The Report of the Food Production Department, published in the
papers of Wednesday, is a very satisfactory document,. More grassland has been brought under tillage than was conceived possible when the campaign of last autumn was started. It is estimated that two million five hundred thousand acres have been brought under the plough in England and Wales over and above the area that was already ploughed in 1916. For the whole United Kingdom the total extra ploughed area is more than four million acres. The acreage under wheat, barley, and oats this year will be the largest ever known ; it will exceed the prime days of English farming in the " seventies " of last century, to which every farmer who believes m the policy of the plough looks back with a mixture of pride and regret. The acreage trader potatoes is the highest since 1872. It is believed that if the harvest turns out to be as good as it promises, enough breadatuffs for forty weeks for the whole population of the United Kingdom will be provided. To this estimate the yield of a very large number of private gardens and allotments is to be added. The allotments alone have increased by eight hundred thousand
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