oO Fifty Years' Progress of British Agriculture. 
The supply of animal food in 1889, as compared with 1851, 
increased in still larger proportion. The quantity to each indi- 
vidual of the increased population was 115 lb. per head for the 
year 1889, as compared with 90 lb. per head in 1851. This is 
an increase of nearly one-third to the supply of each person, 
the main part of which increase has come from foreign countries. 
A result so beneficial in the supply of bread and meat to our 
ever-increasing population must render any return to protective 
duties on food in this kingdom impossible, so long as that in- 
crease is maintained by the other successful industries of the 
country. 
These increased supplies are coming yearly in larger pro- 
portions from the great colonies and possessions under the 
dominion of the Queen. The supply of wool from Australia 
and other British possessions comprises nearly four-fifths of the 
650 million pounds grown in this country and imported annually, 
nearly one-half of which is again exported to the Continent. 
Of the foreign supply of meat the United States still furnishes 
much the largest proportion. But, by the refrigeratory process 
now successfully introduced, more than a million carcasses of 
sheep are already yearly brought to us from New Zealand, and 
laid down in excellent condition in London, at a cost for killing, 
packing, cooling, and freight, of 2\d. a pound, which on mutton 
of such good quality leaves, from the price here, a reasonable 
profit in the difference of the value of the carcass there, and 
here, to the importer. And as there is a marked decline in the 
sheep stocks of Western Europe, and no probability of much 
increase in North America owing to the costly keep indoors 
during the severity of the winter climate, it is satisfactory to 
the British consumer that he has the prospect of increasing 
supplies of good mutton from his brethren in Australia and 
New Zealand. 
The agricultural experiments of Sir John Bennet Lawes, 
which have been continued for more than forty years, nave 
clothed " Practice " with " Science," in many points on which 
the British farmer was groping for knowledge. These experi- 
ments have been made on land on his estate of Kothamsted, in 
Hertfordshire, always accessible to the agricultural inquirer. 
The results have been published annually, and the farm itself, 
with every detail of the work both in the field and the laboratory, 
has been laid open to public inspection and criticism. Wheat, 
barley, and oats have been grown under a variety of manures, 
plots with no manure being in every case reserved for com- 
parison. Root crops, including potatoes, have been added. 
And in 1856 an important series of experiments was commenced 
