AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.--FOREIGN COMPETITION.--AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS.--NEW IMPLEMENTS.--AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.--THE SITUATION IN 1908 About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and 1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner, the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner, farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d., and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s. 10d.[666] Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared. The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales 3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,[667] by 1881 5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of L10,000,000, and many, alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected, and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best preventives.