THE AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 26, 17 October 1884, Page 31

THE AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

(From the Nation.) The latest issue of the agricultural statistics compiled by the police for the Registrar-General does not differ in the essential lessons which it teaches from former compilations of the kind. It does not tell quite so dismal a tale of decay as the average return of the days of Lord Carlisle ; but the decay of which it does speak would be quite enough of itself to delight the heart of that smirking advocate of the substitution on the soil of Ireland of beasts of the field for human beings. The central fact in this return is the same as that disclosed by all previous returns dealing with the same subject. Every y«ar for the last three decades we have been informed that more and more land has been going out of cultivation, and this year we are presented with the same ominous statement. This year the total extent of land under crops is less by 63,732 acres than it was last year, and decrease ia noticeable in every province, and in every species of crop except cabbage, carrots, parsnips, vetches, and rape. The land under potatoes has decreased by 7525 acres— a striking proof iv itself that the people are going out of the country, and thar, tht reform, the true source of the wealtn of the country is being dried up. Against such facts and figureswe have only to record a decrease iv the amount of bog and waste ladd^ and a trifling increase in the number of sheep and cattle, which is itself almost balanced by a decrease of 42,169 in the number of pigs.