The Agricultural Returns for Great Britain during 1894 show some
curious facts in opposition to the stories of increasing depression. For example, the area of cultivation is increasing, not decreasing. In 1869, probably the record year for English agriculture, the total cultivated area of Great Britain was 30,339,000 acres. It is now 32,630,000. No doubt there has been a great change from arable into permanent pasture, but permanent pasture is not land out of cultivation. Arable land, however, is still nearly half of the entire cultivated surface of the islands. Twenty years ago it was 58 per cent. This decline of something over 8 per cent. of the area of land under the plough is almost entirely con- fined to England and Wales. Considering that eereals have each a name in England as a badly paying crop, it is curious to note that last year the cereal area increased, while that under potatoes —which are supposed to be specially lucrative•—decreased by over 23,000 acres. A fact of interest, which is incidentally brought out by these statistics, is the decline of the import of Indian wheat. In 1891 India sent us 651,000 tons of wheat ; last year, only 267,000 tons. Curiously enough, it is in dairy produce that the imports are rising fastest. Yet it is admitted on all hands that our natural advantages for dairy farms are unsurpassed on the globe.
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