In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed, whose description of the condition of agriculture was a lamentable one. The Commission in their final report[681] stated that the seasons since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain, particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not surprising therefore to find that the arable counties[682] had suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15 per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at all. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands, and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent. In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases reductions, of 10 per cent. In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was going out of cultivation; many farms, after lying derelict for a few years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent The rent of an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from L1,314 in 1879 to L415 in 1892, or from 18s. 6d. an acre to 5s. 10d.[683] The net rental of another had fallen from L7,682 in 1881 to L2,224 in 1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in 1892-3 was 1s. an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these depressed times[684]: 11:12 AM 7/25/2005RECEIPTS. L s. d. Tithe received 798 5 9 Cottage rents 495 8 6 Garden " 213 5 10 Estate " 7,452 14 8 Tithes refunded by tenants 530 15 2 -------------- L9,490 9 11 ============== PAYMENTS. L s. d.