Jime 1896.] 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



77 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



Board of Agriculture. — Agricultural Returns for Great Britain, 

 1895, showing the Acreage and Produce of Crops, Prices 

 of Corn and number of Live Stock, with Agricultural 

 Statistics for the United Kingdom, British Possessions, 

 and Foreign Countries. [C. — 8073.] Price Is. 6d., with 3 

 diagram maps. 



The annual " Agricultural Returns," together with the various 

 incidental and comparative information annexed to the official 

 statistics for Great Britain, now form a volume embracing the 

 information formerly contained in three separate Parliamentary 

 publications, dealing with the acreage of crops and numbers of 

 live stock, the yearly estimates of produce, and the statistics 

 relating to the prices of corn under the Corn Returns Act. 

 Advantage has been taken on this occasion of the later date at 

 which the final volume has been issued to incorporate, in such 

 cases as was possible, data relating to the imports of agricultural 

 produce in the complete year 1895. 



By means of preliminary statements all the more important 

 statistics, the early issue of which was of interest to agricul- 

 turists, have already been placed in the hands of the public in 

 seven successive instalments, two of them appearing in the 

 September and March issues of this Journal. Their ap- 

 pearance therefore collectively in the present form is mainly 

 intended for convenient and permanent reference, but there are 

 some items of intelligence, such as the areas of woods and of 

 minor crops, which are new, and, in accordance with custom, the 

 general features of the collected tables are commented on by 

 Major Craigie in his report to the President of the Board. 



In this report, besides a reproduction of the map given in 

 1894 showing the groups of counties making up the several 

 agricultural divisions of Great Britain, there appear two nevf 

 diagram maps conveniently contrasting in graphic form the 

 wheat areas of 1875 with those of 1895, when the smallest 

 surface yet returned was shown to be under that cereal. The 

 report also embodies the following condensed summary showing 

 for each "Agricultural Division" not only the areas under 

 arable land and pasture usually accounted for as cultivated, but 

 also the estimated extent of mountain and heath land used for 

 grazing in 1895, together with the results of a fresh enquiry 

 just completed into the area of woodlands in Great Britain, and 



