570 
Agricultural Statistics. 
culturists all the country throiigli, on the plea of ' inquisitorial,' 
' centralizing,' and other word-arguments of this class, throws 
out unwittingly an argument of wliich he must be prepared to 
witness the recoil. To have after all compelled the Govern- 
ment to set in motion for us a machinery which but for our own 
omission we might long ago have perfected ourselves, and then to 
stigmatize as ' centralizing ' the finger that nudges our pendulum 
and sets our hands to show the figures on that dial, which every 
member of a corn-market will hereafter consult, — which every 
successful manufacturer and trader around us does consult, each 
in his own calling, like an almanac or a weatherglass, — implies a 
sheer misapplication of language. In point of fact, however, the 
timidity or reluctance met with in some quarters to furnish the 
particulars required has been grounded upon a simply erroneous 
idea of the object of the call for them. It matters absolutely 
nothing whether the field be the field of this occupier or that, 
so that we do but learn its acreage, its crop, and its calculated 
produce for the year in question. Grant but this, as a simple 
territorial fact, under whatever tax-proof and landlord-proof in- 
cognito may be thought best, that by learning the statistics of 
each field we may make good our addition sum of the whole 
kingdom, and we will venture to predict that no harm, agricul- 
tural or fiscal, vicinal or political, shall betide the giver of 
such candid and hearty assistance ; but on the contrary that, 
unless he be the most devoted and infatuated of gamblers, 
choosing darkness rather than light, from the end of this harvest 
to the beginning of the next, he shall be among the first in the 
community to benefit by the knowledge obtained, in being saved 
as far as human skill and foresight can save, from the time-wasting 
and distracting trouble of waiting on the fluctuation of markets 
instead of consulting the convenience of his own pocket and the 
wants of his strawyard, as to when he shall thrash, and when 
he shall sell, and when he shall fresh-litter the fold. It never 
was and never could be the true interest of the farmer to be forced 
into the corn-dealing business. It is plain that the more strictly 
each branch of a business is attended to the better it is for all : 
and waiting upon the vicissitudes of the corn-market is really 
the business of the dealer and not of the grower. 
It will be not uninteresting, before we proceed to notice the 
results of the Government experiment of last year for the collec- 
tion of agricultural statistics in England, to give a brief sketch 
of some of the earlier calculations coxmected with this subject. 
The discrepancies they exhibit will form their own best 
commentary. 
First, as to the acreage of the United Kingdom. According to 
an ancient and traditional opinion, as early as the Anglo-Saxon 
