More flarfy research about Seamus Heaney's "A Constable Calls" - I finally 
found the text in the minutes of a fairly recent Parliamentary Standing 
committee on delegated legistlation:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ian 
Pearson): I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft 
Agricultural Statistics (Northern Ireland) Order 2004.

Thank you for stepping into the breach at short notice, Mr. Gale. I 
congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on his 
appointment to the Opposition Front Bench. 

The order replaces the Agricultural Returns Act (Northern Ireland) 1939, 
which no longer fits the purpose. It requires farmers in Northern Ireland 
to provide statistical information to the Department of Agriculture and 
Rural Development. It specifies what information may be demanded, the 
circumstances in which individual information may be disclosed and the 
penalties for non-compliance or wrongful disclosure. 

Seamus Heaney's poem, ''A Constable Calls'', describes the visit to his 
father's farm of a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who cycles 
around the district to gather farm census data. I will quote from it, if 
hon. Members will allow me to do so at this time of the morning: 


''His cap was upside down 
On the floor, next his chair. The line of its pressure ran like a bevel 
In his slightly sweating hair. He had unstrapped 
The heavy ledger, and my father 
Was making tillage returns 
In acres, roods, and perches. Arithmetic and fear. 
I sat staring at the polished holster 
With its buttoned flap, the braid cord 
Looped into the revolver butt. 'Any other root crops? Mangolds? 
Marrowstems? Anything like that?' 'No.' 
But was there not a line 
Of turnips where the seed ran out 
In the potato field? I assumed 
Small guilts and sat 
Imagining the black hole in the barracks. 
He stood up, shifted the baton-case 
Further round on his belt, 
Closed the domesday book, 
Fitted his cap back with two hands, 
And looked at me as he said goodbye.''

Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab): I am glad that I came now.

Mr. Pearson: The Committee is nothing if not educational. The 1939 
legislation on agricultural statistics remains, and is the legislation 
that Seamus Heaney experienced as a lad. The main purpose of the order and 
the debate today is to improve the quality of agricultural statistics on 
which important decisions are based....