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PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



[June 1895. 



foreign data hitherto published under the title of Agricultural 

 Returns," but also the " Produce Statistics " of the past year, 

 showing the yield of the several grain crops, roots, and hay in 

 the country as a whole, and in the divisions and counties of 

 Great Britain. The separate series of tables published in recent 

 years, under the title of " Corn Prices," is now also embodied in 

 the pages of the present issue which is intended to form a 

 complete compendium of agricultural statistics. 



All the more prominent features of the Agricultural Returns 

 of the 3 ear 1894 have been made known to the public at the 

 earliest possible moment by means of advance tables appearing 

 at various dates from August 1894 to March 1895. The present 

 volume supplies, however, various supplementary and com- 

 parative tables, and combines the whole for future permanent 

 and convenient reference. 



Independently of an exhaustive tabular index arranged 

 alphabetically, and in addition to the statistical summaries 

 appearing in the report, the volume now presented to Parlia- 

 ment includes 109 separate tables, extending to 237 pages, 

 embracing not only the necessary statistics on the points above 

 quoted, but extending also to other matters of interest, such as 

 the total surface area of the country, the approximate extent 

 of rough grazings and of woodlands, the details of the minor 

 crops in the counties of Great Britain, the area under Small 

 Fruit, Hops and Orchards and Market Gardens, and the land 

 shown to be farmed by its owners on the 4th of June 1894. 



A further new departure may be noted in this volume, 

 whereby, by the assistance of the Ordnance Survey Department, 

 there has been secured, as a frontispiece, a new coloured map of 

 Great Britain, showing the grouping of the counties into several 

 more or less distinctive Agricultural Divisions and Sub-Divisions, 

 which may be found useful by students of the returns, as 

 furnishing in a graphic form an approximate indication of the 

 prevailing agricultural types of particular sections of the country, 

 the more distinctively arable districts in the east of England 

 and of Scotland respectively being coloured from yellow to 

 brown. 



In a general report to the President, prefacing the tabular 

 matter. Major Craigie reviews some of the features presented by 

 the Returns, commenting on the proportions of arable and 

 pasture land at different dates during the past quarter of 

 a century, and the distribution of the land under various 

 crops in 1894, with comparisons with the immediately pre- 

 ceding and with earlier years. The details as to increases 

 or decreases in the stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and swine 

 in Great Britain at various dates are also commented upon, 

 and, including the returns received from Ireland and the 

 Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, the acreage under the 

 leading groups of crops is shown for the United Kingdom as a 

 whole for the last three years. 



