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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter III. The production of crops

Collection:: Economics Books

CHAPTER II.-THE PRODUCTION OF CROPS. 1. The average yield per acre.— Various factors may individually or collectively account for changes in the average yield per acre of the different crops from one year to another. The most Important is undoubtedly the weather from the time the land is being prepared for sowing to the completion of the harvest, but over extended periods there may also be changes in the standard of cultivation, in the class of seed used, and in the average fertility of the land on which the crop is grown. Account must also be taken of the fact that good and bad years from the Point of view of weather are unevenly distributed, so that any one short period (e.g., ten years) may contain more favourable or unfavourable years than another. It would, however, be of considerable interest if any definite improvement in output could be shown to have occurred, apart from the fortuitous Influence of favourable and unfavourable seasons. To test the question to some extent diagrams have been prepared, showing for each of the three principal cereals the average yield per acre 1 England and Wales from 1885 to 1925 (the forty years for which figures of yield are available) together with ten-year averages, and also ten-year averages of the area under each crop (see Diagrams I and II). The ten-year average yield per acre of wheat showed fairly steady progress for the first 20 years, and it is perhaps significant that during the greater part of this time the wheat acreage was declining rapidly. Presumably the land on which the crop continued to be grown would be the land which could be most profitably maintained under wheat, and would in médny cases be the land which gave the best yield. This may account to Some extent for the increasing yield per acre but it has to be remembered that much of the land which has gone out of cultiva- tion under wheat is heavy land which gives a good yield but is very expensive to work. It seems probable that the weather Was on the whole more favourable for agricultural production during these years. Subsequently, there was a marked decline followed by an upward turn. . . In the case of barley, the diagram indicates a fluctuating Movement in the first 20-30 years without any well-marked tendency, followed by a definite decline. In this case there hag been a reduction in area throughout. The ten-year average yield Per acre of oats rose between 1885-94 and 1902-11, but as in the cage of the other two corn crops this was followed by a decline, At the same time the acreage increased. On the whole, there is some general resemblance in these curves, and the fall I the average yield in all three cases towards the close of the Period suggests that there is a common cause, which is presumably a greater proportion of unfavourable seasons,

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