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THE IMPACT OF RAILWAYS ON AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY WALES* BEFORE the development of railways, rural Wales was isolated from large centres of population, an isolation intensified by the barriers of language. In this situation there was little incentive to change farming techniques. This article will examine how far railways, by introducing Welsh farmers to better markets, changed this situation. At the outset, however, it is as well to realise the constraints within which Welsh agriculture operated. Limited access to markets, combined with the lack of industrial employment, meant the predominance of small farms which were only marginally affected by commercial influences.1 Secondly, difficult climatic and soil conditions over much of the principality imposed severe limitations upon farming opportunities, the vast areas of wet uplands restricting farming to a narrow range of activities. Thirdly, population growth from the mid-eighteenth century onwards meant a pressure on land resources which in the long run implied both an extension of the area of cultivation into marginal areas and also a keen demand for farms generally, with a tendency to stabilise or increase rents. Lastly, limited communica- tion with more advanced areas of Britain, emphasised as this was by the barriers of language, severely restricted the diffusion of ideas on improved farming. As a consequence of all these factors, the Welsh farmers had neither the capital resources to invest in improve- ments nor the intellectual attitudes and equipment to do so. In 1843, lack of capital was singled out as 'one of the real grievances of Wales'.2 Of the two, however, it is possible that unwillingness to invest was of the greater importance partly because it was shared by the small Welsh landowners, and partly because, had the wish to invest existed, credit might have been obtained from sources such as the country banks. I owe thanks to Professor A. H. John for reading this paper in manuscript and for his comments. 1 Report of the Royal Commission on Land in Wales and Monmouthshire, Parliamentary Papers (hereafter P.P.), XXXIV (1896), p. 335. 2 Royal Commission of Inquiry for South Wales, Appendix 3 to Evidence, P.P., XVI (1844), p. 446.