PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. Tt 


for in detail under the various headings which make up 
the category of cultivated land for the purposes of these 
returns. Of the remaining area 12,884,000 acres, of which | 
about three-fourths occur in Scotland, are estimated to con- 
sist of rough grazings of mountain or heath land, while, 
according to the special returns last collected in 1895, woods 
and plantations cover a further area of 2,726,000 acres. 
Major Craigie, in his prefatory report, notes again a further 
slight reduction ofthe land under the plough, and points out 
that the changes in this direction have been nearly continu- 
ous since 1872 in the English counties; the loss of arable land 
in the past year it will be remembered followed on a year 
when there was a marked increase in the area of the wheat 
crop. 
The returns of the produce of crops, which were briefly 
summarised in the iast number of this Journal, are now shown 
in full detail for each county, and the yield of the crops of 
the past season and of each of the last ten years is compared 
with the estimated average yield over the ten-year period 
1889-98 by a table which directs attention to the bountiful 
character of last year’s harvest. The local variations in the 
estimated yield of crops during 1899 are discussed in the report, 
which notes also the leading meteorological conditions of 
the past year. The figures point to the general productive- 
ness of the season in the majority of the eleven crops reported 
on, although the results do not rival those of the abundant 
season of 1898. Turnips alone showed a very marked defi- 
ciency in yield, this crop falling 31 per cent. below average. 
The returns of live stock were on the whole satisfactory— 
cattle, sheep, and pigs all showing a distinct increase, and the 
total of horses only falling 530 below the figures of the previous 
year, while the youngest section of the horses returned had 
again begun to show an increase. 
The prices of cornand meat in the past year are compared 
in the report with the corresponding data for previous seasons, 
the level of the grain prices being noted as below the record of 
the previous year in both barley and oats, and materially below 
the somewhat exceptional wheat prices of 1898. As regards 
meat, on the contrary, a higher level of values prevailed 
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