§ MR. SANDARSsaid, he wished to ask the right hon. President of the Board of Trade, what course Her Majesty's Government intended to adopt this Session of Parliament with the view of introducing a system of agricultural statistics into the United. Kingdom; and in putting this question to the right hon. Gentleman, he begged to inform him that in the month of December last he put a similar question to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, who inform- 379 ed him that an experiment was about to be tried in two or three of the Scotch counties through the Royal Agricultural Society of Scotland. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would at the same time inform the House what progress had been made in that experiment?
§ MR. CARDWELLsaid, that through the agency of the constabulary, information such as the hon. Gentleman desired with reference to agriculture had already, so far as Ireland was concerned, been laid upon the table of the House. With respect to Scotland he had to state that the Highland Agricultural Society were taking considerable pains to furnish information of a similar character. The inquiry which had been instituted by that body, however, did not embrace the whole of Scotland, but was limited to Sutherland and a few other counties. In England an inquiry into the state of agriculture had been also set on foot, and would be prosecuted during the present year in Hertfordshire and Devonshire. The experiment in both Scotland and England was upon a limited scale; but he hoped that arrangements would be made for a more comprehensive scheme of inquiry in connexion with the subject of agriculture in the United Kingdom than at present existed.