TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. * L16E 
2. The Agriculture of Aberdeenshire. By Colonel Innes. 
The paper was mainly occupied by the agriculture of Aberdeenshire as a meat- 
producing industry, and as typical of the agriculture of the north-east counties of 
Aberdeenshire. 
1. It traced how the export of fat cattle and dead meat for the southern 
markets by steamer and rail became the staple product of the agriculture of Aber- 
deenshire. 
2. The change which is taking place in this product of fat cattle is, that the 
stock reared in the county is no longer sufficient to supply the store cattle for 
fattening, and that an increasing proportion of stores have to be imported. 
3. The increasing competition which the meat produced in Aberdeenshire is 
encountering in the southern markets from foreign fat cattle and dead meat. 
4, The remedy suggested. The importation of foreign store cattle to be fattened. 
The employment of imported cattle food. 
5. The anticipated advantages are, (1) that the largely increased production of 
meat within the same agricultural area will be more profitable, (2) that the supply 
of the southern markets with meat, by importation of store-cattle, and feeding at 
home, instead of by importing foreign meat, will add to the fertility of the soil by 
the consumption of large quantities of imported food ; (3) it will at the same time 
add to the resources of various industries, and to the food of the pcorer classes by 
increased supply of the hides, tallow, and offals. 
3. The Agricultural Situation} 
By Professor W. Fream, B.Sc., F.L.S., F.GS. 
During the year there has been a sharp and decisive fall in the value of all kinds 
of agricultural produce. Though this has benefited the poorer classes it has proved 
most lucrative to the retail dealers in bread and in meat, for the decrease in the 
cost of these articles to the consumer exhibits an altogether inadequate ratio to the 
decline in their value to the producer. 
The best English wheat has been sold for as little as 30s. per imperial quarter, 
which is the lowest price on record, the lowest price touched during the preceding 
thirty years having been 37s. 7d. in 1879, whereas the average price since last 
years harvest has been about 33s. The fall in the price of wheat is partly 
attributable to the abundant harvest of 1884, when the yield of wheat was so large 
that the import of foreign wheat was less than in any year since 1876, and was 
17 million ewts. less than in 1883, the shipping trade suffering severely in conse- 
quence. Jn the second week of March last barley and wheat were officially 
returned as of the same value, namely, 31s. 3d. per imperial quarter. 
Pedigree cattle have undergone a very serious depreciation in value, and in 
many cases sheep have fallen to half the price they commanded two years ago. 
Dairy farming, the last stronghold as it were of our declining agriculture, has 
been attacked in its most sensitive points, namely, the values of butter and cheese. 
Butter declined from 20 to 20 per cent. on the quotations of the previous year, and 
cheese from 2) to 40 per cent. on the preceding year's prices. In August the 
Cheshire cheese market fairly collapsed. 
British farming was probably never in a gloomier condition, for it is not one 
branch alone but all that are now experiencing depression. Farmers will this year 
incur enormous financial losses, and it is diflicult to discover how, in many cases, 
rents will be paid. 
Taking the United Kingdom as a whole, it appears that during the decade 
from 1874 to 1884, there was a falling off in the area of arable land of 1,288,413 
acres, Simultaneously, the area in permanent pasture increased by | ,936,790 acres. 
It would seem a startling statement to make that the British Isles are gradually 
going out of cultivation, and yet it appears that whereas in 1874 the areas under 
Published in extenso in the Aierdeen Journal, and in various agricultural journals. 
