306 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



imports. The familiar story of the distress among the unemployed 

 British operatives need not here be retold. In the consumption of 

 cotton on the Continent, France took the lead, consuming about 

 one-quarter as much as Great Britain. Germany was second, with 

 Russia, Holland, Spain, and the other minor countries and ports 

 following. In 1860, as has just been stated, three-fourths of this 

 cotton came from America, to disappear practically with the open- 

 ing of the war ; but here again, as in the case of Great Britain, 

 on account of increased importations from other countries, the 

 yearly consumption did not fall off equally with American impor- 

 tations. Roughly speaking, the different Continental countries suc- 

 ceeded throughout the war in getting for use 50 per cent of the 

 usual amount. There was distress among the French operatives, 

 as in England, but not to so great an extent. 



Great Britain's wheat crop (exclusive of the crop of the islands 

 of the British seas), which in 1858 and 1859 averaged 16,000,000 

 quarters annually, in 1860 fell to 13,135,124 quarters, in 1861 to 

 11,078,948 quarters, in 1862 to 12,271,546 quarters, in 1863 to 

 13,957,554 quarters. In 1864 it rose to 17,922,048 quarters. 

 The average yearly price per quarter in 1860, 1861, and 1862 

 rose to 535. 3d., 555. 4d., and 555. 5d. For three successive 

 years the country's grain crops were failures, and she was forced 

 to import twice as much grain as usual. In the emergency it was 

 the United States, at war, that supplied the new demand, the 

 same United States that had cut off the cotton. Great Britain 

 was astonished. In 1861, the year when American cotton ceased 

 to arrive in Great Britain, the British imports of American wheat 

 and wheat flour were 36,000,000 bushels, three times more than 

 ever before; in 1862, 37,000,000 bushels. The lowest point 

 during the war was in 1864, 20,000,000 bushels. Russia and 

 Germany were the other great granaries of Great Britain, but the 

 shipments of wheat and wheat flour from the one country to Great 

 Britain actually fell off in 1861, 1862, and 1863 ; while those of 

 the other increased, and that but slightly, only in one year, 1862. 



French importations to Great Britain in wheat and wheat flour, 

 usually ranking next after those from Germany and Russia, in 

 the first three years of the war fell off enormously, being only 25 



