STATISTICAL SURVEV OF IRISH AGRICULTURE. 



319 



vated land comprised in each of the above group of holdings are available 

 for Ireland. This proportion would have to be taken into consideration 

 before the full significance of the distribution of farms in this country could 

 be appreciated. The following Table, taken from the French Statistique 

 Agricole, 1897, brings out the importance of this point, and is of interest m 

 itself. The details given are for the year 1 892 : — 



This Table shows that, while nearly two-fifths of all French farms are 

 below one hectare, or two and a-half acres, this class of holding covers only 

 slightly more than two and one half per cent, of the cultivated area of the 

 country. It will further be seen that the most important category of hold- 

 ings in France seems to be that of farms from one to ten hectares. These 

 farms cover more than one-fifth of the total area under cultivation, and axe 

 close on half the total number of holdings. The average farm in France is, 

 it will be noticed, about twenty-two acres ; in Great Britain the average 

 farm is sixty-three acres ; and in England as much as sixty-five acres. 

 Some interesting results bearing on the size of holdings were brought out 

 by the agricultural statistics of Belgium collected in 1895. From these very 

 full returns it appears that the number of agricultural holdings in Belgium 

 was 572,550 in 1846 ; in 1866 it had increased to 744,007, or by 30 per cent. 

 From 1866 to 1880 the increase went on by more than 166,000, or 22.4 per 

 cent. But the number of farms, which had increased to 744,007 in 1866, 

 and from that to 910,386 in 1880, falls in 1895 to 829,625, a decrease of 

 nearly 81,000, or 8.8 per cent. On the other hand, the average size of the 

 Belgian farms has increased in recent years. In 1846 the average plot was 

 4.54 hectares; it fell in 1866 to 3.57 hectares; in 1880 to 2.90 hectares; 

 while in 1895 it rose to 3.14 hectares. It'appears further from the official 

 returns of Belgium that, while the number of holdings has been declining 

 since 1880, what may be called the medium farms (five to ten hectares) and 

 large farms (ten to twenty hectares) are increasing, especially the latter. A 

 marked increase in the number of Belgian farms above twenty hectares is 

 a^so revealed by these statistics, which show generally a significant arrest 

 of that division of property which had gone on in Belgium without inter- 

 ruption till 1880, and a correlative tendency towards the concentration of 

 land in the hands of medium and large proprietors. 



An examination of the tables devoted to Live Stock will show that 64,773 



cattle were added to our Irish herds in 1901. This 



forms the highest total — 4,673,323 — ever recorded for 



Irish cattle since these agricultural statistics have 



been first collected. The increase, it will be seen, has 



been progressive since 1895. Pigs have, on the other hand, declined very 



considerably. At the period of the enumeration in 1901, the total number 



of horses in Ireland was 564,916, being a decrease of 2,062 compared with 



Live Stock. 



