BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1191, 28 December 1894, Page 21

BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

The Department of Agriculture has just received through the Agen t-G eneral a memorandum from Mr Valentme (New Zealand Produce Commissioner) upon the statistical tables published by the Board of Agriculture at Home in October.

He points out that the general lesson of the figures as to. crops is to show that as far as Great Britain is concerned, the acreage of wheat increased from 1,897,524 acres in 1893 to 1,927,962 acres in 1894, but this slight recovery, he says, has not taken place in the typical wheat counties, and may be due to the exigencies of crop rotation. In 1880 the wheat acreage was 2,909,438 acres, and is now a million acres less than it was 25 years ago. Barley, too, has fallen off in acreage from 2$ million acres in 1880 to slightly over two million acres this year. Oats, however, have risen to 3£ million acres, whereas 25 years ago they only covered 2f million acres. For all practical purposes the total acreage under green crops is stationary. The acreage under - potatoes increased from 553,961 acres in 1886 to 1,232,055 acres in 1894. In 1894 Great Britain has 4| million acres of rotation grasses, and 16 £ million acres of permanent pasture, or some 21 millions of acres of grass, of which some 14 millions is not for hay, i.e., grazing pasture, temporary or permanent. In permanent pasture there has been an increase of a million acres since 1886, and of two millions since 1880, a change in the agriculture of the United Kingdom that has been far-reaching in its consequences. In every county in England cattle have

decreased in numbers. The falling off in cows in milk or in calf is 90,000, while the decrease of cattle of all kinds in England alone .is 350,000 since last year. The drought of 1893 thinned the flocks of sheep and there has been an immense decrease in Britain, especially in England. This year the total number of sheep in Great Britain is 25,861,500 as compared with 27,280,334 in 1893. In 1879 there were 28,157,080 sheep in Great Britain. Until arable farming is more profitable, a proportionate increase of flocks cannot be looked for. To-day in England the dearest meat to buy is pork, and imported bacon has been making more than English beef. And yet the number of pigs is more than a quarter of a million over what it was last year.

In regard to the milk trade, the English farmer is sadly hampered by exorbitant railway rates and a bad method of distribution, and he has not been able to devise any successful means of co-operative distribution, although he is at the very door of the largest consuming centres in the world, with a population literally crying out for milk, good, and at a reasonable price. A more equitable farm produce by the British railway companies" would not only benefit the British farmer, but would materially benefit the trade of the Colony, especially in the matter of dairy produce. There musi;, however, be in the first instance cooperation by producers for the supply in bulk, and then the companies could be approached. Unfortunately in the richest dairy districts as a rule the carrying company has a monopoly of the traffic, and is master of the situation. A large trade has grown up in recent years in condensed milk from abroad. In 1892 it approached a million sterling in value ; in 1893 half a million cwt, worth more than a million, was imported, and the trade is still increasing.