PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 115 

cases where official reports of the 1899 harvest have been 
made, some comparison with the recent averages of grain 
production. The diffieulties attending comparisons with 
live stock statistics of countries where the data are only 
obtained at somewhat wide and varying dates are emphasised 
by Major Craigie in his comments on the tables; but the 
following figures showing the relative movements in the live 
stock of four verv typical countries, with herds of cattle which 
in each case exceed ten million head, from which annual 
statistics coming down to 1898, may be reproduced here. 




Period. | es France. Uuiice Australasia. 
g ; S ; 
No. No. | No. No. 
| Average of 1686-95 - - - : - 10,900,000 13, 300,000 51,200,000 II,000,000 
Single year 1896 - - - - - 10,900,000 I3, 300,000 46,500,000 12,700,000 
| | 
Single year 1897 - - - - - | 11,000,000 13,500,000 45,200,000 12,200,000 
Single year 1898 - - - - - II, 109,000 13,400,000 44,000,000 I1,600,000 





Compared with the mean number of stock maintained over 
the whoie preceding.decade 1886-95, the figures for the last 
three years show the herds of the United Kingdom, to have 
been well maintained. The cattle of this country, it is also 
pointed out, are now more numerous in proportion to area 
than any in Europe, the much smaller total herds of Holland, 
Belgium, and Denmark only excepted. 
For every 1,000 acres of measured surface in the United 
Kingdom 144 head of cattle are shown, a proportion which 
1s greater by 23 per cent. than was recorded thirty years 
before. In Holland and in Belgium 197 and 195 head of 
stock per 1,000 acres are returned; but,the increase in a 
similar period kas been less rapid than our own, or from 13 
to 14 per cent. In Denmark, on the other hand, the stock 
of cattle has been augmented by over 40 per cent. since 1870, 
and now works out to 186 per 1,000 acres. 
A similar table for the sheep of the same four States serves 
to emphasise the relative predominance which sheep farming 
still holds in the agriculture of the United Kingdom, and the 
