ABSTRACT
The social system of rural England in its ‘golden age’ after 1850 appeared to have an unshakable character resting on forces over which those in power had total control. In 1870 Britain imported 28,827,000 hundredweight of wheat. By 1875 this had climbed to 42,763,000 hundredweight and by 1880 to more than 44 million. In the five disastrous years after 1874 the depression spread from the vulnerable Essex clays to most of the arable areas of the south and east. The claylands of Essex came almost to symbolize the problems of the farmer on vulnerable wheat lands. Cramming was at its most basic simply forced feeding of fowl to bring then up to ‘dinner’ size more quickly. The depression acted in two main ways on the cramming industry. Firstly, as elsewhere, it stimulated innovation. On the good wheat lands of Norfolk the impact of the depression was also not as serious as many believed.
