574 
Agricultural Statistics. 
tliouglit jioor if it did not exceed twelve }niUions of quarters. According to 
the computation made in the year 1696 by Gregory King, the whole quantity 
of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and beans, then usually grown in the kingdom, 
was somewhat less than ten millions of quarters. The wheat, which was 
then cultivated only on the strongest clay, and consumed only by those who 
were in easy circumstances, he estimated at less than two millions of quarters. 
Charles Davenant, an acute and well-infonned politician, differed from King 
as to some of the items of the account, but came to nearly the same gene- 
ral conclusions." 
The very curiosity excited by these wild and picturesque 
glimpses of the bygone agricultural aspect of our country might 
well admonish us of the deep interest of the task which it is now 
proposed to undertake. Again and again the question recurs — 
' Why are facts like these still left in darkness ?' Why, amidst all 
the improved means of taking the census of the population of the 
kingdom (a task on many grounds of far greater difficulty), and 
the complicated machinery required for registering the births, 
marriages, and deaths, together with a variety of minute points 
relating to the condition of the people — has it been assumed as 
impracticable or less important to ascertain the annual produce 
of the soil ? 
Compare for a moment the relative difficulty as connected 
with the subject matter of the two operations. The units of the 
population are moveable, and a large proportion of them may 
never be found in the same place two years In succession ; those 
of the agricultural statist on the contrary are fixed. The Identical 
acre once entered in the table of the enumerator remains the 
same for ever. A hedge or two may be taken away (simplifying 
rather than complicating the task), or the arable be converted into 
pasture, or vice versa ; but there it remains recognisable by the 
same observer from year to year, and all he has to do Is to note 
the dlffi;rent dress It wears ; even this change of habiliment, to a 
person tolerably cognizant of the practice of the neighbourhood, 
may, in the great majority of cases, be predicted before it is made, 
and denotes after all but a limited wardrobe. The barley-field of 
last year slips insensibly into the clover-field of this ; the bare 
fallow will have covered its nakedness with a wheat-crop, and 
the bright-eared lammas, " making the green one red," will be 
waving over the recent well-manured clover ley ; the costly 
activity of the turnip field, fed off In winter, will have subsided 
into the bearded whisper of the barley-crop, or, on heavier 
soil, beans will be found up(ra last autumn's partridge-stubble. 
The catalogue of aliases Is so simple that the rawest Bow-street 
recruit would have it by heart before the end of his first day's 
rounds. And this once done is done for ever. Each succeeding 
year may bring more accuracy of measurement, more nicety of 
detail, a more time-cautioned estimate of produce, or of the 
