29 



AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN GERMANY. 



As in 1882, so in 1895, there was included in the Occupa- 

 tions Census of the German Empire an inquiry into the size 

 and modes of tenure of agricultural land.* In estimating the 

 number and size of these holdings, the system adopted was 

 so far similar to that employed in Great Britain that the 

 holdings were classified according to their cultivated area, and 

 not according to the total area. By cultivated area in the 

 German returns is to be understood arable land, meadows^ 

 superior pastures, hop grounds, gardens,! and vineyards. 

 The total area of these holdings was also enumerated, 

 but such total applies only to those holdings which have 

 some purely cultivated land ; those which are purely forest, 

 or uncultivated, were excluded from the present inquiry. 



The number of holdings as thus defined was, in 1895, 

 5>5 56^900, their cultivated area 80,304,000 acres, and their 

 total area 106,898,000 acres. On the average, therefore, each 

 holding contained a cultivated area of 14*5 and a total area 

 of I9'3 acres. In 1882 the corresponding figures were — 

 holdings, 5,276,344; cultivated area, 78,716,000 acres; total 

 area, 99,241,000 acres; average cultivated area, 14-9 acres; 

 average total area, 18*8 acres. The number of holdings has thus 

 increased by 5-3 per cent., the cultivated area by 2 per cent., 

 and the total area by 7*7 per cent. But these increases are 

 partly due to greater exactitude in ascertaining the areas, as 

 the total area particularly, in 1882, would appear to have been 

 affected by the omission of considerable areas of forest, which 

 nevertheless comprised a small area of meadow or arable 



Vierteljahrshefte zur Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, 1897, Ergiinzungsheft zum 

 2ten Heft. 



t But excluding pleasure gardens, even if an unimportant quantity of useful plants be 

 also cultivated. 



