ABSTRACT
These factors lay behind the large changes which farmers were forced to make in this period. The greatest, and most apparent to contemporaries, was the fall in the cereal area. Between 1870 and 1914, the area of corn crops fell by 2.4 million acres (27 per cent). This was largely due to the fall in the wheat area, but barley also declined. This process was offset to some extent by a slight rise in oats, a response to the growing number of urban horses and an increasing reliance by farmers on horse-drawn implements. The decline in corn (see Map 1.5) was greatest in South Wales, certain Midland counties, and Northumberland, but most southern and Midland counties were seriously affected. The least affected were the large-farm areas of eastern England, where wheat was climatically suitable, and economies of scale could be
achieved. In Lancashire and Cheshire, the decline in wheat was largely offset by the expansion of oats. In the Scottish Highland counties, the small reduction in corn is explained by the overwhelming predominance (for climatic reasons) of oats, against which even large reductions in wheat and barley could not have much effect.
