However, 1804 was a very deficient harvest, owing to blight and mildew, and by the end of the year wheat was 86s. 2d. The harvests till 1808 were not as bad as that of 1804, but not good enough to lower the prices. Also, owing to the Berlin and Milan Decrees of Napoleon and the Non-intercourse Act of the United States of America, imports were restricted so that at the end of 1808 wheat was 92s. In this year the exports of wheat exceeded the imports, but it was due to the requirements of our army in Spain; and 1789 was the last year when exports were greater under normal circumstances.[532] 1809 was a bad harvest, so was 1810; in the former rot being very prevalent among sheep; and by August, 1810, hay was £11 a load and wheat 116s., only large imports (1,567,126 quarters) preventing a famine. Down wool was 2s. 1d. per lb., beef and mutton 8-1/2d., cheese 8d.[533]
In 1811 the whole of July and part of August were wet and cold; and in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155s., the finest Dantzic selling at Mark Lane for 180s., and oats reached 84s. As our imports of corn then chiefly came from the north-west of Europe, which has a climate very similar to our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons in the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. On the other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the best market regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn at this time came from France. Corn in 1813 was seized on with such avidity that there was no need to show samples. As high prices had now prevailed for some time and were still rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion that they would be permanent; so that this is the period when rents experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having increased fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were most general. Land sold for forty years' purchase, many men of spirit and adventure very different from farmers 'were tempted to risk their property in agricultural speculations',[534] and large sums were sunk in lands and improvements in the spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was considered as a kind of manufacturing establishment, and 'such powers of capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility itself to become fertile.' Even good pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless land was sown with corn. Manure was procured from the most remote quarters, and we are told a new science rose up, agricultural chemistry, which, 'with much frivolity and many refinements remote from common sense, was not without great operation on the productive powers of land.'