Wheat and Sheep in England in 1893 . 
867 
Table I. — Actual and Proportionate Areas under Wheat in 
England in 1870, 1880, 1890, 1892, and 1893. 
Year 
Acres 
Proportion per 100 acres 
of cultivated land 
1870 . 
. 3,247,973 
. 13-9 
1880 . 
. 2,745,733 
. 11-2 
1890 . 
. 2,255,694 
. 2,102,969 
. . 90 
1892 . 
8-4 
1893 . 
. 1,798,869 
7 '2 
Table II. shows that, whilst all counties of the United Kingdom 
suffered a loss of wheat acreage in 1893, the absolute diminution — 
amounting to 304,100 acres — in England entirely eclipses the losses 
in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. A question of high practical 
Table II. — The Areas of Wheat in the United Kingdom. 
1893 compared with 1892 
-« — 
1803 
1892 
— .. 
Increase 
Decrease 
acres 
acres 
acres 
acres 
England . 
1,798,869 
2,102,969 
— 
304,100 
Wales 
54,562 
55,278 
— 
716 
England and Wales 
1,853,431 
2,158,247 

. 304,816 
Scotland . 
44,093 
61,592 
— 
17,499 
Great Britain 
1,897,524 
2,219,839 

322,315 
Ireland 
54,988 
75,344 
— 
20,356 
United Kingdom 
(including Isle of Man 
and Channel Islands) 
1,955,213 
2,298,607 
— 
343,394 
interest arises as to whether this loss was local or general, — whether 
the decline in the wheat area was characteristic of certain only 
of the English counties, or of all of them. 
Table III. (p. 868) answers this inquiry with an eloquence which 
mere words cannot command. It shows, 1 * 3 at a glance, that in 1893 
every county in England had a less acreage of wheat than in 1892. 
The total area of each county is given in order to convey some idea 
of the relative extent to which wheat is cultivated within its borders. 
Taking the absolute decreases, it is seen that the counties which 
suffered the most severely were Lincoln, Norfolk, and Essex, each 
of which lost between 20,000 and 30,000 aci’es, and Suffolk, Kent, 
York (East Riding), Cambridge, and Hants, each of which lost 
between 10,000 and 20,000 acres. 
1 The total of the decreases in Table III. will be found to differ slightly 
from the 304,100 acres recorded in Table II., because this year the figures for 
the administrative County of London are, for the first time, tabulated sepa- 
rately in the official Returns. As last year’s figures are not available for 
purposes of comparison, the figures relating to the County of London are left 
out of all the full-page Tables. 
3 l 2 
