Produce Returns. * 
273 
above the mean figure, and about 1 bushel over the yield of 
1906. In Wales and in Scotland the yield was under average 
but the aggregate crop for Great Britain is estimated at very, 
little under the total of the previous harvest, or 7,545,000 
quarters. 
Oats proved an even more bounteous crop than either of 
the above with a yield per acre of over 43 bushels, or 
3| bushels over the ten years’ average in Great Britain, and 
upwards of 5 bushels over that average in England by herself. 
The aggregate production of this cereal on its now extended 
acreage is estimated to exceed 16,800,000 quarters — a figure to 
equal which it will be needful to go back to the crop of 1894. 
The past year would appear to have been a good one for 
the Bean and Pea crops inchided in these estimates. The yield 
in the first case is put at 34^ bushels per acre, or no less than 
5 bushels over the ten years’ figure, and although the pea crop 
was not quite as good as in 1906, and shows a less excess 
over the mean, it would take a long search over the earlier 
records to find an equal. 
The Potato crop of 1907 is estimated to have yielded less 
than 5^ tons to the acre, and it was distinctly an under- 
average one, and below those of the three preceding seasons. 
It proved, however, better than the poor crops of 1903 and 
1900 in Great Britain as a whole. Turnips and Swedes were 
less productive than in 1906 both in England and in Scotland ; 
but the avei-age yield was higher than in 1905 or 1903. It is, 
however, to be remembered that the material shrinkage in the 
area now occupied by these roots has left us with a turnip crop 
3,600,000 tons less than was recorded just ten years ago, with 
an acreage yield below that of the past season. Against this 
reduction must of course be set the addition now visible in the 
total crop of Mangolds, where the over-average yield in 1907, 
here estimated as very little below 20 tons to the acre, represents 
an aggregate production of little short of 9,000,000 tons. 
The Hop crop of 1907 was secured on an acreage once again 
reduced, but the estimated yield of 8‘33 cwts. per acre was 
greatly above the poor crop of 5*26 cwts. secured in 1906 ; the 
smaller areas in Hants, Hereford, Sussex, and Worcester 
showing relatively the larger yields. 
The Hay harvest of the year was a distinctly over-average 
one — the estimates for hay cut from clover and rotation grasses 
being nearly 33 cwt. to the acre, and those for hay from per- 
manent grass 21 \ cwt. as compared with a ten years’ average 
crop of 29i cwt. in the first case and under 24 cwt. in the 
second. As usually happens in the case of hay in all years 
the experience has necessarily varied considerably in different 
districts. 
VOL. ()8, 
T 
