OF AGRICULTURE. 89 



for breeding, we find only small oscillations 

 between 1,408,790 in 1885 and 1,553,000 in 

 1909. But numbers of 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 produced in these 

 islands. f 



In short, agriculture has not changed its di- 

 rection, 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 improve- 

 ments in market-gardening, fruit-growing and 

 poultry-keeping are but a mere trifle if we com- 

 pare them with what has been done in the same 

 direction in France, Belgium and America. 



* According to a report read by Mr. Crawford before the 

 Statistical Society in October, 1899, Britain imports every year 

 4,500,000 tons of hay and other food for its cattle and horses. 

 Under the present system of culture, 6,000,000 acres could 

 produce these food-stuffs. If another 6,000,000 acres were sown 

 with cereals, all the wheat required for the United Kingdom 

 could have been produced at home with the methods of culture 

 now in use. 



f 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. In 1910 the first of these figures rose to 13,690,000 

 cwts. Altogether, it is calculated (Statesman's fear-book, 1912) 

 that, in 1910, 21 Ib. of imported beef, 13 Ib. of imported 

 mutton, and 7 Ib. of other sorts of meat, per head of popula- 

 tion, were retained for home consumption ; in addition to 1 1 Ib. 

 of butter, 262 Ib. of wheat, 25 Ib. of flour, and 20 Ib. of rice 

 and rice-flour, imported. 



