74 



The Country GcntkmaiCs j\Iagazinc 



AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



-LIVE-STOCK. 



A WRITER in .-/// the Year Round says :— " The 

 jl\ British, or rather tlie English farmer, has a 

 peculiar dislike to answering the questions of an 

 official. It is an ignorant prejudice, but it has a 

 foundation in traditionary reason. He learned from 

 his father, who learned it from his grandfather, that 

 in the days of that departed respectable top-booted 

 gentleman the Government made many inquiries, 

 ■which were generally followed by new taxes. The 

 then exciseman wished to know, not only how much 

 beer was brewed, but -wdiether the farmer made any 

 candles, or soap, or bricks, or tanned any hides, and 

 A\'hether he had paid duty on all the salt he used. 

 Then, too, the parson of those deeply-regretted times 

 was curious as to the yield of every crop, for he 

 took his tithes in kind. Now farmers — who, as a 

 rule, read little, and think the more of the past — 

 still very often look on the parson as their natural 

 enemy, and on the Government as a malicious powerful 

 fiend that sensed them an ill turn nineteen years ago, 

 that makes them alone of all producers pay a tax on 

 produce, and is on the look-out to impose on them 

 another. Therefore they detest the name of statistics. 

 Besides, the English farmer is usually a tenant-at-will, 

 paying a low rent as a compensation for a nominally 

 precarious but practically permanent tenure. Tenants- 

 at-will will labour under the delusion that they can 

 keep their position and their profits or losses from the 

 calculations of the landlord's agent — an ostrich-like 

 delusion, but very firmly fixed. 



For all these reasons the farmer has hitherto dis- 

 played a rooted aversion to anything like agricultural 

 statistics, and has successfully resisted attempts, even 

 endorsed by noblemen considered "farmers' friends," 

 to collect the sort of agricultural information \\'hich 

 is furnished annually to the Governments of the United 

 States and of the Australian colonies, as well as to all 

 the governments of continental Europe. 



Thus, when cattle were dying off at the rate of some 

 thousands a week, we positively did not know, A\-ithin 

 a couple of millions, more or less, how many cattle, 

 sheep, and pigs there were for the British meat-eater 

 to fall back on vdien the foreign trade in live cattle 

 was entirely stopped— that foreign cattle trade which 

 in 1S64 brought us as many animals as have since 

 perished by the plague. 



One indirect result of the cattle plague was to obtain 

 oflicial, though non-compulsory, returns of the numbers 

 of horned stock, sheep, and pigs in Great Britain, Ire- 

 land having for several years been the subject of an 

 annual statistical inquiry. The English tables are now 

 before us. They are not very satisfactory, for the in- 



quiries were conducted by the officers of the Inland 

 Revenue, and it is amongst the traditions of that office 

 to afford no more information than the law requires. 



Nothing, therefore, is given but the bare figures of 

 the return, which are thrown, as though grudgingly, 

 before the pul^lic, like the pieces of a child's puzzle, 

 to be put together as we can. We are not told how 

 many schedules were distributed, how many de- 

 faulters there were, or the number of o^^'ners, or the 

 estimate of stock unreturned. Neither are we in- 

 formed of what is equally important — the particulars 

 of the breed of the stock, and whether they were stores 

 or fat fetock. In some counties lambs were embodied 

 with sheep ; other returns in the colder counties were 

 made before the lambs were yeaned ; but intelligible 

 notes for the useful reading of the naked statistics do 

 not appear. 



The number of cattle before the outbreak of the 

 Rinderpest in Great Britain, excluding Ireland and the 

 islands, has been estimated at nearly 5,000,000. The 

 return falls short of that number by some 6000 ; but 

 this first voluntary census may be \\'rong by that num- 

 ber either way. The Rinderpest, up to October 1866, 

 had by the plagiae or the i^ole-axe destroyed over 

 200,000 head, or somethinglike 5 per cent, of the 

 average stock — a serious loss, not easily to be replaced, 

 esiDccially under the restrictions which have become 

 indispensable to guard the country against a second 

 introduction of the disease. The sheep of 1866 were 

 counted at over 22,000,000, and the pigs at 2,500,000. 

 Sheep, although not absolutely free from Rinderpest, 

 suffered to the extent of less than 8000. 



We have not included the live stock of Ireland in 

 these figures, because the sea-passage that divides the 

 green island from England makes the importation just 

 as difficult as from Holland and North Germany, and 

 more difficult than from the Channel ports of France. 

 But Ireland, although still understocked, for want of 

 capital and confidence amongst graziers, makes a very 

 respectable display in the statistical tables. - The cattle 

 amount to 3,500,000 (we throughout quote round 

 numbers) ; the sheep are only a very little more 

 numerous than the cattle, and the pigs reach 1,300,000. 

 A writer in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society has given us the area in acres and the popula- 

 tion of the principal Continental States and of the 

 United States, and shews the proportion of live 

 stock of each kind to each hundred acres of area and 

 each hundred of population. According to these 

 tables, Holland and Belgium — butter and cheese 

 exporting countries — stand highest in proportionate 

 number of cattle to acreage, but rather low in the 



