Agricultural Notes on the Census of 1861. 321 
drainage service forms a new class of 1761 men, who are 
principally employed by the companies which lend money 
for agricultural improvements. 
We find the class of out-door shepherds more than doubled since 
1851, rising from 12,517 in that year to 25,559 in 1861. This 
increase of shepherds does not seem to agree with the conclusion, 
at which Mr. Thompson arrived in the last number of the Journal, 
viz., that our sheep-stock had diminished. During the show- 
week at Newcastle I had the opportunity of talking this matter 
over with Messrs. Torr and Randell, who attributed the increase 
in the shepherd-class to two causes ; first, to the increase of sheep, 
which each of them, speaking the one of Lincolnshire, the other 
of Gloucestershire, believed to have been considerable ; and, 
secondly, to the enlarged size of farms. On small holdings, 
the farmer, his son, or his head man looked after the sheep, and 
was not returned as a shepherd : as farms grow larger, and the 
flocks on them are increased in number, it becomes the sole duty 
of one or more men to look after the sheep, and this is an- 
other reason why the class returned as shepherds has so largely 
increased. The experience of these two gentlemen is so much 
more valuable than my own that I readily quote it, and will 
merely add, that it quite coincides with what I have noticed in 
my own locality. 
Yet another class may, for a moment, claim our attention. In 
1861, 490 agricultural students are returned as against 104 in 
1851 — another indication of the new race of farmers, who find it 
advisable to exercise their brains as well as their muscles in the 
service of agriculture. 
Another set of Tables is published which are of some interest 
as far as they go, because they profess to give the size of the 
farm-holdings in this country. In 1851, these were worked 
out for the whole country ; but in the census of 1861, the abstracts 
were on a smaller scale, because the Commissioners had a delusive 
hope that such returns might be superseded by a general system 
of Agricultural Statistics to be carried out for England and 
Wales on the Irish plan. In this year, therefore, they selected 
one county from each of the the ten registration districts into 
which England and Wales is divided, and made the abstracts 
for those counties only. The counties selected were Bucking- 
ham, Cambridge, Chester, Cumberland, Lincoln, Norfolk, Shrop- 
shire, Sussex, Wiltshire, and the North Riding of York. 
There are, however, three Tables of the year 1851 which relate 
to the size of holdings generally in Great Britain ; and as there 
are no corresponding Tables in the Report of 1861, I will quote 
them here. 
The following Table in the Census of 1851 gives the number of 
acres of cultivated land in Great Britain ; but the hill-pastures of 
