Discrepancies in the Census and the Agricultural Returns. 9 
Again, there is another consideration which must not be 
overlooked. The numbers of farmers, great and small, and the 
number of occupiers of land, whether on a large or on a petty 
scale, are not the same thing. Both sets of figures are supplied, 
no doubt, by the very persons themselves who ought to know 
what they should be called, so it is no jugglery or misstatement 
in a Government office which is to blame, as some imagine, 
for the lack of corroboration between the two classes — one 
drawn from the entries a householder makes as regards 
himself on his census schedule, and the other from what the 
occupier of agricultural land indicates in his yearly schedule 
for the Agricultural Returns. 
There are in England alone, leaving out the other parts of 
the United Kingdom, the following discrepancies in the two 
sets of statistics : Farmers and graziers in 1901 in England 
alone appeared from the occupation column of the census as 
just 188,909 persons. Even if the class recorded as farm 
bailiffs were added to this total — and there are reasons for 
questioning the most recent total owing to the inclusion in 
this category of “ foremen,” who were probably not in charge 
of units of agricultural occupation — this would only bring up 
the census total to 210,000 individuals ; while from the Board 
of Agriculture data we know the number of separate “ hold- 
ings ” was 380,000 at the time of the last general inquiry in 
1895, and 372,000 in the returns for 1905, and the census 
year lay about mid-way between these dates. It follows that 
the occupation of something under 170,000 holdings was in 
the hands of persons who did not describe themselves to 
the census enumerator as either farmers or bailiffs ; or, as is 
certainly true in particular instances, more holdings than 
one were held by a single farmer. Probably many occupiers 
practised other and very likely more gainful professions 
than farming, but there are no data available to show whether 
these people who held land, but were not primarily farmers, 
occupied large or small areas. Our own census is very deficient 
in this respect compared with that of some Continental coun- 
tries ; and it has not even continued the efforts of that reliable 
statistician, Dr. Farr, in continuing the Table which gave at 
least some approximate information respecting the staff of 
men engaged in the working of farms of various types. 
The holdings return classifies the holdings over one acre 
but under five acres as 81,000 in number in England, while 
167,000 more vary between five and fifty acres in extent. 
Probably it is among these smaller holders that a large pro- 
portion occurs of those who had placed themselves — and quite 
properly it may be — under some other heading than that of 
agriculture in filling up their census form of professions. 
