TEANSA.CTIONS OF SECTION F. 761 . 



"her own requirements in agricultural produce, it is rather a subject for congratula- 

 tion that she is every year becoming a better customer of her colonies. It has, 

 moreover, been demonstrated in the case of Australasia, and it is probably true also 

 of Canada, that the capacity for agricultural production is increasing at a greater 

 rate than the population. How the home farmer is to continue his struggle agamst 

 such heavy odds is a problem that yet awaits its final solution, and one which it 

 would be outside the scope of this paper to discuss. 



Finally, it is asked, what means exist whereby the agricultural production of the 

 Empire may with fair accuracy be currently estimated, and, what is equally im- 

 portant, in what direction the agricultural practices of each province of the Empire 

 ^re tending? The answer is that there are no such means. We can only judge 

 of these things by their effects : we have little means of anticipating them. At 

 any time there may be a ruinous glut of one kind of produce and a simultaneous 

 disastrous deficiency of another. The great centres of production in the South,_in 

 the West, and in the East, all look to the heart of the Empire as the centre of in- 

 satiable consumption, and year after year their surplus production is landed at the 

 ports of the mother-country. Then, and not till then, does the stern arbitrament of 

 the markets difl'erentiate between over-production in the case of one commodity, and, 

 possibly, of under-production in that of another. But the lesson is learnt too late, 

 for by this time preparations have already been made for another year's production. 

 Bound together by a common language, and employing the same systems of 

 weights and measm-es, it woidd surely be not only possible but practicable for 

 every province of the Empire to officially collect and annually publish compre- 

 hensive agricultural statistics, which, to facilitate comparison, should all be 

 -arranged on one uniform plan. It may fairly be urged that ,the mother-country 

 .should lead the way, but, unfortunately, our own Department of Agriculture has 

 not yet begun to discharge many of the functions which pre-eminently appertain to 

 it. To cite only one example, no official return is made of the produce of crops in 

 the United Kingdom, and until 1884 no such return was made for England and 

 Wales. Our methods of collecting agricultural statistics, particularly such as relate 

 to the yield of crops and to the relation between crop, soil, and climate, require 

 revision, and demand improvement. We can point at home to no organisation 

 qualified to rank alongside the Department of Agriculture, Statistics, and Health 

 of Manitoba, or capable of doing such valuable work as is performed in the Office 

 of the Government Statist of Victoria. Agriculture, the primal art, the pioneer of 

 our colonial affluence, and still associated with enormous interests and great re- 

 sponsibilities at home, has always been neglected by the State. But an Imperial 

 nation has its duties as well as its rights, and when we have a Departruent of 

 Agriculture, one branch of which shall be devoted to the collection, assimilation, 

 and prompt pubhcation throughout the Empire of reliable agricultural statistics, 

 not of the United Kingdom alone, but of the whole realm, there will remain to 

 this nation one duty the less unfulfilled. 



In an appendix are collected the following tables :-- Agricultural statistics of ' 

 the Australasian colonies ; comparative agricultural statistics of the United King- 

 dom and the colonies; average yield per acre of wheat, barley, oats, and hay inthe 

 United Kingdom, the colonies, and the world ; agricultural progress in the Province 

 of Manitoba; exports fi-om Canada of horses, cattle, sheep, butter, and cheese for 

 twelve years ; imports of wheat into the United Kingdom from the colonies and 

 India, and from all soui-ces ; total imports into the United Kingdom of cattle, 

 sheep, pigs, wool, butter, and cheese; imports of fresh mutton into the United 

 Kingdom from Australasia, and from all sources ; produce of wool in the Austral- 

 asian colonies and Cape Colony. 



7. The PvMic Land Policy of the United States. 

 By WORTHINGTON C. FORD. 



The author sets forth in some detail the manner in which the public domain of 

 -the United States has been disposed of since the treaty of 1783. He shows how 



