall of nearly 800l., or some per cent., in a single year, and since that time, with the exception of trifling increases in two years, of which a ready explanation can be found in special circumstances in the case of the first, partly in the accident of a change in reckoning the year of account of one

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estate, and partly in the addition of a new property-in the case of the second, in the latter cause entirely-the diminution in rental, though steady and unintermittent, has been, by comparison with 1879-80, gradual and moderate. In that year of 1879 also the abatements, which in 1877-78 had reached the modest figure of 2ol. 10s., and had increased in 1878-79 to 255l. 118., rose to 9051. 88. 6d.—a sum which has only been once approached, and then it was exceeded, in the subsequent period. On that occasion, in 1887, the large deduction for abatements was due to the final settlement of the affairs of an outgoing tenant, whose serious difficulties had really begun in 1879. In fact an examination of the rent accounts of many, if not most, of the individual tenants would yield similar results; and the arrears outstanding at the close of the year 1879-80, which had diminished to the amount of 2921. 168. 11d. in 1877-78, and increased to the extent of 1,1781. 118. 2d. in 1878-79 (the beginning of the bad year), were swollen to the extent of 1,566l. 188. 7d., and amounted in all to 3,004l. 18. 11d., or upwards of a third of the rental. Since then they have, with the exception of additions in three years, which are small by comparison with that of 1879-80, tended downwards, until at the end of 1890 they amounted to 940l. 168. 2d., as compared with 5317. 78. at the beginning of the period under review, and 2587. 128. 2d. in 1877-78. The arrears at the close of 1877-78, when they had reached the lowest point before 1879, represented a fortieth of the rental, and in 1890, when they reached the lowest point after 1879, a little more than an eighth, but in 1879-80 itself they amounted to almost a third. The total result of the year 1879-80 was to produce receipts from the landed estates of the college, after deducting abatements, and taking account of the change in the arrears, which amounted to 7,209l. 2 d., as compared with 9,0287. 138. 7d. in the previous year, and 10,7381. 138. 7d. in 1877-78. This represented a fall of 1,800l. on the receipts of 1878-79, and 3,500l. on those of 1877-78; in other words, of 20 per cent. on the receipts of the former, and of 34 per cent. on those of the latter year. In the following year, that of 1880-81, the receipts increased to 9,454l. 158. 11d., a higher figure even than that of 1878-79, although the rental had diminished in comparison with both 1878.79 and 1879-80; and this increase was due to diminished arrears and lessened abatements. With oscillations from year to year, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards, as compared with the preceding year, the receipts have fallen, until in 1890 they reached the sum of 7,570l. 58. 9d.; but even this sum, though a fall of some 25 per cent. on the receipts of 1876-77, exceeded the receipts of 1879-80 by some 300l. to 400l. The calamitous consequences of 1879 could scarcely be more strikingly demonstrated,

and it was evidently no exaggeration to say that in English agriculture "in that year veritable disaster was experienced."

The abatements and arrears exhibited in the foregoing tables are, with scarcely any exception, connected with the agricultural tenancies comprised in the landed estates of the college, and in the following table the abatements will be shown as they relate to those particular estates. This table will be followed by another, in which the arrears outstanding in respect of the several estates at the close of the year will be given, and in two further tables the same process will be applied to the individual holdings of the largest agricultural estate in the possession of the college (that numbered 7 in the previous tables.)