334 A FARMER'S YEAR 



3,000,000. It appears, therefore, that we grow less than half of 

 the wheat that we grew fifty years ago, although the number of 

 mouths to eat it has multiplied enormously. 



It will, I think, be admitted that this cumulative result is due 

 purely to the fact that wheat production no longer pays.* If the 

 nation wishes to be assured of a home supply sufficient to its needs, 

 the remedy lies in its own hands. But while wheat comes in 

 without let or hindrance and at very cheap rates from abroad it is 

 not probable that the matter will be so much as taken into con- 

 sideration. My own view, indeed, is that in face of the pitiful price 

 commanded by this cereal and the rapid shrinkage of the supply 

 of labour necessary to grow it, the cultivation of wheat should be 

 abandoned wherever possible, and replaced by the cultivation of 

 grass. 



The question of our home stock, however, occupies but a 

 fractional part of Sir William Crookes's address. Ranging from 

 land to land, he surveys the wheat-producing capacity of them all, 

 and comes to the distressing conclusion that very shortly it will 

 be impossible for the world to produce the corn which it requires. 

 This is a point upon which I cannot pretend to argue, especially 

 with an eminent authority who has made a study of the subject. 



But when it comes to the case of South Africa I may perhaps 

 venture an opinion. Sir W. Crookes says, ' At the present time 

 South Africa is an importer of wheat, and the regions suitable 

 to cereals do not exceed a few million acres.' It is true that South 

 Africa imports wheat, for the simple reason that the population 

 there is too lazy to grow corn. I should say, however, that the 

 land suitable to the production of cereals in this vast territory — 

 and from Northern Rhodesia to the Cape it is vast almost beyond 

 reckoning — might be measured by millions and millions of acres, 

 upon which, if necessary, enough grain could be grown to feed a 

 continent. 



' The returns for 1898 show that the wheat area has increased to 2,102,220 

 acres, doubtless owing to the higher price which this cereal commanded during 

 the winter of 1897 and the early spring of 1S98. 



