446 



The Country Gcntlcuiaiis ]\Iagazinc 



CROPS. 



1854. IS66. IS67. IS6S. 



Cora crops of 



all kinds... 1,442 449,000 455-000 4S5'000 



Wheat 202,000 189,000 195,000 203,000 



Barley i73,ooo 186,000 191,000 181,000 



Oats 35,000 34,000 32,000 33,000 



Green crops of 

 all kinds... i,8Si 904,000 200,000 190,000 



Potatoes 1,000 5,000 5,000 6,000 



Turnip.s, &c. . . 161,000 134,000 144,000 142,000 

 Mangolds ... 16,000 34,000 35,000 29,000 

 Bare fallow ... 10,000 8,000 8,000 12,000 

 Clovers, &c... 171,000 147,000 163,000 120,000 

 Permanent pas- 

 ture (exclu- 

 sive of heath 



land) 192,000 208,000 214,000 211,000 



Extent of the county, 1,354,301 acres. Population, 

 in 1867, estimated at 430,319. 



It would appear from a glance at the live stock 

 returns, that our cattle are happily increasing, and wo. 

 have perhaps recovered the usual amount of our sum- 

 mer stock previous to the outbreak of the cattle plague. 

 The sheep, though 70,000 more than last year, are 

 still hardly in excess of the returns of 1854. Pigs were 

 so dear in 1866 in consequence of the cattle plague and 

 high price of sheep, that they rapidly increased ; but in 

 1868, the low prices of last year have told upon them, 

 and their numbers have fallen off by nearly one-third — 

 viz., 42,000. We may reasonably hope that these 

 returns now exhibit a trustworthy exactness, as the 

 total acreage of corn is within a fraction the same this 

 year as last. Wheat has increased something over 

 4 per cent., and this small addition will prob.ibly 

 astonish those newspaper writers who have stated that 

 a third more land was planted with this grain. If we 

 take the increased breadth at 5 per cent, over the 

 whole of England, that will be about 160,000 

 acres, and 32 bushels per acre, will give a yield which 

 will supply the country with ten or twelve days' bread. 

 Baidey is reduced in a somewhat greater ratio than 

 wheat is increased, and the falling off in mangolds, 

 turnips, &c., is owing to the peculiarly dry season, 

 but at the present moment, instead of 140,000 acres of 

 turnips, as stated in the statistics, we fear that the same 

 weight of roots is frequently grown on 20,000. What 

 has caused the artificial grasses to fall off at 43,000 

 is a mystery ; I will venture to predict that the extent 

 will be further curtailed next year. 



In 1854 Sir John Walsham stated that the counties 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk produced 267,000 acres more 

 wheat and barley than the whole of Scotland, and 

 also computed that Norfolk alone grew 1,290,373 

 more bushels of wheat than all the land north of the 

 Tweed. But compare the extent of wheat now with 

 that grown ten years ago. ' In 1857 the acreage of 

 wheat in Scotland was 243,240 acres ; last year it had 

 <lecreased more than one-half, and had fallen to 

 110,609 acres, or 85,000 acres less than we grew in 



the landlord fixes upon to raise the rent (except when 

 cereals in Ireland, but this great falling off of wheat 

 is larger in Scotland than Ireland. Scotland is rightly 

 held up as an example to the farmers of England, and 

 in this respect we should do well to follow her, for she 

 finds that wheat growing will not answer at the prices 

 current a few years ago ; so she drops it and sticks 

 more than ever to oats which suit her cold soil and 

 damp climate. It is a pleasing fact that very few 

 Norfolk farmers now object to making these annual 

 i-eturns. I, however, question their ultimate use be- 

 yond strictly statistical purposes. The yearly varia- 

 tions in the acreage of crops will not cause anything 

 like the difference in the amount of wheat grown, as a 

 week's rain or a night's blight, and I do not believe 

 that estimates of the yield of the growing crops, even 

 if given by the farmers, can ever be thoroughly relied 

 upon. My own impression is, that after the accuracy 

 of the present returns has been tested for a .short series 

 of years, agricultural statistics need only be collected 

 triennially, septennially, or at any other given interval, 

 to be, in fact, in a sort of stock and crop census, and 

 might then be made compulsory. 



HIXDR.VXCES TO AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS, 



^^'e now come to the somewhat speculative portion 

 of this paper, but still it is one without which the in- 

 quiiy would be incomplete, and it is that from which we 

 may hope to glean the greatest benefit for the future. 

 I concluded the list of questions to my correspondents 

 with the request that they would name what they con- 

 sidered " the chief hindrances to the progress of Nor- 

 folk agriculture." One contended that a great evil 

 ^\as the bad qualities of artificial manures ; others were 

 of opinion that increasing expenses and poor and 

 fluctuating returns militated against the employment 

 of capital. A smaller number suggested that the 

 increase of local and general taxation fell with cmsh- 

 ing severity upon the occupiers of the soil ; and a body 

 of influential agriculturists emphatically declared that 

 " the increasing wages of the labourer and the decreas- 

 ing amount of work done in a day by the general run 

 of them," would be the chief hindrance ; but the 

 almost unanimous reply may be summed up under 

 four heads : insecurity of teuants' capital — the 7iialt-tax 

 — 07'C7--prcscii<ation of gjvtind ga/iic — and the increase- 

 of diseases a/j/ong our stock. 



INSECURITY OF TENANT'S CAPITAL. 



It is worthy of note, that in complaining of insecurity 

 of tenants' capital, no mention is made of the law of 

 distress — a subject which, under the queer term, 

 "hypothec," creates such a strong feeling amongst the 

 farmers of Scotland. Norfolk tenants wish to preserve 

 all the existing rights of the owners of the soil ; they 

 only want some legal protection for their own propert}-. 

 As a Norfolk man I much prefer the security of a 

 lease, and every landlord who wishes permanently to 

 improve his rent-roll, would do well to grant them. 

 Let a yearly tenancy be ever so cheap, the time that 



