996 



Flax- Growing in Ireland. [march, 



harvests have been abundant, and in checking the undue rise 

 where scarcity has prevailed. This salutary effect seems to 

 have been particularly influential upon the stock exchange 

 at Vienna and Budapest, where the report of an unusual 

 abundance of local harvests was causing a collapse of prices. 

 On the other hand, the corrective influence of the * state- 

 ment ' tended to check the undue rise of prices in Italy, 

 where the wheat crop of 1910 had only amounted to 80*7 

 per cent, of the yield of the previous year. 



"Besides publishing the bulletin of agricultural statistics, 

 the Institute now regularly issues a bulletin of economic and 

 social intelligence, which deals with the history, develop- 

 ment, and present extent of agricultural co-operation, insur- 

 ance, and credit. A bulletin of agricultural intelligence and 

 of the diseases of plants is also published. It is further 

 proposed to publish in the statistical bulletin a statement of 

 prices in the most important markets. It is hoped shortly 

 to extend the statistical service so as to include other products 

 beyond the seven staples already dealt with, and to give 

 figures of importation and exportation. 



"Amongst other questions which the General Assembly at 

 its meeting in May next will be asked to consider is the 

 possibility of establishing a meteorological service for obtain- 

 ing data regarding hail, frost, floods, and drought, with the 

 object of facilitating insurance, more particularly in those 

 countries where crops are liable to injury through hail." 



A Departmental Committee was appointed by the Irish 

 Department of Agriculture, at the close of 1909, "to inquire 

 into the present state of the flax- 

 Flax-Growing in growing industry in Ireland, and the 

 Ireland. causes which are contributing to the 



decline of that industry." This Com- 

 mittee has now submitted a very interesting Report [Cd. 

 5502, Price 3d.], which, in addition to information specially 

 applicable to Ireland, contains observations on some of the 

 general conditions affecting the industry. 



It is pointed out that the reduction in the cultivation of 

 flax which has occurred in Ireland has been contemporaneous 



