688 



Area Devoted to Fruit Cultivation, [feb., 



heifers in milk and in calf, with the view of obtaining a closer 

 approximation of the milking herd of the country, was also 

 made, while another inquiry was directed to an attempt to 

 ascertain the extent to which the holdings included in the 

 returns are occupied by persons who are not primarily engaged 

 in farming as a business. 



With the view of facilitating the collection of the returns in 

 Wales, a bi-lingual schedule was issued in those parts of the 

 Principality where Welsh was likely to be more familiar than 

 English to the farmers concerned. From the collectors' 

 reports it appears that on the whole the bi-lingual schedule 

 tended to increase the accuracy of the returns and to facilitate 

 the work of collection. 



The principal changes in the area devoted to crops and in 

 the numbers of live stock are discussed in the report and illus- 

 trated by diagrams. 



The growing importance of fruit cultivation in this country 

 has led to a demand for more detailed statistics of its extent 



than have hitherto been collected. The 

 Area Devoted to Fruit returns annually obtained of the total 

 Cultivation. area under small fruit and orchards 



respectively have afforded a rough 

 measure of the growth of the industry as a whole, and show 

 an increase during the past ten years of 12,000 acres of small 

 fruit and 25,000 acres of orchards. 



In the returns up to 1907 a certain unknown proportion of 

 the acreage bearing small fruit was also returned under orchards, 

 and no information was afforded as to the kinds of fruit and 

 their relative importance. An attempt has been made to 

 supply these deficiencies, in some degree at least, while at the 

 same time maintaining the continuity of the statistics. 

 Occupiers were requested to return small fruit under four, 

 and orchards under five, headings, and also to state how much 

 of the land under orchards was also returned as under small 

 fruit. An obvious difficulty arose with reference to land on 

 which more than one kind of fruit was grown, and the following 

 instruction was given in the schedule : " The acreage under 

 mixed small fruit, containing more of one sort than another, 

 should be entered against the sort to which the larger pro- 

 portion of the fruit belongs. Where the sorts are equally 



