46 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



in rotation (17,201,490 acres in 1885 and 16,166,950 

 acres in 1895), we see that within the last ten years an- 

 other 1,000,000 acres went out of cultivation, without 

 any compensation whatever. It went to increase that 

 already enormous area of more than 16,000,000 acres 

 one-half of the cultivable area which goes under the 

 head of " permanent pasture," that is, hardly suffices to 

 feed one cow on each three acres ! 



Need I say, after that, that quite to the contrary 

 of what we are told about the British agriculturists 

 becoming " meat-makers " instead of " wheat-growers " 

 no increase of live stock took place during the last 

 ten years. Where, indeed, could they find their 

 food? Far from devoting the land freed from cereals 

 to " meat-making/' the country further reduced its 

 live stock. It had 6,597,964 head of horned cattle 

 in 1885, and 6,354,336 only in 1895; 26,534,600 sheep 

 in 1885 and 25,792,200 sheep in 1895. True, the 

 number of horses was increased ; every butcher and 

 greengrocer runs now a horse " to take orders at the 

 gents' doors" (in Sweden and Switzerland, by the way, 

 they do it by telephone); and consequently Great 

 Britain has 1,545,228 horses instead of the 1,408,788 

 she had in 1885. But the horses are imported, as also 

 the oats and a considerable amount of the hay that is 

 required for feeding them. And if the consumption of 

 meat has really increased in this country, it is due to 

 cheap imported meat, not to the meat that would be pro- 

 duced in these islands.* In short, agriculture has not 

 changed its direction, as we are often told ; it simply 

 went down in all directions. Land is going out of cul- 

 ture at a perilous rate, while the latest improvements in 

 market-gardening, fruit-growing and poultry-keeping 

 are but a mere trifle if we compare them with what has 



* No less than 5,877,000 cwts. of beef and mutton, 1,065,470 sheep and 

 lambs, and 415,565 pieces of cattle were imported in 1895. 



