Agricultural Statistics. 
599 
1854. 1856. 
Busli. Bush. 
Wheat 4,848,679 .... 5,06:^,540 
Barley 7,645,328 .... 6,092,904 
Oats 34,093,047 .... 30,079,714 
Bere 64.5,418 .... 556,876 
Beans and peas 1,081,263 .... 1,183,647 
Tons. Tons. 
Tm-nips 6,411419 .... 6,461,476 
Potatoes 529,915 .... 732,141 
Number of Occupants in 1855 43,462 
Next come the columns of stock, furnishing the actual numbers 
for the whole of Scotland, in the same year : — 
1854. 1855. 
Horses 166,595 177,200 
Milk cows 292,365 298,446 
Other cattle 438,334 469,242 
Calves 205,172 207,040 
Sheep and Lambs .. .. 4,787,235 5,694,737 
Swine 163,683 134,349 
Total .. .. 6,043,384 6,981,014 
Immense as the labour it has cost to collect the matter whence 
these tables are framed, what can be simpler or clearer than the 
bird's-eye view thus given of the actual Statistics of Scotland for 
the two years ? What a self-traced picture is here of the whole 
agricultural condition of this portion of our empire ! Who shall 
attempt to define the limits of the study it presents, of the problems 
it suggests? Compare the turnips with the bare fallow, 449,372 
to 22,462 acres ; or again, the proportion of the wheat with the 
oats : 191,283 to 933,611 acres. What a contrast to the relative 
proportions of the latter crops in England ! affording how 
interesting and instructive a lesson in the varied genius which 
climate exhibits, in that country of which Lavergne says " even 
Switzerland does not present such great obstacles to human 
industry ; but what adds still more to this marvellous rise of pros- 
perity upon so ungrateful a soil is, that it is all recent. Only a 
century ago it was one of the poorest and most barbarous countries 
in Europe: it may now be said that, upon the whole, there is not 
a better regulated country under the sun."* 
Let us now snatch the foretaste of a task which we hope to per- 
form for English statistics in future years, by placing side by side 
in immediate contrast the j?(7M?-es based upon facts above given 
with the guess-work Statistics of this same Scotland, given only a 
year or two back by the generally accurate writer just quoted. 
After stating that " Scotland, with its islands, contains 19 mil- 
lions of acres, nearly three-fourths of which are absolutely unfit 
for 
* Leonce de Lavergne, ' Rural Economy of England, Scotland, and Ireland,' 
p. 28.5. 
