THE WORLD'S WHEAT TRADE 79 



wheat supplies. Increased population has been 

 accompanied by increased wheat acreage. The 

 preface to the Agricultural Statistics of the Board 

 of Agriculture for 1911, recently published, shows 

 that comparing the aggregate of the returns of all 

 wheat eating countries, where available, popula- 

 tion has increased 13 per cent, since 1901 and 

 the wheat area of the world 229 per cent. That 

 these figures cannot themselves form the basis of 

 a conclusion is fully realised by the Govern- 

 ment statistian. Consumption of wheat per head 

 and yield per acre, as we have seen, vary widely ; 

 an increase of population in a country where 

 consumption of wheat per capita is high being of 

 greater moment than where it is low, and equally, 

 an increase of wheat acreage in, let us say, the 

 United Kingdom with its average yield of thirty- 

 one bushels per acre is of far greater import- 

 ance than the same increase in one of the newer 

 countries. The great variations in the acreage 

 yield of the surplus-wheat-producing countries 

 cannot fail to make the supply more unstable. In 

 the development of American agriculture, the 

 constant aim to make the farmer less dependent 

 on the bulk products of agriculture and especially 

 to find alternative crops for wheat, the sale of 

 which depends on a limited market, has been 

 noticed. Apart from the increased home demand 

 for the concentrated food products in all the 



