The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1757028552

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-135495

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: The agricultural output of England and Wales 1925

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XV, 152 Seiten; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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X17 The productive side of agriculture is, however, only one aspect of the problem, and in attempting to review the general position, account needs to be taken of other factors, such as the holdings on which the industry is carried on, the number of persons engaged, the capital employed and the rent paid, and last but not least the influence of prices and the changes which have taken place in recent years. An attempt is made to deal with these subjects in Chapters VII to XI. As regards the number of holdings (Chapter VII) there is some difficulty in deciding on the extent of the increase in recent years in the number of holdings under 20 acres, but in any case, the bulk of the land is in holdings over that size. Holdings over 20 acres numbered 220,600 in 1924 and covered 24,372,000 acres or 94 per cent. of the total acreage of crops and grass (excluding rough grazings). The corresponding number of holdings in 1913 was 221,250, while in 1895 it was 216,000. There has been an increase in medium sized holdings at the expense of holdings at both ends of the scale. A classification of these holdings has been adopted which gives some indication of their character and it is interesting to note that 104,200 or nearly one-half of the above total of 220,600 holdings over 20 acres consist mainly of pasture land, while nearly 40,000 or about 18 per cent. consist mainly of arable land. One characteristic is that the smaller holdings, say, from 20 to 100 acres, are generally more heavily stocked in proportion to their size than the larger holdings. The question of the number of persons who can properly be described as engaged or employed in agriculture or horticulture is one of considerable difficulty, but an attempt has been made in Chapter VIII to reconcile the apparently conflicting figures obtained from different sources on this subject. On the whole, allowing for differences in definition, there is a good deal of evidence that the number of persons engaged in agriculture or horticulture at the present time in England and Wales is about 1,100,000, of whom about 800,000 are employees of various kinds and 300,000 farmers, market gardeners or nurserymen who are either em- ployers or working on their own account. The number of purely agricultural workers, excluding gardeners, has no doubt declined since 1908, though the decrease shown in the Census Returns between 1901 and 1921 is only about 40,000, and in the same period there was a corresponding increase in the number of persons Who described themselves as farmers. That there should be a decline in the number of purely agricultural workers seems a natural result of the decrease in arable land and is also largely accounted for by the rapidly increasing use of mechanical power in agriculture, a subject which is dealt with in Chapter IX. The reduction in the supply of agricultural labour appears, however, to be less than is sometimes supposed, and the evidence of the last few years suggests that the numbers are nearly stationary.

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