and the Cattle Census. 395 



agriculture is obtained with the nicest accuracy :" the machinery 

 employed being that of a body of gentlemen, usually pro- 

 prietors of estates, corresponding with our justices of the peace, 

 who undertake the general superintendence and revision of 

 the returns as sent in to them by the farmers. In France also 

 complete accounts of the agricultural produce are compiled 

 from returns supplied by the mayors and local committees 

 specially appointed for the purpose. 



The records of the last quarter of a century show that the 

 want so graphically illustrated by Mr. Porter has again and 

 again prompted representative men of various interests to urge 

 the Government of the day to supply that want ; and on several 

 occasions the cup has been raised to the very lips of the expect- 

 ants only to be instantaneously shattei'ed. 



The article from the pen of JVIr. Wren Hoskyns which 

 appeared in the sixteenth volume of this Journal sets forth 

 so clearly the advantages and the needfulness of taking stock 

 periodically of the productions of our soil, that I am relieved 

 from the necessity of attempting further to illustrate them in 

 these pages. I assume that in the present day the feeling 

 of the leading agriculturists is that, seeing the limited area 

 of the country and the growing wants of its increasing popula- 

 tion, it will soon become indispensable that they should have 

 the fullest and most minute information, to enable them to 

 develope to the utmost the resources under their control, if 

 England is not to become almost entirely dependent on foreign 

 aid for the food of her people. And now that after long 

 years the Government has tardily given an instalment of the 

 information so much desiderated, it may be interesting and use- 

 ful to record here some of the circumstances relating to the past 

 history of agricultural statistics. 



Of the publications of the Board of Agriculture, which was 

 established in England in 1793, and during its brief existence col- 

 lected and published statements relating to the condition of agri- 

 culture in each county, very little is now known. Apparently 

 the process of bringing forth those results was attended with a 

 similar fate to that of those objects in the world of nature whose 

 vital force is extinguished in one single effort ; the Board was 

 dissolved a few years after its establishment. 



In 1831 an attempt was made by the Norfolk magistracy to 

 collect the statistics of Norfolk, but although the experiment 

 was conducted under favourable circumstances, only 426 persons 

 out of the 680 who were applied to, returned any answer to the 

 request made to them for information. 



In 183G the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Poulett 

 Thompson), participating in the desire generally felt of possess- 



