826 REPORT— 1900. 



area, as well as changes even in the direction of improvement in the machinery of 

 collection, are all hindrances to very close and accurate comparisons. 



Attempts have no doubt been made to enumerate separately the strips of land 

 held as p-ardens or allotments, at different dates, in England, but considerations 

 such as I have above indicated have rendered the results of much less statistical 

 value than can be claimed for the yearly returns, and the failures of some of these 

 repeated attempts furnish a conspicuous warning against overloading the never 

 very simple task of rural stock-taking by too frequent and necessarily costly 

 enquiries into very minute points of agricultural condition. 



Even in records of the numbers of animals there is room for much misunder- 

 standing. ' Horses ' are defined differently in the returns of different countries, 

 at one place the numbers including trade and private horses, in another only 

 those engaged in agriculture. The ages and the classes of the animals, and the dates 

 of the collection again, may and do vary considerably, and this may bring in lambs 

 in one countrj' and omit some portions of this group in another. Even cows, it is 

 found, may mean one thing in one country and another in another, and may be 

 returned with other cattle in a single class or shown separately from other horned 

 stock. Oxen are shown in some countries with no distinction of class or age ; 

 in others those still used for working the farm may be distinguished from those 

 reared for purposes of meat production only. All these cautions are only examples 

 of the danger of venturing on too close reliance on data of this kind in interna- 

 tional comparisons. 



Over and above all difficulties due to difference of agricultural practice and 

 local definitions, the most serious bar to exact comparison of the course of 

 agriculture in different countries is the widely varying practice as to the intervals 

 at which statistics are collected. Live stock maybe enumerated, as with ourselves, 

 in France, or in the United States, annnally, -while wide gaps occur between the 

 years of stock-taking elsewhere. The acreage of each crop in each season may be 

 recorded in one country ; in another five or ten years, in some cases even fifteen, 

 may elapse between the enquiries on this essential point, and estimates of produce 

 checked by no local examination of the surface occupied too often prove delusive 

 guides to the results of particular years. These gaps are the dread of any one 

 who sets himself seriously to examine what has been the general movement either 

 in the changing areas of crop distribution or in the relative growth or decline of 

 agricultural production abroad. 



Continuous annual data of acreage, production, and live stock ought, however, 

 to be within the reach of most fully equipped Governments of modern times. The 

 method of the collection will necessarily differ. Information obtained direct from 

 the immediate producer by written schedule is perhaps available nowhere but in 

 our own land. Tlie fact is one which says something for progressive intelligence and 

 the general support which the State receives from the great bulk of farmers of Great 

 Britain, and the working of our system has attracted much attention of late from 

 those responsible for the conduct and development of agricultural statistics in 

 foreign countries. We may pardonably view our position in this country with 

 satisfaction Avhen it is recognised how largely foreign correspondents are yearly 

 seeking for more and more information as to how so big a statistical operation 

 is annually accomplished here between June 4 and August 28 in the time and 

 with the machinery at our command. To the statisticians of Russia, Spain, Italy, 

 Germany, Denmark, and even of Japan we have had lately to explain our process. 

 Could some approach to this system be obtained, the means for accurate measure- 

 ment of the world's agricultural movements would he greatly helped, and it may 

 at least be hoped that a generation hence facilities will abound for a closer review 

 of the position of food supply and production than is now feasible. But it is not 

 necessary to wait quite so long for some general glimpse of the facts. Already in 

 France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Russia, and the United States 

 among foreign countries, in our Indian possessions, and in our Australasian colonies, 

 we find indeed annual statements — not all, however, collected similarly — of the 

 area under the principal grain crops. Two only of the provinces of the Canadian 



