Discussing some statistics of the fall in the value of land during the last fourteen or fifteen years, which have been collected by the Surveyors' Institution, the Estates Gazette says : —Looked at broadly the figures confirm the general impression of the extent and distribution of the agricultural depression. By way of striking a fair average extreme figures were eliminated from the calculations ; and thus it comes to pass that South-east Essex, in which the agricultural position has iov a good many years been notoriously and exceedingly parlous, comes only second on the list. An extreme figure was left out of calculation, and so \\\q Chiltern Hill district of Oxfordshire

takes the first place in this sorry com petition. The average reduction in land values in the Chiltern district is 75 per cent., and in South-east Essex 70 per cent. The uninstructed observer would find it difficult to credit such terrible figures ; but there is no getting behind them. They are not only studiously moderate, and are not estimates, but actual statements- of fact 3. Cambridge shire and other portions of Essex come next. Portions of Berks and Suffolk are also in the first fight, and in none of these counties has the average of de preciation been less than 50 per cent. Salop, Sussex, and Cheshire seem to have suffered the least. Indeed, the dairy counties generally have suffered, if any thing, rather less than had been supposed ; while the generally accepted opinion as to the extent of the depreciation iu the value of heavy clay and wheat land, such as that of Es*ex, proves to have been as near a3 possible correct; Not unnaturally, perhaps, it further appears that the small farms have suffered much less than the large ones.
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