Agricultural Statistics. 
575 
ultimate yield ; but while the task becomes lighter, the results 
grow yearly more reliable, and more practically useful as the 
elements of a calculation that shall subserve the interests not of 
one class alone, but of every member of the state. 
But to proceed. The first Inclosure Act appears to have been 
passed in 1710. There seem however to be no accurate returns 
of the quantity of land enclosed in the early part of that century. 
A committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1797 
to inquire into this subject : from their report it would seem 
allowable to estimate the quantity of land inclosed during the 
last century at about four millions of acres. 
The progress of Inclosure during the present century will be 
more accurately seen in the following table : — 
Inclosure 
Bills. 
Acreage. 
1800 to 1810 . 
. .. 90G .. . 
. 1,657,980 
1810 to 1820 . 
. .. 771 .. . 
. 1,410,930 
1820 to 1830 . 
. .. 186 .. . 
340,380 
1830 to 1840 . 
. .. 129 .. . 
236,070 
1840 to 1850 . 
. .. 06 .. . 
369,127 
The exception to the decreasing scale noticeable in the last 
figures of the acreage column is explained by the fact that under 
the General Inclosure Act passed in 1835, about 274,000 acres 
were, through the facilities thereby afforded, finally added to the 
arable and pasture of the kingdom. 
Petty additions are still being continually made, no doubt 
considerable in the aggregate ; the mere eradication of useless 
hedgerows is an increase not to be overlooked : still it will be 
seen by any one casting his eyes down these figures that the 
declining scale presented by the five decades of years, phlanged 
at the bottom by that final swoop added by the Inclosure Com- 
missioners, tells an unmistakeable tale. 
Let us now see the ratio which these fresh acres bear to the 
new mouths to be fed, as the century advanced. The next table 
will show this at once : but to make the return more complete, 
we will add the amount of wheat (and wheat-flour as wiieat) 
imported during the respective periods; — 
Wheat Increase of 
Acres Imported. Population 
Inclosed. Quarters. (Great Britain). 
1800 to 1810 .... 1,657,980 6,009,468 .... 1,506,687 
1810 to 1820 .... 1,400,9.30 .... 4,585,780 .... 1,978,52.3 
1820 to 1830 340,380 .... 5,349,927 2,161,495 
1830 to 1840 236,070 .... 9,076,379 2,249,648 
1840 to 1850 369,127 23,298,353 .... 2,308,181 
Hence it appears that the ratio of the new land to the new 
inhabitants during the century has been ahowi four million of 
2 p 2 
