AGRICULTURE 



We are indebted to Mr. R. H. Rew of the Board of Agriculture, whose name will be familiar 

 to Dorset men, for the following interesting Return, which gives proportion per i,ooo acres of land 

 in the county, and the use to which it is put. The figures are for the year 1906 : — 



Acres 



Arable 271 



Grass ........... 497 



Woods ........... 62 



Hills and Heaths 45 



875 

 All other uses .......... 125 



1,000 



Agricultural statistics in Great Britain do not go back very many years, but the revolutionary 

 period in our agriculture lies within the dates for which we have fairly precise returns, so that the 

 first three-quarters of the nineteenth century may be briefly dealt with in Dorset as elsewhere. 

 From 1 80 1 to 181 5 was a war period, with a feverish effort to cultivate as much land as possible 

 for wheat, barley, oats, and pulse. With three per cent, consols down to sixty, it was not a time 

 for government expenditure on statistics, agricultural or otherwise, and we shall never know 

 exactly what areas were cultivated. All published estimates must be decreed void by reason of 

 uncertainty. Owing to the war with France and the consequent self-dependence of the country, 

 good and bad harvests exerted an extraordinary effect. Thus in February 1801 at Dorchester 

 200J. per quarter was paid for wheat ; but in October 701. was accepted. 



In 1809 we get a curious sidelight on the want of technical instruction. Dorset labourers 

 were paid 9/. a week only, but girls could get 30J. a week, if clever, at plaiting straw. On 

 20 April of this year three days' incessant rain began in Dorset, and caused the worst floods since 1773. 

 The winter was wonderfully cold and the autumn-sown wheat was often killed, though a Dorset 

 farmer notes in 1810 that the wheat berry of what ripened was remarkably fine. But the general 

 result was so bad that it was estimated the crop would not exceed 10 bushels an acre. 



In 1 8 1 5 began the great struggle for Free Trade. The Conservative government then in 

 office passed a law prohibiting wheat imports when the price was under 80J. a quarter. As the 

 then average was 65J. jd. per quarter the import trade was practically killed. The issue, as we all 

 know, was determined in 1846. Thirty years' struggle had embittered feeling to the verge of civil 

 war, and the victorious party showed no more moderation on their side than their opponents had done. 

 It was 'all or nothing' with the combatants ; yet, though the strife ended in 1846, it was not until 

 1879 that British cereal agriculture really felt the full effect of the change. As late as 1877, or 

 thirty-one years after the Free Trade Act, the average price of wheat was 565. ()d. a quarter, or 

 2s. id. higher than in 1846, the actual year of the statute. Thus it comes about that the full 

 figures for Dorset which we have for 1873 ^""^j although only thirty-three years old, of all the 

 service that we want, for they relate to a time when foreign competition had made no inroad worth 

 mentioning on the county agriculture. It will be well, therefore, to take the separate branches 

 of agriculture in their respective divisions and place figures and comments together. 



The cultivation of corn crops of all kinds has steadily declined, with the exception of the 

 quantity of oats and rye sown. Oats show the greatest percentage of increase, though that for rye 

 is but slightly smaller. In 1873 the percentage of corn crops to all crops was 24-8. In 1906 it 

 was 16-07 ^■'^h a total of 76,551 acres under grain. With the exception of the year 1894, which 

 shows an increase over the preceding year of 3,500 acres, the Returns show a steadily diminishing 

 quantity of about, in the earlier years, 3,000 acres per year, and latterly of about 1,000 acres. Bad 

 seasons, low prices, and the laying down of land to pasture have all been responsible for this decrease, 

 and it is questionable, when one comes to examine Dorset agriculture from the point of view of the 

 Dorset farmer, whether he is not proceeding on the right lines. So far as feeding stufisare concerned 

 he can buy all the food he requires as cheaply as he can produce it. Indeed, there are farmers in 

 Dorset who say that had they not to keep tiieir land in cultivation it would pay them better not to 

 grow corn crops at all. 



Of the corn crops the principal, of course, is wheat, though it does not cover so large an 

 acreage as some others. In 1873 wheat was grown on 46,740 acres. Even at that time wheat 

 was unremunerative, and the total area was steadily diminishing. In 1875 the area was 

 44,384 and in 1876 41,329 acres, a decline of 3,000 acres. From 1876 to 1879 the decline, 

 however, was only about 1,500 acres, but the latter superlatively bad year had its reflex in the 

 Returns of 1 880, which give the total area of wheat as only 35,909 acres, a difference of 4,000 

 acres. Then the decline steadily continued year by year until 1899, when wheat rose to a total of 



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