240 
Farming of Hamj)shire. 
agricultural ratio in England and Wales is 16*1 per cent. ; so 
tliat Hants is 1*3 per cent, in excess. 
The classification of farms according to their size was this : — 
farms of less than 50 acres, 1)20 ; of 50 and under 100 acres, 
472 ; of 100 and under 300 acres, 983 ; of 300 and under GOO 
acres, 489 ; of GOO and under 1,000 acres, 134 ; of 1,000 and 
under 1,500 acres, 37 ; of 1,500 and under 2,000 acres, 2 ; in all 
3,048 farms. So that there were G 1 more farmers than farms. 
The numerical relation of the labourers to their employers was 
this : — one farmer, cultivating 2,700 acres, employed 90 la- 
bourers ; 10 farmers, (each) GO and upwards ; 9 farmers, (each) 
60 — 50 ; 68 farmers, (each) 50 — 30 ; 669 farmers, (each) 25 — 
10. Supposing 70 labourers were employed by each of the 10 
farmers, 65 by each of the 9, 40 by each of the 68, 17-^ by each 
of the 669, then these 757 farmers employed 15,802 labourers. 
The remaining 2,351 farmers employed the remaining 8,815 
labourers, or 3"7 each. 
The total amount expended for the relief of the poor * for the 
year ending Lady-day, 1860, was 151,673/. 9.*;., which was thus 
distributed: — in-mainteziance, 28,170/. lis.; out-relief, 79,642/. 
Is,; maintenance of lunatics, 10,149/. 13s.; workhouse loan 
repaid, 2,772/. 8s. ; salaries and rations of officers, 20,461/. ; 
other expenses connected with relief, 10,477/. 16s. The total 
was 566/. Gs. (or • 04 per cent.) less than that of the preceding 
year, which itself had exhibited a decrease of 6 6 per cent, when 
compared with the year ending Lady-day, 1858. The decrease 
for England and Wales generally for the year ending Lady-day, 
1860, was 1' 9 per cent. ; for l859, 5*4 per cent. A long and 
severe frost between the 17th of December, 1859, and the 19tK 
of January, 1860, together with the increased price of wheat, told 
against the (jcneral decrease in 1860, and an unusual pressure 
experienced in the Lymington and New Forest Unions caused 
the expenditure in Hunts to exceed the average of England and 
Wales by 1-86. 
I give, in the appendix, some meteorological tables, with which 
I have been favoured by Sir John Pennefather, from Aldershot, 
and by Mr. Spooner, from Eling, near Southampton. I fear they 
do not prove much more than the exceptional character of the 
weather during the two last years. And yet 1860, so disastrous 
to many farmers, is not so remarkable for the total excess of 
moisture during the year, as for the unusual quantity of rain 
which fell during the critical agricultural months of May, June, 
J uly, August, and September. The tmseasonablcness of the rain 
in summer, not its annual amount, did the mischief. The crops 
could not be cleaned, and generally failed of coming to maturity. 
* These figures refer to the union county of Hants on the mainland only. 
