^48 REPORT— 1 884. 



■counties. In 1878 we grew 3,381,701 acres of wheat, and in 1883 only 2,713,282 

 nacres, the latter year showing a decrease of 20 per cent, on the former. 



Our import of wheat from all sources in 1879 was 59,368,140 cwt., and since 

 then the average increase has been 1,000,000 cwt. per annum. But while the 

 imports from the United States and Canada have diminished, those from India 

 have undergone an enormous increase, British India having- sent us less than 

 1,000,000 cwt. in 1879, and upwards of 11,000,000 cwt. in 1883. 



The principles involved in the laying down of land to permanent pasture are 

 becoming better understood, the number of species of grass employed is more 

 restricted, and there is an increasing determination to employ nothing but clean, 

 pure, and fertile grass-seeds, so that seed-adulteration is largely checked. Of 

 plants new to agriculture, comfrey has secured a limited recognition, while the 

 weed spurrey, now recommended to be grown for ensilage, has all its way yet to 



make. 



A determined crusade is being made against crop-destroying insects. The last 

 serious attack of turnip-fly, in 1881, is estimated to have cost English and Scotch 

 farmers as much as 071,930/. ; and in 1882 the English hop-growers lost through 

 the ravages of the hop-aphis 1,300,000/., not less than 200,000/. of which represents 

 wages lost to the hop-pickers. 



Ensilage is receiving a fair trial at the hands of British farmers, and is most 

 likely to prove successful, if at all, on farms where a large number of stock have to 

 be wintered. But silage can never become the marketable commodity that bay is, 

 on account of its perishable nature, and from the fact that 80 per cent, of its 

 weight is water. 



Foot-and-mouth disease has proved a dreadful scourge during recent years, but 

 the farmers' demand that British ports should be closed against live stock from 

 infected foreign countries was certainly not prompted by the desire, or rather the 

 intention, of introducing the thin end of tbe wedge of Protection. The majority 

 of our farmers are reconciled to Free Trade, because they regard it as the 

 inevitable. 



The price of wool continues to decrease, and this article is now little more than an 

 agricultural bye-product. Importations of colonial wool completely swamp the 

 borne growth. On the other hand, the price of pedigree live stock is well main- 

 tained, and it is in supplying the markets of the world with the best straius of 

 bovine and ovine blood that one of the brightest outlooks of the future is to 

 be sought. ( „ 



Dairy-farming is largely on the increase, and this, combined with breeding, is 

 the most profitable development British agriculture is likely to see in the near 

 future. Great and important improvements have been introduced in the practice of 

 dairving ; the supply of milk to large towns is a rapidly-increasing industry, but 

 our produce in cheese and butter still lacks that uniformity of character which it is 

 desirable it should possess. 



Looking forward, it is probable that rents, except on first-class dairy-farms, will 

 •continue to decline, and the rent of land at home will approximate to that of land 

 easy of access in the Colonies. Farmers will possess a better technical education 

 than heretofore, land owners will take a more direct interest in the cultivation of the 

 soil, and land agents will, through the efforts of the Surveyors' Institution, be 

 better qualified to discharge the important duties that devolve upon them. Home 

 railway-freights on home-grown agricultural produce will probably be modified to a 

 sufficient, extent to at least place our own farmers on a level with those in other 

 countries. Permanent pasture will go on increasing, and the acreage under corn 

 will diminish, though never become evanescent. Dairy-farming and stock-breeding 

 are the sheet anchors of the future. 



7. The Agricultural Resources of Ontario. By John Carnegie. 



This paper does not, as its name implies, deal with the resources of the entire 

 province, but only with the southern, and already moderately well-developed, por- 

 tion of it. Although the part dealt with contains only about one-fifth of its entire 



