A(jvicultural Statistics. 
605 
" Our strength at present lies in this, that by means of the enumerators, 
and the members of the committee, including a representative from every 
parish in Scotland, we are working out tlie measure by means of the farmers 
themselves, and we bring a weight of farming opinion and influence to bear 
upon the farming community which has ])roved irresistible, and is one of the 
great secrets of our success ; but if we attached the collection of the acreage 
to any compulsory measure such as is proposed, we should alienate very many 
people, dislocate the committees which have been formed, and render it neces- 
sary to consider some new means of forming our estimates of produce." 
He subsequently adds the following expressive notice : — 
" If the measure were made compulsory in Scotland, I conceive the High- 
land Society would require to give up the charge of the inquiry ; . . and 
what is more than that, I conceive the whole machinery which has been called 
into existence woidd at once cease ; because farmers would not, I think, as 
members of the committee and enumerators, continue to act as instruments in 
carrying out a measure which might involve their neighbours in the penalties 
which a neglect of the provisions of a compulsory Act might bring upon 
them. I conceive that a system of compulsion in Scotland would render it 
necessary to organise a new and different machinery from that which is now in 
existence." 
Throughout the instructive evidence of an admirably-selected 
body of witnesses * examined by the Committee of the House of 
Lords, from which we have quoted so much, there is not a 
passage that seems to contain more important reflection than 
the foregoing, in reference to the course to be adopted for the 
completion of a result so generally desired as the collection 
of a perfect body of agricultural statistics in this country. 
Here is a witness, who, standing on the vantage-ground of 
an achieved success, through a course the most natural and 
congenial it would be possible, a priori, to conceive for the 
accomplishment of the purpose, asserts that the adoption of a 
compulsory system would involve a dissolution of the one exist- 
ing, and would necessitate the recourse to some other, not de- 
fined nor, perhaps, easy even to himself to point out. There is 
no arguing Avith success. But even were it otherwise, there is 
no lack of well-considered plans to be found in the volume 
of evidence referred to. Those of Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Caird, 
Mr. Buckland, Mr. Farnall (each rather amusingly characteristic 
of the professional view, so to speak, of the proposer), we should 
especially instance; nor must we omit a clear-sighted plan, sug- 
gested by the ' Clerk of the Atcham Union,' and stated in Mr. 
Doyle's Report (1854), in which the machinery of the Census is 
assumed, rightly, according to the view that has shaped itself to 
our mind, as the model to proceed upon. 
* The gentlemen examined were, Mr. Hall Maxwell, Sir John Walsham, Bart., 
Mr. Pigott, Mr. Hawley, Mr. Farnall ; Mr. Miles (the late President of the 
Eoyal Agricultural Society), Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Caird, Mr. Torr, Mr. Peirson, 
Mr. Buckland, Mr. Rodwell, Mr. Sandars, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Bunter, Mr. Bowring; 
with Sir Robert Fergusson, M.P., and Mr. Donnelly, for Ireland. 
VOL. XVI. 2 R 
