THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 75 



average rent stands at about I2s. per acre, and the crop 

 is from fifteen to twenty bushels, the rent amounts to 

 from 35. 6d. to 55. 8d. in the costs of production of each 

 quarter of Russian wheat; while in this country, where 

 the rent and taxes are valued (in the Mark Lane Ex- 

 press figures) at no less than 40$. per each wheat- 

 growing acre, and the crop is taken at thirty bushels, 

 the rent amounts to IDS. in the costs of production of 

 each quarter.* But even if we take only 305. per acre 

 of rent and taxes, and an average crop of twenty-eight 

 bushels, we still have 8s. 8d. out of the sale price of 

 each quarter of wheat, which goes to the landlord and 

 the State. If it costs so much more in money to grow 

 wheat in this country while the amount of labour is so 

 much less in this country than in Russia, it is due to the 

 very great height of the land rents attained during the 

 years 1860-1880. But this growth itself was due to the 

 facilities for realising large profits on the sale of manu- 

 factured goods abroad. The false condition of British 

 rural economy, not the infertility of the soil, is thus the 

 chief cause of the Russian competition. 



Much more ought to be said with regard to the 

 American competition, and therefore I must refer the 

 reader to the remarkable series of articles dealing with 

 the whole of the subject which Schaeffle published in 

 1886 in the Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Staatswis- 

 senschaft, and to a most elaborate article on the costs 

 of growing wheat all over the world which appeared in 

 April, 1887, in the Quarterly Review. The conclusions 

 of these two writers are fully corroborated by the yearly 

 reports of the American Board of Agriculture, and 

 Schaeffle's previsions were fully supported by the subse- 



* The rents have declined since 1887, but the prices of wheat also went 

 down. It must not be forgotten that as the best acres only are selected 

 for wheat-growing, the rent for each acre upon which wheat is grown 

 must be taken higher than the average rent per acre in a farm of from 

 200 to 300 acres. 



