Statistics affecting British Agricultural Interests. 361 
about by laying the land down either in lucerne or with a 
mixture of deep-rooting grasses. 
Lastly, the experiments conducted on behalf of the Royal 
Commission on Sewage Disposal were, by request of the 
Commission, continued for a second year at the Pot-culture 
Station. Wheat was the crop experimented on in 1907, and a 
barley crop was subsequently taken in 1908. By means of the 
Pot-culture Station it was possible to carry out comparative 
experiments with seven different sludges, no less than seventy 
pots being employed for the purpose. Such work as this, it is 
clear, could not possibly have been carried out in the field, 
and there was the added advantage that the whole of the work 
was under close observation all the time. 
J. Augustus Yoelcker. 
22 Tudor Street, E.C. 
STATISTICS AFFECTING BRITISH 
AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS. 
As in previous years, the information compiled in the tables 
printed on pp. 366-380 is taken from the official publications of 
the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the other Govern- 
ment Departments as noted below. 1 The data have been 
brought up to date wherever possible by the inclusion of the 
figures for 1908, some of the tables having been specially 
supplied in manuscript by the Board of Agriculture. 
In one or two cases changes have been made, owing to 
similar changes in the original returns. 
In the first of the general tables there will be found a 
summary for the United Kingdom. In this is included the 
data for Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, for 
the details of which refei’ence must be made to the actual 
statistics themselves. As in previous years, this actual state- 
ment deals with 47,000,000 acres, which are under crops and 
grass, out of the whole 77,000,000 acres included in the land 
area of the British Isles. The population having last year been 
estimated at 44,800,000, there is now only a portion of about 
one acre and a twentieth of cultivated or grass land for each 
living person. 
1 Agricultural Statistics for 1908, Vol. XLIII., Part I. ; Agricultural Statistics 
for 1907, Vol. XL1I., Parts I., II., and III. ; the preliminary statements as to 
produce of crops, acreage, and yield per acre for 1908 ; the Annual Statements 
of the Board of Trade ; and the Trade and Navigation Accounts for December, 
1908. 
