FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9713, 8 January 1895, Page 3

FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

m [BY OCR ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL CORRES- | PONDENT.] London, November 3. AUTUMN WORK. During the greater parb of October the weather was fairly favourable for farming Operations, in spite of a great deal of fog and occasional storms of rain; consequently the arrears of harvest work in the late districts were cleared up under more favourable conditions than those which prevailed during the greater parb of the harvest. Potatoes and most of the mangolds, too, have been safely stored, and farmers have made good progress with their ploughing. Wheat-sowing is now more than halffinished, the land having worked sufficiently well. Bub now, after some days of rain, all work in the fields is suspended. It is doubtful to what extenb the..area.of the crop will be contracted. In some districts it is represented thab less wheat than ever is .being sown, while in others ib is said that farmers are quite at a loss to know what to plant instaacl. The average,pVice of wheab his been down to the unprecedented depth of 178 6d a quarter, a price which, of course, is not only unremunerative, bub one leading to a certain loss. Last week it was a penny higher, still there is always the hope that the price will be better after next harvest, and it is also to be borne in mind that the price of oats, which has fallen to 13s 3d a quarter, is nearly as bad as that of wheat. The week before last wheat was jusb 10s a quarter less than ib was in the corresponding week of the previous year, while oats were 4s 7d a quarter less. Of late there has been a disposition among farmers to grow more and more oats and less and less wheat, bub bhose who followed this course last season are bitterly disapEoinfced ab the results. The average for arley is a little better, being 23s 8d a quarter, or 6s Id higher than wheat, and 10s 5d higher than oats ; but the average for barley is helped up by the comparatively high price of malting samples such as not more than half the farmers in- this country can grow. A comparison of the returns of the three cereals is one of melancholy interest. The average yield of wheab in the United Kingdom during the lasb ten years has been 29£ bushels an acre, which at lasb week's average of 173 7d a quarter would make the crop come to £3 4s 4d per acre for grain, and straw is extremely cheap, while very many farmers are nob allowed by their covenants to sell ib. Of course, wheab cannob be grown for anything like that money in this country, and the case of oats is not very much better. The ten years' average yield was 38£ bushels an acre which at 13a 3d a quarter would amount to £3 3s 9d an acre. Oats cost less to grow than wheat, and the straw is about equally valuable; so it is not quite as ruinous to grow this crop at present prices as it is to grow wheat. The average yield of barley in the ten years was 33J bushels an acre, which at 23s 8d a quarter comes to £418s 3d an acre. ( This is much better than the return of either wheab or oats, bub still nob fairly remunerative. LIVE STOCK PROSPECTS. There is a superabundance of food in the pastures for cattle and sheep, and so long us the weather remains open there will be no need to trench upon the stores of winter keep. These are exceptionally abundant, the root crops being good and the hay crops enormous, so thab there will be no fear this season of , forced sales of. cattle or sheep before the feed grows in the spring. The animals have thriven well, too, during the season, and will go into winter quarters in excellenb condition. As their numbers have been reduced they are pretty certain to sell well for at leaßb another year, especially as the abundance of keep will prevent farmers from being needy sellers. There is every prospecb, therefore, of a remunerative season for feeders of live stock, the only drawback being thab those who did not breed have had to give high prices for their stores.

CROPS AND LIVE STOCK IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Now that the second instalment) or the

agricultural returns has been issued, a complete account of the crops and live Biiockof 1894 in the United Kingdom has become available, and is given below in comparison with the details of 1893 :--

Increase or - 1893. 1804. - Decrease. Acres. Acres. Acres. Wheat „ ' „ 1,955,213 1,080,228 +25,015 Barley „ 2,261,298 2,268,193 +10,900 Oats .. .. 4,435,944 4,524,167 +88,223 Rye .. M 69,526 102,676 +33,160 Beans-. ... 248,304 247,062 -1,242 Peas .. .. 210,900 243,651 +34,651 Potatoes „ 1,262,674 1,532,055 —30,619 Turnips... .. 2,286,473 2,27<>,254 —10,189 Mangolds .. 844,543 406,164 +11,621 Other Green ' Crops.. .. 519,065 571,589 +52,524 Clovers, etc. .. 5,916,349 . 6,862,754 —63,695 Perrat. Pasture 27,700,381 27,578,400 —121,981 Flax .. .. 68,715 102,622 +33,907 Hops .... 67,565 59,535 +1970 Small Fruit .. *66,845 *65,868 +3023 Bare Fallow *«, -.. 563,908 395,682 —141,226 Total Cultd. Area 1*7,979,698 t«,919,830 -69,868 , No. No. , No. Horses- — 2.079,587 ~ 2,092,290 , +12,703 Cattle .. ' m ,11,207,554 . 10,780,796 —426,758 Sheep ■■■..■• ... 31,774,824 : 30,037,818—1,737,006 Pigs .... 3,278,030 3,794,043 +618,013 * No return from Ireland. . '-1 Not including nurseries, woods and plantations, or mountain and heath graaings. ■ -

The increase in wheab is due to the accidental and excessive deficiency of 1893, caused by the wetness of the sowing season in the autumn of 1892. There has been a steady decrease in the wheab area for many years past, bub ib was so excessive in 1893 ttiab we had a partial recovery of the losb area this year. Still the area of 1894 is smaller than that of 1892 by 318,379 acres. Barley and oats, on the other hand, have made headway during the last two years ; and, chiefly owing to the extension in the growth of oats, the total corn acreage is greater by 37,176 acres than ib was two years ago. The apparent decrease in permanent pasture is attributed to increased accuracy in separating rough grazing ground from cultivated pasture, and"this is also the cause of the apparent decrease in the total cultivated area. Year by year, for a long time past, permanent pasture had been increasing up to 1893, and ib is pretty certain that ib has increased further this year, in spite of the apparent decline. Bub since 1892 there has been a special inquiry into the area of rough hill grazings, and many thousands of acres which were formerly returned a» pasture are now pub down as mountain and hill land, which is outside the returns of cultivated area. The small increase in horses is nob remarkable. As to the great fall in the number of cattle and sheep, ib is due partly to the drought of 1893, which necessitated the slaughter of a large number of animals which could not be kept owing to the lack of food, and partly to the low prices which have prevailed for two or three years up to the end of 1893. Pig-breeding, on the other hand, has been encouraged*" during the last two years by high prices, so that the increase in the number of pigs is not ab all surprising.