290 



The Harvest oe 1898. 



The yield per acre of 3474 bushels is the greatest that has 

 appeared in the annual estimates which have been collected 

 since the year 1884, and it may be added that the increases 

 in England, Wales, and Scotland over the previous year's 

 wheat crop, and over the decennial average, of which last 

 year s crop fell but slightly short, are everywhere consider- 

 able. No county in England and Wales fails to report an 

 increased yield, and only three in Scotland, where the area 

 under wheat was very small, differ from the general tenor of 

 the returns. 



The county figures of the yield of the wheat crop ot 1 898 

 will in due course appear in the completed Agricultural 

 Returns ; but it may be stated here, in advance of these, that 

 an examination of the results in the groups of contiguous 

 counties treated as possessing- certain common agricul- 

 tural features, which have been frequently quoted in con- 

 nection with Produce Statistics, has shown that once again 

 the highest average estimated yield for any one of the 

 eight sub-divisions of England is recorded, as it was in 

 1897, in the group form^ed by the counties of Norfolk,. 

 Lincoln, and the East Riding of York, where no less than 

 37*24 bushels per acre are estimated to have been obtained. 

 The lowest yield of wheat, which, however, reached 30*80 

 bushels as compared with 26*26 bushels in 1897, was, it 

 may be also noted, again returned from the extreme south- 

 western group of counties made up of Somerset, Dorset, 

 Devon, and Cornwall. 



The yield of the barley crop of 1897 was estimated as 

 having been exactly equivalent to the average of the ten 

 years 1887-96, or 32*82 bushels per acre. In the present 

 season the yield is 35*75 bushels, or 2*78 bushels above the 

 average of 1888-97, the Welsh and the Scotch crops showing 

 proportionally a larger excess than the English over the 

 decennial estimates. The acreage under barley in Great 

 Britain this season was 132,000 acres less than in 1897, but 

 the total production was, as the consequence of the satis- 

 factory yield, nearly 155,000 quarters greater, as the subjoined 

 table shows. 



The largest average yield of barley in any of the groups of 

 English counties referred to above was. as was also the case 



