The number of sheep in England is a point of interest, both in a manufacturing and agricultural sense. We are inclined to take the average at 18,000,000 or 19,000,000 sheep, and 7,000,000 lambs. The number of long-woolled sheep is fully 4,000,000; their fleeces average 7 or 8 lbs. ; of short woolled sheep the quantity is much greater, and pro bably exceeds 14,000,000 ; but the average weight of fleece is only from 3 to Si lbs. The whole quan tity of wool annually shorn in England seems above 80,000,000 lbs. The merinos were introduced about the beginning of the present century, and were im ported in large numbers after our alliance with Spain, in 1809. Opinions differ in regard to their utility, the carcase not having answered so well as the fleece. Considerable advantage, however, has been derived from crossing them with our own breeds, and far ther experience may lead to more beneficial results.
The great pasturage counties are Leicester, North ampton, Lincoln, and Somerset. Of the counties for butter and cheese, the principal are Cheshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire. Of butter, England, ftom the richness of her paNture, should naturally make large exports; but taxes press so much on our agricultural produce, that our Custom-house returns exhibit no shipments worth notice, except to the Brazils and to our own colonieii in the West Indies and North America. In fact, in this respect, our agri. culturists have stood in need of prohibitory duties on the produce of the Continent.
At that time the rate of duty on foreign butter im ported was only 58. l id. per cwt.; on foreign cheese only 45. 41d.per cwt.; but, in 1816, these duties were quadrupled, and the imports greatly reduced. From Ireland, the imports of butter to London only were, in 1612, 160,000 cwt. ; in 1816, they were of nearly equal amount. At that time prices were low, but, since the imposition of the high duties on Con tinental butter, the Irish are assured of a steady de mand and good price for this very important article of their produce.
A national peculiarity, of some importance in it self, and claiming our notice in connection with the nature of our climate, is the much larger consump tion of butcher-meat among the lower orders of our people than in the same class on the Continent, par ticularly in France. This has long been the case. It was a saying of Prince Maurice of Nassau, the able success& of the first Prince of Orange, that the English soldiers newly come over were, on account of their generous food, " fit for enterprises of high mettle." The annual amount of profit from farming, that is, the return for the capital and personal labour of far mers throughout the kingdom, is as little susceptible of a definite calculation as any thing in the range of statistics. It can be judged of only by approxima tion, and by adopting the broad rule of land survey ors, who, in their estimates, assign an equal sum for farming profit as for rent ; this gives nearly thirty millions for the farming profit of England and Wales; an estimate confirmed by the returns under the property-tax, as well as by the probable amount of the farming capital of England, viz. between
L.250,000,000 and L.300,000,000 Sterling.
Connected with these calculations, is the value of the total annual produce of land in England. This is necessarily subject to fluctuation ; the high price of a particular season leading, in the next, to an extended, tillage, and vice versa. Taking wheat at the medium of 80s. and other corn at the prices at which importation begins to be al. lowed, we shall find an average produce of some what more than sixty millions Sterling in corn; to which, adding a similar value in pasturage, and a farther allowance for hops, fruit, and vegetables, we have a total of from 130 to 140 millions. Such seems to be the collective value of the annual pro. duce of the land of England and Wales, and of the labour and capital bestowed on it. That this esti mate is not materially wrong, appears from a re• ference to the government returns of rent (under the property-tax), which, in 1810, amounted to near ly thirty millions ; and it is common to consider the rent frun a fourth to a fifth of the gross produce.• In Scotland the rent bears a higher proportion to the gross produce; being in general not less than one-third. (Evidence in Corn Committee Report, 1814.) This is owing, certainly, not to greater capital, and still less to superior soil, but to an exemption from tithe and poor's rate ' • also to the use of long leases. A farther difference of rent in favour of Scotland is found, on examination, to be but apparent, and is explained by the larger size of the Scotch acre. It is in tillage, not in pasturage, that the Scotch farmers lay claim to superiority. On comparing English agriculture with that of the Continent, we find that our chief superiority consists in machin ery and live stock. Thrashing machines are, in a manner, unknown on the Continent, and all iron manufacture is of inferior quality. In regard to live stock, the countries that approach nearest to us are Jutland, Holstein, Holland, Flanders, and Nor mandy, all evidently _indebted for their extensive pasturages to the vicinity of the sea ; in the interior of the Continent, pasturage is, in general, very indif ferent. Even in these maritime provinces, the cattle, though frequently large, are not fattened in the • same gradual manner as in our grazing counties ; the meat, consequently, is not of equal flavour. In horses the inferiority is more apparent to the eye, and holds both as to size and shape. Flemish horses are large, but heavy, while the Norman breed, though capable of much labour, is small in size when compared with the English. No where are horses seen of such bulk and strength as the drays in Lon don : if they are, as is supposed, of foreign origin, they have greatly surpassed the primitive stock, since neither the Netherlands nor Holstein can now match them.