The Potato and Hay Crops of 1897. 435 



while the produce, as shown below, gave a crop greater 

 by 27 per cent, than was harvested in Great Britain in 1896. 



Hay cut from Clover and 



Estimated Total 

 Produce. 



Estimated Yield 

 per Acre. 



Average 



Yield 

 per Acre, 

 1887-96. 



Rotation Grasses. 



1897. 



1896. 



1897. 



1896. 





Tons. 



Tons. 



Cwts. 



Czvts. 



Cwts. 



England 



2,434,000 



1,806,000 



2875 



22-55 



27'17 



Wales - - 



248,000 



161,000 



25-26 



18-17 



22*21 



Scotland 



638,000 



657,000 



32'i3 



33 '44 



30-64 



Great Britain 



3,320,000 



2,624,000 



29-04 



24*16 



27-58 



The results in the aggregate are, it is true, not so great as 

 in 1894 or the still larger crops of 1889 and 1890, but the total 

 exceeded the estimate of any other year. 



The local estimates received from particular counties, 

 which have yet to be examined in detail, appear to give 

 the Western counties the largest rates of excess over the 

 decennial average : Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, and 

 Wilts ranging from over 4 cwts. to 7 cwts. per acre above 

 the normal clover hay crop, several Welsh counties giving 

 similarly high returns, and one, Glamorgan, quoting a still 

 higher excess in its yield per acre in 1897. 



Of permanent grass the proportion of the acreage 

 returned as reserved for hay in June last was somewhat less 

 than in 1896, or indeed in any summer since 1893, but 

 the average yield per acre was, as in the case of clover 

 hay, well above the mean produce of the past ten years. 

 The excess over 1896 was still more marked, the hay 

 cut from 4,500,000 acres of permanent grass in Great 

 Britain being estimated to have aggregated 5,636,000 

 tons, or more than one and a-half million tons over the 

 preceding season's crop ; the rate of yield per acre, as 

 the following table shows, standing nearly 8 cwts. per acre 

 in England over the yield of that year, and more than 2% cwts., 

 both in England and Wales, over the decennial average. In 

 Scotland, the crop, though inferior both in the aggregate and 



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