489 
been tested, capital without stint and business acumen have aided in 
the effort to obtain larger supplies of bread and meat from a given area. 
Where this necessity has not existed, even in the British Colonies, 
the yield of wheat scarcely exceeds our own average. ‘This is the case 
in Canada, in the Australian Colonies, and in New Zealand. In Europe 
the only close competitor with Great Britain in productiveness of the 
wheatareais Holland, a densely peopled country in which high culture has 
become the rule. According to the latest official statistics the following 
are the average rates of yield for the products named in the countries 
specified : 
ope Date of | | b 2 
Countries. returns, | Wheat. Barley.| Oats. | Rye. | Maize. 
Bushels.| Bushels.| Bushels.'| Bushels.| Bushels. 
DOREY are See ac hee RoR eae em oR kao alaaials 1870s |Poe e eee ae een esos as eae ener 
PRES Ss ade ae See ee MS EEC EE ah cinta ees 1870 22.1 30.3 Spar OU ena ers se 
ETSI aoe a 2 ayy Se cline cele Siete eile Oat cemsaca. eee S ee 1867 aig fa! Doak 32.9 WOO ae eecs 
ERT TNS fac sei st Se eal Lae en ae ae eho beens 1863 16.3 20.1 22.5 16.3 24.9 
ARV ULIE FED) OLR BBE ne Sees 5 de CDE UE GaOcr DD EE eee 1871 19.3 25.7 28. 4 19.4 18. 4 
TERNS S10 | Ee SS Se SO a See ene ae 1870 2.1 43.8 a PASE al eaters 
TRG NT ETel Gang ae Slee A Se Oe eee ee 1866 20.3 34. 9 41.2 CAG ERE Ace 
PRT eres cece te Sian ck mimes Sasi. Cascee ses 1869 acca 20.9 25. 6 55 Pik 
pie te Ue Bes eee Ae SS Sees ee a ee oe eae ae 1865 &9 ial 18.6 | 6.7 20. 0 
Spain. Sy eee see SEE gone nae fae: See boo A 1857 | 23.3 oF al Be See Bg44| esse 
PARTIR en oP ese = oe aoe Sout cedar enon daseeien = - 2 ae 1871 15.2 17.0 19.2 14.7 15: 1 
GORGE eases oc sess lee gress ascnue seems eee nd 1867 1352 18.8 49:04) 222 bee 17.4 
What is the present British average yield of wheat? It is a matter 
of estimate. A government census of acreage is taken annually, but 
not of quantity of product. Some estimates make the average 32 bush- 
els. Mr. James Caird, who is probably as good authority as can be 
cited, makes it 28 bushels. In 1850 he placed it at 264 bushels. In 
1770, Arthur Young, as the result of careful investigation, made the 
average 23 bushels. Assuming these figures to be correct, as they are 
deemed to be substantially by men of the best information and judg- 
ment, the increase has been is bushels since 1850, and 5 bushels in the 
last century. This estimate is for Great Britain; the average for Ire- 
land is placed at 24 bushels. The United Kingdom, therefore, makes an 
average of about 27 bushels. This is, of course, the average of a series 
of years, as the influence of the seasons causes fluctuations which pro- 
bably cannot be measured by less than a range of 15 bushels, or from 
20 to 35, bushels. 
What are the means by which this pre-eminence is attained? Great 
Britain has a moist climate, less subject to drought than ours, yet the 
best yield in ten years was in 1868, a season remarkable for its high 
temperature and continued drought. Much of the area of that country 
is not adapted to wheat, which is mainly produced along the eastern 
and southern sea-board, a belt less humid than the northern and west- 
ern counties, and scarcely extending through three degrees of latitude, 
in which little more than three millions of acres are cultivated—about 
the same area as that in wheat the present year in Iowa and Minnesota. 
The soil is not naturally so superior as to account for the high rate of 
production, which is mainly due to thorough comminution, manuring, 
and cultivation of the soil. Ail heavy soils are first underdrained, deep 
plowing follows, and then the sub-soil is broken; crops of clover collect 
ammonia from the atmosphere and form nitrates in the soil; crops of 
turnips, made plethoric by the use of commercial fertilizers, are eaten 
from the ground by fattening sheep to furnish the richest immediate 
manuring for the wheat-crop: and then the wheat is drilled in rows as 
