176 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



self-binding harvester, which rendered possible the growing 

 of wheat in huge areas of virgin lands, had not been invented, 

 or if large ships, some of them able to bring here in one freight 

 at minimum cost as much wheat as many a county produces 

 at one crop, had not been evolved by the progress of science, 

 prices would have been much higher, and wheat-growing would 

 have been commercially possible on soils and under conditions 

 where no man dreams of raising it now. To a miller or a corn- 

 merchant the striking prophecies of Sir William Crookes as 

 to the danger of an absolute scarcity of wheat presented no 

 terrors. He, more fortunate than Frankenstein, laid his own 

 monster by the prospect of increased crops, due to the discovery 

 of a cheap form of nitrogenous manuring. This meant either 

 that the increase in yield per acre would of itself repay the 

 cost of the manure without an increase in the price of grain 

 per quarter, or else that it would be possible to grow increased 

 crops of grain by the aid of fixed atmospheric nitrogen, if a 

 rise in the price of wheat would allow the farmer to buy the 

 manure. 



If the former alternative be the correct one — and it is likely 

 to be so — the consumer with an income of say 4s. per week 

 per head of his family would have reason to bless the scientist 

 in years to come ; but if the latter alternative be the way in 

 which this advantage is to be obtained, even then his fears 

 were not at all formidable. For to the lay mind of a miller 

 or corn-merchant the problem did not seem to be whether 

 the world could grow enough wheat for the actual needs of 

 its inhabitants, but whether it would grow enough at prices 

 equal to 30s. per quarter delivered at a British or continental 

 port — two essentially different propositions. At an average of 

 35s. it is certain that more land would be placed under wheat; 

 still more at 40s., much more at 45s., very much more at 50s. 

 Price is then a most essential point to be borne in mind by 

 the scientist as well as by the practical man — indeed, the triumphs 

 of science in connection with bread are mostly connected with 

 it. To scratch virgin and fertile soils and produce from eight 

 to twenty bushels of wheat per acre in the new countries of the 

 world, when the average yield in England is over thirty bushels 

 per acre, may be good business, but the scientific attainment 

 does not appear to be striking. Indeed, though a great deal 

 of valuable scientific work concerning wheat, flour, and bread 



