558 
Agricultural Statistics. 
In the course of the year 1847, when this extraordinary culmi- 
nation of prices took place, Mr. Milner Gibson, then Vice-President 
of the Board of Trade, introduced a Bill into the House of Com- 
mons, entitled " A Bill to make provision for the collection of 
Agricultural Statistics in England and Wales." Of the pro- 
visions of this Bill a short epitome is given by Mr. Bowring in 
his examination before the Committee of the House of Lords in 
July last, as follows : — 
" The duty of obtaining the information specified in the schedule attached 
to the Bill was entrusted to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and 
Marriages, the superintendent registrars throughout the country being charged 
■with the appointment of ' agricultural enumerators ' in their respective dis- 
tricts. Those enumerators were to make lists of all the occupiers of land 
exceeding three acres, and to send the specified blank forms to them, which 
were to be filled up and returned to the enumerators within fourteen days. The 
latter were to classify them and make general tables from them, which were 
to be returned through the superintendent registrars to the Registrar-General 
by the 10th of July in each year, for the use of the Board of Trade, who were 
to have power to alter the forms of the returns given in the schedules as 
exijerience might show to be advisable." 
The fate of that Bill is graphically described by Mr. Bowring 
in his next answer (902) : — 
" I cannot find that it reached beyond the first reading ; it never was read 
even a second time. One or two short discussions took place in the House on 
the subject. The importance of it was admitted by those who spoke, but there 
was not sufScient interest expressed to make the Government feel that there 
was any chance of passing the bill ; and it was accordingly abandoned." * 
Such was the end of that well-intended and well-timed effort : 
but while such was the feeling on the subject within the walls of 
the House of Commons, a small but increasing class of thinkers 
outside the House began from that time to view the subject very 
differently. The absurdity of having wheat, the produce of the 
same harvest, under 50s. a quarter in November and up at more 
than twice the amount in the course of six months, caused 
people to ask why, amidst all the returns that Government thought 
it desirable to have, and scientific and other societies of all kinds 
found it useful as well as interesting to collect and record, the 
only thing left unregistered and unrecorded was that important 
element of our annual condition, — the Produce of the Soil. 
No one can look into the ' City Articles ' of the newspapers 
during the autumn months of the year, without seeing day after 
day the ' prospects of the corn harvest ' referred to as an item 
of acknowledged and impressive moment, bearing upon interests 
so vital as to be familiarly spoken of as the pulse of the nation ; 
yet so vaguely, with such a mere solemn array of guesswork, at 
* Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Agricultural 
Statistics, June, 1855, p. 142. 
