448 Statistics affecting British Agricultural Interests. 
tend to reduce the serious loss apparent if the figures for England 
alone, where over 90 per cent of our Wheat is produced, were the 
subject of observation. 
The aggregate Wheat crop in Great Britain is 18'81 per cent, 
below the estimate of 1891. In England the decline is fully 19'78 
per cent. But this also is not equally distributed. If the case of 
the Eastern or Corn-growing half of England be separated from 
that of the Western and Northern Counties, the aggregate deficiency 
of the Eastern Wheat crop must indeed be put at 22 per cent, 
compared with the immediately preceding year. Narrowing still 
further the region of special disaster in a yet more closely circum- 
scribed area - consisting of the group of counties formed by Cambs, 
Hunts, Beds, and Herts — the estimates of the Wheat harvest of 
1892 show a deficit of 30 per cent, below 1891, the mean yield of 
this area receding from 33 to as little as 23 bushels per acre. 
Tim Yield of Barley. — The Barley crop of Great Britain in 1892 
was, like that of Wheat, reaped from a reduced area. But unlike 
Wheat, the yield per acre was 1 *73 per cent, over average, so that 
the aggregate produce of the season was only slightly less than in 
1891. 
In this case, also, the results vary much in geographical distribu- 
tion. In the Eastern half of England the crop, if over that of 
1891, was by a small percentage below the normal average, while 
in the group of counties lying to the West the yield was more than 
8 per cent, over average, in Wales more than 5 per cent, over 
average, and in the North and in Scotland more than 3 per cent, 
over average. 
The Yield of Oats. — The average yield per acre of Oats in Great 
Britain in 1892 scarcely varied from that credited to 1891, or to the 
standard quoted as the normal average — all three estimates running 
within a fraction of 39 bushels. As, however, the acreage now used 
for this cereal has increased even more largely than that of Wheat 
has diminished in the past season, the aggregate result is to furnish 
a crop about equal to that of 1886, and not much below the produce 
of 1890, when on an area nearly a hundred thousand acres less, a 
crop of over 41 bushels to the acre was estimated to have been secured. 
In the case of this cereal, also, the East of England seems to 
have fared worse than the West or North. Small as the net changes 
were in either direction from the mean, the average yield per acre 
in the Eastern half of the country ran from 4 to 5 per cent, below 
the standard of 1885 — while the Western counties show 8 per cent, 
above their normal yield, and in Wales the crop is more than 5 
per cent, above the average. In Scotland the Oat crop is nearly 2 per 
cent, under average. In Cambridge, the county of estimated highest 
yield in England, the deficit this year represents about 7 b bushels to 
the acre, and the case of Huntingdon is about as bad. In Berks 
and in Oxford there are also relatively bad crops, while Cornwall 
returns a yield almost as much above average as Cambridge is 
below it. In several districts, especially the later ones, complaint 
of low quality is also made as regards the Oat crop of 1892. 
