394 Agriciiltnral Jottinfjs from the General Report of the 



making progress or are tliey lagging behind, over-weighted in the 

 race ? The vast markets of the world are open to our purveyors, 

 who can sweep America and Australia as well as the old 

 world for supplies ; but English beef and mutton maintain their 

 supremacy, and Great Britain and Ireland are able to furnish 

 nine-tenths of the supply required, while at the same time we 

 have no indication that the production of corn in these islands 

 is decreasing, and we have some reason to hope that scientific 

 research may enable us to obtain a considerable increase of the 

 growth of barley on strong land not well adapted to root 

 crops.* 



If our power of producing these supplies were dependent upon 

 the number of persons employed in their production, the returns 

 of the Census might cause some alarm. The figures for the 

 principal agricultural classes stand as exhibited in Table III., 

 p. 393. 



From this Table we may extract the number of Farmers and 

 Graziers, Farm-Bailiffs, Farm Servants (In-door), Agricultural 

 Labourers, and Shepherds enumerated in the Censuses of 1851, 

 1861, and 1871, in England and Wales. 



1851. 



1861. 



1,347,387 



1,340,916 



1871. 



1,246,561 



The landed proprietors returned at each Census represent 

 those only who give this as their sole occupation ; and do not 

 include the large number who own land and yet have other pur- 

 suits. The decrease from 30,766 to 22,964, being 7802, of 

 which 6862 were female proprietors, is very considerable and very 

 curious. There can be no question that the selling value of 

 land, especially when adapted for residential purposes, increased 

 much more than its letting value between 1861 and 1871 ; and 

 during the same period the temptation of largely increased in- 

 come, and of small responsibility afforded by limited liability 

 companies, may have acted as a strong inducement to small 

 owners of land to part with their property ; and this would pro- 

 bably have a peculiar influence on women, who are generally 

 anxious to obtain a high rate of interest for their investments. 

 In the statistical abstract for 1871 presented to Parliament, 

 pp. 15-16, we find that between 1861 and 1870 inclusive, the 



* I allude to the success of the experiments on barley growing at Eothamsted, 

 where excellent crof)s of barley have been grown in succession for a series of years, 

 not merely in experimental plots, but as farm crojDS, with a top dressing of 2 cwts. 

 of superphosphate and 2 cwts. of nitrate of soda. 



