460 
Report of the Judges on the 
bad farming have diminished the growth of wheat, and extended 
the cultivation of the more easily grown and more hardy oats. 
Beans in Derbyshire have in the decade diminished one-half, 
and peas are only one-fifth of the acreage grown in 1871. The 
supposed increased breadth of mangolds is not borne out by 
these returns ; possibly upon farms where milk is sold the area 
is larger, and there is the further fact that the extent returned 
in 1866 was only 915 acres, not much more than half of the 
acreage in 1881. Cabbage is still lumped with kohl-rabi and 
rape. Of these latter crops we did not see a single acre, and 
the decline of more than 1800 acres may be in them rather than 
in cabbage. In 1867 the area of the three crops was only 1412 
acres. It was to be expected that after so many wet seasons 
the extent of fallow or uncropped land should increase, and 
1000 extra acres this season has, we believe, received a thorough 
good cleaning ; but even the 8000 acres returned in 1881 con- 
trast favourably with the 11,000 acres in 1866. The greatest 
change of all has been in the grass-lands, and here the increase 
of 53,000 acres was fully expected. But there is a further 
14,000 acres to be added between 1867 and 1871, making a 
total addition to the permanent pasture of Derbyshire of 67,000 
acres in fourteen years. 
It is satisfactory to find that the cattle have increased by 
more than 11,000, about half the increase being in cows; but 
it is mournful to contemplate the loss among the sheep. In 
1871 the numbers reached just 230,000, and now there are 
nearly 40,000 less sheep in the county ; and if we go back 
to 1867 we find that the returns then stood at 258,000, showing 
a decrease of 67,000 sheep in fourteen years. The diminished 
area of arable-land would in no way account for this most 
serious falling off, as sheep are not kept to any great extent on 
the fallowed-land in Derbyshire ; we fear the chief cause is the 
fluke-rot, and the minor difficulty of keeping sheep free from 
foot-rot in the sodden pastures of the county. The diminution 
of pigs from 47,000 in 1867 to 40,000 in 1871, and 30,000 in 
1881, is not at all surprising when cheese-making has fallen off 
one-half, and the sale of milk has certainly been more than 
doubled in that period. 
The development of the milk-trade is of quite recent growth. 
We have been unable to find any reliable statistics which should 
record its progress. A general opinion prevails, that around 
Derby not half as much cheese is made now as there was ten 
years ago. Again a very usual estimate is that of all the dairy 
farmers in Derbyshire, within five miles of a railway-station, 
quite half of them sell their milk. The Midland Railway 
Company inform us that in the year 1872 they carried over their 
