280=14 
British Agriculture. 
England now 
chiefly de- 
pendent on 
foreign supply 
for further 
increase. 
Cost of car- 
riage equal to 
the rent of 
land in Eng- 
land, 
Agricultural 
statistics of the 
United King- 
dom. 
been a gradual reduction of the acreage and produce of wheat in 
this country, and a more than corresponding increase in the 
foreign supply ; the result of which is that we now receive our 
bread in equal proportions from our own fields and those of the 
stranger. In regard to meat, and other animal products, ten 
years ago the proportion of foreign was one-tenth of the whole. 
It has now risen to nearly one-fourth. 
This country thus derives from foreign lands, not only one- 
half of its bread and nearly one-fourth of its meat and dairy 
produce, but must also depend on the foreigner for almost the 
entire addition that may be further required by an increase of 
its population. In the last ten years there has been no increase 
in the acreage or production of corn, and little in that of meat. 
The extent of green crops and grass has slightly increased, from 
the double impulse of the rise in wages, and the increasing 
demand for dairy produce and meat. But, excluding good 
lands capable of being rendered fertile by drainage, we appear 
to have approached a point in agricultural production beyond 
which capital can be otherwise more profitably expended in 
this country than in further attempting to force our poorer class 
of soils. It is cheaper for us as a nation to get the surplus 
from the richer lands of America and Southern Russia, where 
the virgin soil is still unexhausted ; or from the more ancient 
agriculture of India, which, with its cheap and abundant labour 
more skilfully applied, and its means of transport extended and 
better utilised, seems destined to become one of the principal 
sources of our future supply of corn. 
The cost of carriage depends very much on distance, and as 
the chief supply of wheat comes from great distances, California, 
the Black Sea, and India, the cost of transporting a quantit)i 
equal to the produce of an acre in England is seldom less, and^ 
often more, than 405. Hay and straw are so bulky that thej 
can only bear the cost of carriage from near continental ports | 
Fresh meat from America, from the costly methods necessary t( : 
preserve it, will, on the produce of an acre, cost equal to 40.s". fo * 
transport to this country. This natural protection enjoyed by tb 
British farmer in his proximity to the home market, as com 
pared with the foreign farmer who seeks our market for hi 
produce, thus gives him an advantage equal to the presen 
average rent of his land, and forms some reasonable compensc 
tion for the higher taxes and wages which he has to pay £ 
compared with his competitors in most foreign countries. 
Tlie total home produce can now be very correctly calcula 
from the annual agricultural returns. The collection of the> 
returns was instituted in Ireland at the time of the potato famii: 
in 1847, and they have been published continuously since th 
