BRITISH AGRICULTURAL RETURNS.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8929, 20 October 1894, Page 7

BRITISH AGRICULTURAL RETURNS.

Reviewing the agricultural returns of Great Britain for 1894 The Times says :— The changes thac have taken place with regard to the areas of orop3 in 1394 as compared with 1893 are that whe&b has increased by , 30,433 acres, barley by 20,937 acres, oats by 81,389 acres, bay crops by 655,858 acres, aud hope by 1971 acres, the only, decrease being 23,367 acres in potatoes. The present return does nob embrace permanent; and rotation grass (nob for hay), which laac year occupied 14,744,703 »cres ; green crops, which lost; year covered 2,759,085 acres; and bare fallow, which last year extended to 514,553 acres. Dealing .with the cereal drops first, it is no matter, for surprise th&fc oats have increased their area, by 2.6 per cent, on the year, or that barley occupies 1 per cent, more land. We venture to say, however, that nobody was prepared for an extension in tbe area of the wheat crop, aud yet there is an increase amounting to 1.6 per cent. Hence, it appears chat the ateady redaction in the .wheat area which had been in pro* gress since 1888 has received a check, and the pendulum has commenced to swing in the opposite direction. In 1833 Great Britain had 2,564,237 acres under wheat, bub five years later—in 1893—as many aa 666,713 acres bad disappeared from this total. This year's unlooked-for inorease represents less than one-third of the area of the emalleab English county of Rutland, but ... none the less it is difficult to account for. Why, at a time when English wheat is at the lowest price on record, when immense supplies of foreign wheat seem, to he more assured than ever, and when elaborate maps have been laid before the Royal Commission on Agriculture showing, in typical wheat districts, what land has fallen out ot cultivation—why, ■at such a time, should the area of the wheat crop in Great Britain undergo an increase ? And where has this increase taken place? Is it a mere local aberration, or is the increase distributed fairly well over the country ? These latter Sueations cannot be answered till the pubcation of the complete returns two or! three months hence. When wheat-sowing was in progress last autumn straw wa& a& a premium, and , it may. have been the fear of further dearth which led to this seeding of upwards of 30,000 acres mors than in the preceding year. If this be the case the probability is ihai there will again be a diminution of area; in the approaching sowing season which will more than counterbalance the temporary increase which we .now record.

The total increase in the extent of cereal crops this year is 132,754 acres* to which we may add 1971 acres for hops, and deduct 23,367 acres for potatoes, leaving, an effective increase of 111,368 acres in arable land. How muoh, it' any, of this increase has been derived from land formerly under rye, beans,' or peas j or under roots or other green crops; or, indeed, in bare fallow, Wβ cannot yet ascertain: • This year's figures for live stock: are unsatisfactory. Compared with 1893, cattle show a diminution of head and cheep of 1,418,834, thus accentuating the decreases which had been recorded in 1893 as compared with; 1892. If -we compare the present year with two years ago, we find that oattle have declined by 697,670 head and sheep -by 2,873,204 head. Not since 1889 hae the number of cattle fallen to so low a total as at present, whilst in the twenty-eight years which have elapsed since' returns were first collected sheep have only on three, occasions been represented by so small a number as the current one. A closer inspection of the newly-published figures serves to show that the section of cattle of one to two years old is the one that haa suffered most. Calves were - perforce hurried to market in' such numbers . last year that there is a deficit amounting to 137,378 head in the recruits to the yearling class this year, a falling off equivalent to 10.1 per cent, of the number for 1893. The sheep figures tell the same story. Sheep over one year old have experienced a decrease of 568,333, or 8.2 per cenc, which musb be due partly to the sacrifice of lambs and partly to a diminution in the number of breeding ewes. . Of the latter we have evidence in the fact that not only are breeding ewes 460,674 less, on the year, but that lambs also show a diminution to the extent of 3.8 per cent. The decrease of cattle is a bad feature, but the proportionately heavier locs of sheep is even » greater calamity for the country.