Agricultural History Review, Volume 44 Part 2 (1996), pp. 191–205

This paper considers the response of those fainting one of the more vulnerable ecosystems, the English chalklands, to the dramatic fall in prices during the Great Agricultural Depression of the late nineteenth century. It particularly looks at the Hampshire Downs where the regime which had evolved over the previous decades provides an example of mixed farming at its best. By fully realizing the potential of the system, farmers successfully shifted production to target a number of protected, high-value, marketing niches. At the same time, the integrity of the land was maintained through sustainable, husbandlike cultivation. While this system has been all but ignored by modem historians, it was amongst the most intensive of all English mixed farming regimes. 

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