AGRICULTURE 



agricultural value as appanage lands to wealthy men's estates; in these five 

 parishes 665 acres of land otherwise agricultural, but really used for the 

 most part for rich men's pleasure, brought in 3,320 a year. 



Coming to modern agriculture in its fullest sense of contemporary 

 record and comparisons within living memory we shall find it most 

 advantageous to take the figures for 1876 and for 1906. Those for 1876 

 because they are the earliest available at an exact interval in decades and 

 because those of 1873 (the earliest published) show no vital difference. 

 The reason for taking the figures in 1906 is manifest: they are the latest 

 published. 



The total area in Middlesex under all kinds of crops thus 

 compares : 



1876 1 1 7,493 acres 



1906 94>o&7 



The decline in these figures, which include grass as a crop, is serious, 

 and if we could clearly distinguish how much is due to a decline in 

 agriculture generally and how much is simply the result of residential 

 uses increasing we should get a very fair measure of how far agriculture 

 as a whole is losing ground. But this is just what we do not seem able 

 to get at, and the figures must needs blend. A residential occupier of 

 means, for instance, will usually keep some private meadows as grass. 

 The area under wheat shows the following change : 



1876 .......... 8,096 acres 



1906 2,264 



This is a disastrous and altogether discouraging return. The London 

 market takes, roughly speaking, the produce of 25,000 acres every week, 

 and there is no part of Middlesex from which a cart cannot carry wheat 

 to Mark Lane within four hours of sober going, such as befits the 

 cart. The greater area of Middlesex may regard the distance as one of 

 two hours' journey. The whole riparian district from Isleworth to 

 Staines has water-borne traffic, which is far cheaper than either road or 

 rail. Soil and climate suit wheat over at least the moiety of the county, 

 and, as we see, as recently as 1876 some 8,096 acres were devoted to its 

 cultivation. The inevitable conclusion seems to be that the average 

 price of wheat from 1876 to 1906 did not make it a profitable crop to 

 grow even under circumstances in the main favourable. The difficulties 

 of sending produce to market which so often modify the situation in 

 other counties have not here prevailed ; the uncertainty of market demand 

 which so often discourages production does not apply where at hand we 

 have an exchange placing for actual food wants nearly five million 

 quarters of bread-stuffs annually. One may even add that the demand 

 for bran and middlings would be more constant in Middlesex than in an 

 average district. 



The area under barley is thus returned : 



1876 2,405 acres 



358 



215 



