596 
Agricultural Statistics. 
was perhaps never before so distinctly exhibited to the eye ; 
presenting a solid commentary on the Horatian apophthegm — 
" Segnixis irritant animum dcmissa per aures 
Quam qua; sunt oculis subjccta fidelibus." 
We propose to make a somewhat similar experiment with the 
view of presenting to the reader an agj-icultural statistical ma]) of 
England and Wales, in which the division and appropriation of the 
soil may be seen at a glance, and the proportions under each de- 
scription of produce estimated by the eye, without the foggy me- 
dium of arithmetical signs. We fear the reader who looks for 
rivers and mountains, cities and seaports, bays and promontories, 
and the other usual accessories of a map, will turn away with a 
smile from our hydrography. Parishes, hundreds, and even county 
boundaries, we must here ignore. All countries are alike to the 
statist in form and fancy of outline. The accompanying map, then, 
or diagram, is constructed from the general summary of returns 
of agricultural statistics of England and Wales in 1854. The 
space over which the experiment actually extended (shown by the 
inner dotted square), was 7,743,850 acres, being about one-fifth 
of the whole acreage (37,324,915 acres, according to the last 
census), comprehending the West Riding of Yorkshire, Norfolk, 
Suffolk, Leicestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Berkshire, 
Wiltshire, and Hampshire for England, and Denbigh and Brecon 
for the Principality. The counties in both seem to have been 
well chosen with the view of obtaining a fair average sample of 
the whole ; and in the diagram annexed this average is assumed 
and applied in corresponding proportion to the whole area. It 
is drawn on the scale of one-eighth of an inch (running lineally 
across the square) for a million of acres ; the arable portion being 
divided vertically into sections geometrically equivalent, for the 
better development of its less extensive areas. 
The first thing that, unhappily, strikes the eye on the face of 
this tell-tale diagram is the broad belt crossing the centre, occu- 
pying a sort of neutral ground between the arable and pasture, 
consisting of nearly four million acres (about 800,000 acres in the 
actual survey), with the ominous epigraph, " unaccounted for," 
inscribed upon it. Tliis, we regret to say, is mainly due to the 
schedules unreturned in Berkshire and Hampshire, which con- 
stitute nearly three-fifths of the whole deficiency. It will be 
a pleasant task, on some future occasion, to witness the diminu- 
tion of this unsatisfactory terra incognita of refractoiy acres. The 
immense space of 'permanent pasture' forms a characteristic 
feature, to which Leicester, Salop, and the West Riding furnish 
the 
march could be continuous, the liead of the column, at the end of that time, would 
be ill siglit of l\(liiibiir<jh. 
