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Kingdom, but until within the last few years we have been with- 

 out this knowledge. Nevertheless, statements have been for more 

 than a century past confidently made upon this point, and are 

 often now repeated by those who are considered authorities upon 

 the subject. The only foundation upon which such statements 

 rest are an assumed consumption of so many bushels per head, the 

 returns as to population, the deduction of the known imports, and 

 the division of the remainder by the number of acres grown in the 

 United Kingdom — which number of acres was, until the quite 

 new institution of Agricultural Eeturns itself, absolutely un- 

 known. 



What value can be attached to such estimates, which are, in 

 fact, mere guesses 1 It is suflEicient for my present purpose to take 

 40 bushels per acre as an excellent and thoroughly good crop. 

 This gives us 28 millions of grains as the produce of one million 

 ears per acre, or 28 grains only per acre ! And this, for the 

 purposes of my present contention, is putting the case as strongly 

 as possible against myself. For if the average crop be taken (as 

 supposed) at 30 bushels per acre, the number of grains produced 

 becomes reduced to 21 millions, or only 21 per ear; while if If 

 millions of ears per acre be claimed, the produce per ear can even 

 upon a crop of 40 bushels amoimt to only the same. But if, while 

 maintaining the number of ears per acre, we double their contents, 

 this is doubling the crop, and would save annually the sending 

 out of the country a sum equal to the interest upon the National 

 Debt ! Beyond the increased contents of the ears produced in fully- 

 developed plants, the increased size of the grains alone adds 40 or 

 50 per cent, to the crop. Thus a bushel of fully-developed 

 pedigree wheat contains 460,000, a bushel of ordinary wheat 

 700,000 grams. Therefore, in two crops consisting ot precisely 

 the same number of grains, that from fully-developed plants would 

 be 70 bushels against 46 bushels, or 2 quarters against 6 quarts 

 per acre. So in barley the crop would be from this cause alone 7 

 quarters against 5 quarters per acre. 



As this has been in fact a history of my labour in working 



