AGRICULTURAL DECLINE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2570, 3 July 1882, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL DECLINE.

Under this heading tho London “Times” published a very striking and exhaustive article showing tho serious decline ia the agricultural wealth of tho United Kingdom that has taken place since the year 1563, ns gauged by the largo reduction in the stock of sheep. The figures are taken from the agricultural returns of 1868 and 1881. In every county in England, in Wales, in Scotland, end in Ireland there is a large reduction in tho number of sheep, and this is only in a few oases counterbalanced by the increase in the number of cattle. For tho United Kingdom the decrease in sheep amouula to 7.712,003, or 2P65 per cent. ; the increase in cattle being 822,000, or 904 per cent. Taking each head of cattle as equivalent to silt sheep, the writer in the “ Times" next show# the net decrease in cattle and sheep all reckoned as sheep, and this he finds to be 3,268,000, or 743 per cent., for England ; and 111.000, or OS3 per cent., for Scotland. For Wales there is a not increase of 171,000, or 2.74. per cent. ; and for Ireland 440,000, or 165 per cent. The not decrease for Great Britain is thus 3,202,000, or 5.06 per cent. ; and for the United Kingdom, iaeluding the islands, 2,780,000, or 308 per cent. Tho money losses he sets at £8,170,000' for England, and £277,000 for Scotland ; the gains at £427,000 for Wales, and £1,100,000 for Irelond j the net loss for the United Kingdom being £6,950,000.

What renders these depresing figures all the more alarming is the fact that the doorcase in our live stock has occurred not upon tho same but upon n larger area of cultivated lard, and not upon a smaller area of land devoted to feeding crops, but upon a much larger acreage. Thus, tho number of acres in the - United Kingdom under permanent pasture, clovers, grssies, and green crops, including roots, was in 1868 31,135 000, ar.d in 1831, 34,512 000. Thit is an increase of 3277 acres, or 10 8 per cent. Therefore, up to the present time, tho flourish of trumpets in reference to the supposed salvation of our agriculture by means of conveiting tillage land to pasture, and corn land to land devoted to feeding crops, has ushered in a dead loss. We have devoted more land to less live stock.

Bot and other epidemics have undoubtedly helped to diminish our stock of sheep j but the chief cause of the disease has been what may bo termed “ purse-rot,” a wasting disease of a kind most disastrous to ail branches of agriculture. Thousands of farmers who formerly" kept breeding flocks bare been unable; to keep them lately on account of want of capital. Many who lost their flocks by liver-rot were unable to replace them ; and many more who sold their flocks to relieve themselves from what they hoped waa only a temporary embarrassment find that the embarrassment was permanent, and as yet have not been able to replace the sheep they sold. It is obvious that the only possible relief for those who have no sheep and but few cattle would be a prolific harvest. The yery fnot that sheep are selling well is an additional disadvantage to men who have no sheep, but who would be glad to possess fflreks again. If they are to regain their former position of proiiperity, a good harvest must be the first step. The replacement of tboir flocks should bo the second, as on farms well suited to sheep nothing can make up for the lack of those animals. We fear, however, that with too many tho result cf the best of harvests would be merely the wiping eff of arrears of rent, and that we mu'-fc not count on the restoration of the number of sheop kept iu IB6S until we have b.en blessed with several fruitful years. Then, if the process of filling up tho ereat pap iu our sheep stock will be so slow and difflmlt, it is impossible for our rulers to exercise too stringent a provi.-im against suon decimation of our flocks as has too often occurred in the past through the devastation of imported disease.