TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1163 
most of those who offer advice to the practical farmer in his present straits. It 
must therefore be right to discuss first of all, in this Section of Economie Science and 
Statistics, what the position is, both relatively and absolutely, before any confident 
prescription can be offered for the ils of Scottish agriculture. To obtain some 
sure footing of a statistical nature, some means of contrasting the leading features 
of the agricultural situation as it presents itself in Scotland with the position of 
matters elsewhere, and some knowledge of wherein and to what extent the use 
made of the soil differs from the previous practice, is necessary if we are even to 
attempt to offer a diagnosis of the disease from which agriculture is suffering. ‘This, 
and not any ambitious attempt to formulate hypothetical solutions of the land 
question, or to advise the Scottish farmer—proyerbially the most shrewd of agvi- 
culturists—how to conduct his business, is the limited aim of the paper. 
Partly owing to the character of the surface and partly to the form of our 
yearly returns, we know much less about the use and distribution of the soil in 
Scotland than in England. Only the proportions technically spoken of as ‘ under 
cultivation,’ z.e. under some actual crop, bare fallow, or grass other than mountain 
or heath land, are accounted for annually. In England three-fourths of the 
surface come within this category, but only one-fourth in Scotland, so that for three 
acres out of every four in the latter case we have no information. Speaking more 
accurately, the measured surface of England, excluding Wales, is 82,597,000 acres, 
whereof 24,844,000 acres are regarded as cultivated; aud the measured surface of 
Scotland is 19,467,000, whereof but 4,812,000 is in this sense cultivated. Barely 
25 out of every 100 acres is thus reported on in Scotland, whereas in England it is 
only 25 out of every 100 that fails to be reportedon. Yet it is at once evident from 
the live stock in the two countries that the official figures exclude much land used 
for the grazing of sheep, in some instances even of cattle and ponies. Our official 
tables therefore offering a contrast between the stock kept on each 100 cultivated 
acres in the two countries are misleading. It is the disregard of mountain pastures 
which makes it appear that England has of sheep 66, Wales 95, and Scotland 145 
to each hundred acres. Asa matter of fact, in the valuable statistics collected by 
the Highland and Agricultural Society in 1854, the ‘sheepwalks’ not entered in our 
annual statistics now, then covered 6,531,000 acres, or an area larger by one-third 
than all the cultivated land at present reported on. An enlargement of our statis- 
tics, which would supply information as to any changes in this branch of Scottish 
agriculture is therefore from every point of view desirable. 
Excluding these mountain pastures, the small area of permanent pasture, 
one acre for three under the plough is noted, instead of one for one as in Eng- 
land. The large use of rotation grass which balances this feature is commented 
on and explained, a third, in place of a tenth as in England, of the cultivated 
area being thus utilised. The Scotch percentage of cereals in that area is 28°6 per 
cent. against 26:8 per cent. in England, but only 5 per cent. of the land in corn is 
used for wheat, as against 38 per cent. in England, oats occupying three acres out 
of every four. 
Contrasts between the agricultural distribution of the soil thirty years ago, as 
shown by the Highland and Agricultural Society’s statistics in 1855, and the 
official figures for 1869 and 1884, were then given, and tables were compiled exhibit- 
ing the parallel changes in England and in Ireland in the same interval. These 
showed that the arable area has increased in Scotland, though largely declining in 
England in the past fifteen years, permanent grass increasing very little in the 
North, while it shows a 20 per cent. increase in the South. Wheat-growing in 
Scotland, always a microscopic fraction of the national industry, had dropped from 
191,300 acres in 1855 to 185,700 acres in 1869, and now to 68,700 acres in 1884, 
but the difference has gone in a large degree into other cereals, and it was specially 
noted that much of the decrease had occurred, net in consequence of the present 
depression, but before 1869. Tables and details showing for particular counties the 
changes over this period in greater detail were offered, and the characteristics of 
Scotch farming and the relation of the Scotch population to the small local wheat 
supply was noted. 
The paper dealt with the question of suggested decline in cereal produce per 
