AGRICULTURE, STATISTICS OF. In several countries of Europe there is a department of government organized either for collecting the statistics of agri culture or superintending institutions which have immediate relation to that branch of industry. In France these duties devolve upon a department of the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. The management of the royal flocks, veterinary schools, and the royal studs; the distribution of premiums in agri culture ; the organization and presidency of the superior and special councils of agriculture, are comprised in the duties of this ministerial department. The coun cils-general of agriculture, &c. in each department of France collect the agri cultural statistics from each commune ; and the quantity of land sown with each description of grain, the produce, and the quantity of live stook for the whole of the kingdom, are accurately known and pub lished by the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. In Belgium these facts are ascertained periodically, but not every year. In the United States of North America, at the decennial census, an attempt is made to ascertain the num ber of each description of live stock, in cluding poultry ; the produce of cereal grains, and of various crops ; the quan tity of dair', orchard, and garden pro duce, &c., in each State. There are twenty-nine heads of this branch of in quiry. The only countries in Europe which do not possess statistical accounts of their agriculture founded on official do cuments are England and the Netherlands. In England the quantities of corn and grain sold in nearly three hundred market towns, the quantities imported and ex ported, and the quantities shipped coast ways, are accurately known, but no steps are taken by any department of the govern ment to ascertain the quantities produced. On the same principle that a census of the population of a country is useful, it must be useful to have an account of its productive resources. The absence of official information is supplied by esti mates of a conjectural character, founded at best only on local and partial obser vation. In France it is positively ascer tained that the average produce of wheat for the whole kingdom is under fourteen bushels per acre. In England it is known that the maximum produce of wheat per acre is about forty bushels, and that the minimum is about twenty bushels. The usual conjecture is that the average pro duce of the kingdom in years of fair crops is about twenty-eight bushels, but the total superficies sown with wheat or any other grain, and the total quantity of the produce, are matters simply of conjecture. The only statement the public or even the government are in possession of in respect to the quantity of land cultivated and uncultivated, and of land incapable of producing grain or hay, in Great Bri tain, rests upon the authority ofprivate inquiry made by one person, Mr. Crouling, a civil engineer and surveyor, who gave the details to the parliamentary commit tee on emigration in 1827, now seventeen years ago. As there is an account pub lished weekly in the London Gazette' of the quantity of each description of grain sold in nearly three hundred market towns in England, with the average prices, and the quantity of foreign corn and grain imported is also officially published, it would be putting into the hands of the community very important elements of calculation in reference to the supply of food, if they could also learn after each harvest what had been the breadth of land under cultivation for each species of produce respectively, and the amount of produce harvested. The result could not fail to be felt in greater steadiness of price, which is particularly desirable for the interests of the tenant farmer, and also highly advantageous to the public.
For example, the harvest of 1837 was deficient to so great a degree, that before the produce of 1838 was secured the great superabundance of the two preced ing harvests was all consumed. and the stock of grain was more nearly exhausted than it was ever known to have been in modern times. A reasonable advance of would have checked consumption, which, as regards wheat, had been going on with unwonted profusion, but in August, September, and October, 1837, the markets fell from 608. Id. to 51s. per quarter, and it was not until the middle of the following May that the average was again as high as it had been just be fore the harvest of 1837. By the third week in August, 1838, the average had risen to upwards of 73s., and wheat was ad missible at the lowest rate of duty. The buyers consequently resorted suddenly to nearly every corn-market in Europe, and prices, aided by a wild spirit of specula tion, which subsequently was productive of great loss to importers, rose enormously. It is contended that these losses and the fluctuation of prices would not have oc curred if the produce of the harvest of 1837 had been more accurately known. (On the Collection of the Statistics of Agriculture by G. R. Porter, Esq., of the Board of Trade.) The probable ope ration which statistical facts officially col lected would have upon agricultural im provement is thus adverted to by Mr. Porter:" It has been stated that if all England were as well cultivated as the counties of Northumberland and Lincoln, it would produce more than double the quantity that is now obtained. . . . If the cultivators of land, where agricultural knowledge is the least advanced, could be brought to know, upon evidence that could not admit of doubt, that the farmer of Northumberland or Lincolnshire pro cured, from land of fertility not superior to his own, larger and more profitable crops than he is in the habit of raising, is ft likely that he would be contented with his inferiority?" In 1836 the late Lord Sydenham, while president of the Board of Trade, in order to test the pro bability of success that might result from a more extended attempt, caused circular letters containing fifty-two simple but comprehensive queries relating to agricul ture to be sent to each clergyman in the one hundred and twenty-six parishes of Bedfordshire. Out of this number only 27, or about one in five, replied, and further inquiry was abandoned. The tithe commis sioners make returns of the crops in all parishes, but they do not do so simultane ously. There is, however, no insuperable difficulty iu collecting the national statis tics of agriculture, whenever government thinks fit to undertake such a duty. On the 18th of April, 1844, on a motion in the House of Commons for an address to the queen praying for the establishment of some method of collecting agricultural statistics, the vice-president of the Board of Trade, on the part of the government, concurred in the object of the motion, but from various causes he declined at that time giving the motion his support. The yearly expense of the inquiry would be from 20,000/. to 30,00c/. ; and pro bably not a long period will elapse be fore the appropriate machinery will be in operation. In this way can government advance the interests of agriculture and of the public at the same time. In a country like England, which abounds with men of rank, wealth, and intelligence, who engage in scientific agriculture as a fa vounte pursuit, it is quite unnecessary for the government to assume the superinten dence of matters which relate to practical agriculture ; but this may be done with propriety in other countries, which are placed in different circumstances.