818 
The Manufacture of Iron in 
cultivated land in Cambridge in 1892, there were 224 under wheat. 
In Lincoln the proportion was only 138 per 1,000. Hence, making 
allowance for the difference in size of the two counties, wheat- 
growing is practised more than half as largely again in Cambridge as 
in Lincoln. It is apparent that the farmers of Cambridgeshire have 
clung to the wheat crop with greater fidelity than those of any 
other county. 
The general outcome of this inquiry is to demonstrate that during 
the last decade the wheat area has undergone shrinkage in every 
county of England, also that the relative decrease has been greatest 
in the outlying counties of the North and West, and least in the 
compact group of Eastern counties — Cambridge, Huntingdon, 
Bedford, Hertford, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk — lying between the 
W^ash and the Nore. 
During the recent autumn much currency has been given to the 
phrase “ the abandonment of wheat-growing in England.” Whilst 
an inquiry like the present serves to define and localise the progress 
of such abandonment, it is silent upon a question of the highest 
interest and importance. That the wheat area in England is under- 
going a steady decline is abundantly proved by the stern facts set 
forth in the accompanying Tables. But whether this decline is due 
to the absolute abandonment of wheat cultivation upon certain farms 
where formerly it was practised, or whether it merely arises from a 
restriction — falling short of extinction — of the wheat acreage upon 
wheat-growing farms, is a question for the answer of which no 
available data exist. There is no essential relation between the 
number of acres of wheat and the number of farmers who grow 
wheat. Supposing the lessened area to have been brought about 
mainly by a diminution of the wheat acreage on the part of each 
wheat-grower, there might be little or no decrease in the number of 
farmers who seed a portion of their land to wheat. In this case the 
interest in the wheat crop, as one of the crops of the farm, would 
continue to be as widespread as ever. 
W. FllEAM. 
THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON IN ITS 
RELATIONS WITH AGRICULTURE.' 
The object of this paper is not to speak of the important service 
rendered by iron to agriculture, even at the time when our corn 
was threshed with the flail, and when our land was ploughed by an 
implement formed chiefly of wood. Neither am I going to claim, 
from the farmer, an acknowledgment for our having furnished 
cheap materials, out of which the mechanical engineer has con- 
structed a variety of labour-saving instruments for his use. The 
' Extracts from an Address delivered before the Iron and Steel Institute, 
in October, 1892, by Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart., F.R.S. Revised by the Author, 
