50 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF BLACKPOOL AND DISTRICT 



XI. 



AGRICULTURE OF THE FYLDE 



BY 



J. J. GREEN, B.Sc, 

 Secretary of Agriculture, Lancashire County Council. 



The popular conception of Lancashire is of a blackened countryside, a region 

 of smoking chimney stacks and sulphurous slag heaps, where the farmer must 

 wring his livelihood out of ' the begrimed pastures that scarcely separate the 

 towns.' This conception is true, however, only of a small proportion of 

 Lancashire, and although the industrial activities of the county as a whole 

 tend to overshadow its agricultural interests, Lancashire is one of the foremost 

 agricultural counties. 



Compared with other English counties, Lancashire ranks eighth in respect 

 of the area under crops and grass, and tenth in respect of the area under arable 

 cultivation. Potatoes, of which there were 37,180 acres in 1934, is the most 

 important arable crop ; only two counties have a larger area under this crop. 

 The chief cereal crops are oats (52,346 acres) and wheat (30,145 acres) ; 

 practically no barley is grown. In respect of live stock, Lancashire occupies 

 an even more important position. In 1934, there were over 137,000 cows in 

 the county, a larger number than any other county except Yorkshire. 



Although over large areas of the county practically no sheep are kept, sheep- 

 farming is important in the hilly districts of East and North Lancashire and 

 in the Fylde, so that the sheep population is fairly heavy, being over 386,000, 

 the county occupying ninth place amongst English counties in this respect. 

 The pig population of over 1 1 5,000 is the seventh largest in the country, and 

 represents an increase of nearly 40 per cent, in the number of pigs kept com- 

 pared with 1930. 



Even a summary of the agricultural statistics of the county would be 

 incomplete without reference to the magnitude of the poultry- keeping industry. 

 The agricultural returns show that in June, 1 934, there were over seven-and-a- 

 half million fowls kept on holdings of over one acre. If to this is added the 

 estimated number kept on smaller areas, the total poultry population of Lanca- 

 shire must be over 10,000,000. This is more than one-eighth of the total 

 fowl population of England and Wales. 



Arable farming is mainly concentrated on the plain which lies along the sea 

 board between the estuaries of the Ribble and the Mersey ; Ormskirk, where 

 the National Institute of Botany has established a potato testing station, may 

 be regarded as the centre of this area. 



Between the western arable plain and the Yorkshire border is the great 

 industrial area. The important manufacturing towns of Burnley, Blackburn 



