Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/791

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THE QUESTION OF WHEAT.
769

ture is thus already beginning to accommodate itself to the change which American competition will certainly render necessary. In the northern and western parts of the country, where live stock predominates over corn, and where the labor bill is comparatively moderate, the effects of this connection are little felt, and the suffering that has arisen of late years has been more the result of ungenial seasons and grazings unthrifty for the herds and flocks. In the corn districts the loss has been greater, because not only were the crops inferior, but prices were low, while the labor was very costly. In the least fertile tracts of poor clay, where every operation is expensive and the land is unkindly for grass, it must either go out of cultivation or be turned to some other purpose than that of growing food. It is hopeless to expect that such soils can maintain their old position. Indeed, nothing but the greatest prudence and freedom of action will carry our landowners and farmers, on even the better class of corn lands, through the earlier years of the competition on which they are entered."[1]

The estimates of the losses suffered by the British farmer through the succession of "calamitous" seasons from 1873 to 1879 varied widely, but all agreed in naming a very large amount. Only two good crops in ten years, and the last of the series, that of 1879, the "worst of the century," naturally gave a severe and, as it proved, a lasting blow to wheat-growing in England. Indeed, the loss was placed at one third of the total farming capital of the kingdom, and in many corn (or wheat) districts more than one half of the farmers' capital had disappeared. The acreage under wheat, the gazette price, and the imports of foreign supplies during this period make an interesting and suggestive study.

Year. Wheat acreage. Gazette price
per quarter.
Total imports. Imports from
Europe.
Acres s. d. Cwt. Cwt.
1871 3,571,894 56 8 39,389,803 20,667,593
1872 3,598,957 57 42,127,726 26,543,585
1873 3,490,380 58 8 43,863,098 14,392,135
1874 3,630,300 55 8 41,527,638 10,109,357
1875 3,342,481 45 2 51,876,517 18,981,444
1876 2,995,957 46 2 44,454,657 13,208,705
1877 3,168,540 56 9 54,269,800 19,642,475
1878 3,218,417 46 5 49,906,484 14,614,540
1879 2,890,244 43 10 59,591,795 11,908,821
1880 2,909,438 44 4 55,261,924 4,658,807

These figures alone would be sufficient to indicate a revolution in the wheat interests of Great Britain. The acreage under wheat


  1. Address as President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1880.