Expenses of Legal Transfers.

(From a list of Purchasers' expenses prepared by the conveyancer to the Commission for Registration of Titles.)

Average cost of transfer 2½ percent,, and the Stamp Duty ½ per cent., makes it 3 per cent. Imagine this on any other commodity than land.

Deer Forests.

In Scotland much more than 2,000,000 acres have been depopulated and cleared of thousands of sheep to make room for deer forests: homes, farms, and food destroyed, that wealth may sport. There are now in

Well may Professor Blackie remark that "we have made Laws enough to preserve the Landlords and the Game, and it might seem wise now to make a few laws to preserve the people."

According to the British AImanac for 1885, the total area of the four counties of Scotland which are Highland counties par excellence, and in which are situated the chief deer forests of the country, extends to 8,030,190 acres; the extent of land under cultivation being only 419.385 acres, there is thus left for deer and other wild animals an enormous tract of country, much of it, of course, unfit for life of any kind, inaccessible mountains and rocky promontories upon which nothing can live.

The exact rental yielded by deer forests is not known, but estimates founded on the assessments for taxation, which have been made, place the rent at about 2s. per acre, which would yield a total sum of about £216,000 per annum. More than sixty of the Scottish deer forests are let, or retained by the owners, at rents ranging from £1,000 to £4,000 sterling; there is one gentleman, however, who pays for the land he has leased as a forest in two or three of the Scottish counties considerably more than £8,000 per annum!

The tenants of these vast stretches of land obtain nothing in return for the large amounts paid but the privilege of shooting the deer and such other wild animals as they may be able to find on their ground, and it has been calculated by economists that each stag slain is killed at a cost of not less than fifty guineas, whilst the price of a brace of grouse to the lessee of a moor has been reckoned at a pound. These are "fancy" figures, of course, and must be taken for what they are worth, as plenty of miscellaneous game is found in some of the forests which helps to furnish the table; but by rule of thumb it is assumed that any deer forest which is capable of yielding a hundred stags per annum is worth from £4,000 to £5,000 a year. Mr. J. G. Bertram has estimated that in the ten counties above named, 4,377 stags will be expected yearly, and this at £50 apiece would represent a rent-roll of £230,000. But some 50,000 to 60,000 hinds are also kept, and the contingent expenditure for servants, watchers, gillies, &c., is at least equal to the sum paid in rent. The protection of all trees from the deer, the erection of shooting lodges, &c., building of dykes, fences, &c., and various forms of "improvements" in connection with the Highland shootings and stalkings, are estimated to have cost £5,000,000.

Home and Foreign Agricultural Produce.

The Dangers of Foreign Food Supply.

Sir James Caird's Tables of Comparative Agricultural Values and Comparative Harvests.

Comparisons taken from the Books of a Dairy Farm, situate between Lancaster and Garstang.

In 1770	and In 1850.
Rent, 218. an acre	Rent, 41s. an acre.
Rates, 3d. per pound.	Rates, 3s. 9d. per pound.
Tithes compounded for.	Tithes commuted, and included in rent.
4-7ths of farm in grass.	4-5ths of farm in grass.
3-7th8 arable.	1-5th arable.
Annual produce of a cow, £4.	Annual produce of a cow, £9.
Six horses in a plough, and do an acre a day.	Two, and sometimes three horses in a plough.
First man's wages, £9 a year, and his board.	First man's wages, £15 to £16 a year, and board.
Second man, £5 a year, and board.	Second man, £10 a year, and board.
Dairymaid. £3 and board.	Dairymaid. £7 10s and board.page 132
Bread (oat), 11 lb. for a 1s.	Bread, 4d. per 41b. loaf, coarse wheaten bread; 5d per 41b., best.
Cheese, 3d. per lb.	Cheese, 5d. per lb.
Butter, 8d. per lb.	Butter, 11d. to 1s. per lb.
Beef, 2½d. per lb.	Beef, 5d. to 6d.
Mutton, 2½d. per lb.	Mutton, 6d.
Labourer's house-rent, 20s.	Labourer's house-rent, 50s. to 100s.

Land Assessments.

Farmers.

Produce of Wheat per Acre.

The above table is based upon 28 bushels as an average crop, and reckoning 28 bushels=100. The figures of this and other tables are from Sir James Caird's valuable works on "The Landed Interest" (Cassell and Co.), and "English Agriculture" (Longmans).

"The large farm system embraces nearly twice the proportion of corn, and half the proportion of green crops and grass. In other words, it is doubly dependent on the price of corn as compared with the middle class farm system, which relics to a far greater extent on its dairy produce, its fat cattle, its vegetables, and its hay. The result is, that the latter pays more rent or surplus for the use of the land, and a higher rate of wages to the labourer......A man who has regular employment at wages finds an immense advantage in a good garden allotment beside his cottage, and that is vastly increased when that cottage is on the farm, away from the temptation of the beer shop, and where, as part of his wages, he receives the keep of a cow. This is the system in the border counties, where agriculture is in the most prosperous state, and the agricultural labourer the best fed and clothed, the most educated and intelligent of his class in any part of the three kingdoms."—Sir James Caird (Statistical Society's Journal, March, 1869.)

"To far too great an extent we have been accustomed to measure the so-called 'harvest' generally, and even the entire agricultural position, by the success or failure of the wheat crop alone. When it is remembered that the proportions devoted to this cereal vary so enormously in different parts of the country, and reflect on the fact that though a bad harvest usually means loss on all our grain crops, it by no means follows that all suffer equally, I think I may be allowed to plead for greater prominence being allowed to the records of the yield of our other crops."—Major P. G. Craigie, Sec. Central Chamber of Agriculture (Statistical Society's Journal, March, 1883.)