UNPROSPEROUS SEASONS 267 



3,160,000 acres, and the produce, adopting Young's average rate, 

 would be 9,480,000 quarters. In other words, while the population 

 had increased by three millions, the wheat production had increased 

 by only one million quarters. This calculation, however, allows 

 nothing for the increased productiveness of the soil under improved 

 management, does not take into account the surplus wheat obtain- 

 able from Scotland and Ireland, and is at first sight contradicted by 

 the large acreage which enclosures had added to the cultivated area. 

 Evidence indeed exists to prove that the first effect of enclosures 

 of open-field farms was often to diminish the corn area. Against 

 this decrease must be set the quantity of land which, under the spur 

 of the high prices of the Napoleonic war, were brought under the 

 plough and tilled for corn. Comber's calculation of the wheat area 

 appears to be extremely low ; but it is impossible to prove the 

 suspected under-estimate. It is probably safe to say that, while in 

 an average season enough wheat was grown in England and Wales 

 to feed ten million people, the surplus was so small as to expose the 

 country to panic prices whenever a deficiency in the normal yield 

 was anticipated. 



This conclusion is confirmed by a closer examination of the yield 

 of corn harvests during the period. The seasons from 1765 to 1815 

 were far less favourable than those from 1715 to 1764 ; the former 

 were as uniformly prosperous as the latter were uniformly adverse. 

 Both in this country, and throughout Europe, the harvests of 

 1765-67, 1770-74, fell much below the average. Prices rose high. 

 Exports dwindled, and imports increased in volume. 1 In the 

 decennial period 1765-1774, for the first time in the history of 

 English farming, imports of foreign wheat exceeded the home- 

 grown exports. Since that period they have never lost their pre- 

 ponderance. For the next eighteen years (1775-1792) the seasons 

 were irregular. Thus the harvest of 1779 was long famous for its 

 productiveness. On the other hand, the years 1782-3-4 were most 

 unfavourable, the winters unusually severe, and the spring and 

 summer cold and ungenial. There was a general scarcity of food. 

 In 1782 the imports of wheat (584,183 quarters) were the largest 

 yet known, and the figure was only once (1796 : 879,200 quarters) 



1 1765-74, Exports (in round numbers) 510,000 quarters ; imports, 1,341,000, 

 1775-84, exports, 1,366,100 ; imports, 1,972,000. 1785-94, exports, 1,305,385 ; 

 imports, 2,015,000. 1795-1804, exports, 536,000; imports, 6,686,000. 1805- 

 14, exports, 593,000 (nine years only, the records of 1813 having been 

 destroyed) ; imports, 6,782,000. 



