Tlie Agriculture of Slaffordshire. 
As both lambs and calves are born almost entirely in March and April, the 
nr.mber of head at the time of collecting the returns would be greater than at 
any other period of the year. Dairy farms are moderately stocked with one 
ewe to three acres of pasture, with her j^rogcny, including more than 100 lambs 
per 100 mothers, and about half last year's crop. 
Proportionate number of live stock to every 100 acres under crops, bare 
fallow, and grass, in each of the following counties, on the 25th June, 1868. 
Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. 
Stafford 21-9 .... 64-1 9*4 
Bedford U .. .. 80-4 .. .. 12'3 
Cambridge .. .. 8-3 .... 74-4 .... 11 
Essex 8-6 .... 63-3 .... 12-7 
Hants 7-8 96-3 .... 10-4 
Norfolk 10-1 .... 84 .... 9-6 
Leicester 26-2 .... 106'1 .... 6-C 
Suffolk 7-9 .. .. 78-.'5 .. .. 1.5-7 
Dorset 15-4 .... 124-8 .... — 
Kent 9-4 .... 156-1 .... — 
Chester 27-1 .... 40 .... — 
Wilts 11*4 .. .. 110'6 .. .. — 
Cornwall 30-1 91-1 .... — 
Lancashire .. .. 29-6 .... 45-8 .... — 
In the great turnip, or arable, districts of Norfolk, Sufiblk, Essex, and 
Cambridge, the cattle fattened in yards and stalls during the winter are 
principally sold by Midsummer, or the comparison would be much less 
unfavourable. 
Probably, if the returns were made at Christmas, these counties would equal 
Staffordshire in the number of cattle. 
Annual Consumption of Wheat in Staffordshire. 
Quarters. 
By the town population at 6^ bushels per head .. 366,625 
Country population 312,606 
Total 679,231 
"Wheat grown in Staffordshire at 26 bushels per acre (after deducting seed), 
195,299 quarters. A great part of the jnoduce of the pastures of the county 
is exported beyond its boundary, and the remains of human food consumed in 
the towns is wasted ; this is an enormous drain on the soil, by which it would 
be rapidly exhausted if the constituents of fertility were not returned to it 
by the immense importations of food for cattle and of bones and other manures, 
by which the condition of the pastures is restored. No Staifordshire farmer 
can, however, look on the above figures without perceiving the lamentable 
waste which arises from the present system, hy which the remains of food 
consumed by live stock is alone preserved. The sewage of all the towns is 
wasted, the few slight attempts to use it in irrigalicu arc not worth 
naming, and the deposit of a small portion of the solid matter in tanks at 
Burton-on-Trent- and Newcastle preserves little that is valuable. The 
streams receive what ought to be a source of national wealth ; even at 
Trentham the river is polluted by the sewage of the Potteries. A medical 
man in the county organised a rather extensive trial of the dry-earth system, 
which succeeded admirably as long as the jiarties were induced to attend to 
details, but in that respect habit proved too strong. In the present state of 
popular ignorance and indifference, regular inspection, secured by legislation, 
appears to be a remote, though perhaps the only, remedy. 
The following particulars are extracted from Mr. G. J. Symons's ' British 
Rainfall •;— 
