FOOD AND POPULATION. 



in a lv.iaciii? prices, altliou^li they were— reapectively— 59,000,000 and 93,000,000 busliela 

 below tbo average. Indeed, the price continued to fall, tlie average (gold) price per 

 bushel lor tlie year (in England) dropping from ifl.OT iu 1SS4 to 99 cents in 1885, and 

 then to 94 cents in 1880. On the otlier IkukI, when aocumul;«tions have been exhausted, 

 as after the world, in the Inirvest of 1890, liad garnered a crop 50,000 000 bushels above the 

 average; so greiit has been the growth of population, so small the increase af acreage and 

 product and so complete the exhaustion of the reserves that the piice at which the great 

 crop of 1890 has been sold will average 25 per cent greater than that received for the defi- 

 cient one of 1889, which was 137 000 000 bushels less but was supplemented by the residue 

 of the reserves accumulated in the earlier part of the ninth decatle and from the great 

 crop of 1887, which was the largest ever produced. 



From the best data obtainable the world appears to have priniuced, during each of 

 the past ten years, the quantity of wheat stated in the following table: 



YEAR 



BUSHELS 

 OF WHEAT 



1881. 1,977 000 OOO 



1882 2,263 000,000 



1883 2,0-i0,000 000 



1884 2,26:!,000,000 



1885 2,077,000,000 



YEAR 



BUSHELS 

 OF WHKAT 



188(i 2 043.000,000 



1887 2,2H7,000.000 



1888 2,183.0011,000 



1889 2 048,000,000 



1890 2,185,000,000 



Yearly average, 1881 to 1885 inclusive 2.126,000,000 bushels 



1886 to 1890 " 2 145,000,000 bushels 



" " for the decade 2.130,000.000 bushels 



While in the eighth decade the relative increase in wheat acreage and population 

 was as four is to three the increase in the ninth was in the inverse ratio of one to six. 



In the eighth decade the per capita quota of land in wheat increased 3.8 per cent., 

 yet in the ninth it diminished 10.2 per cent, and is now 7 per cent, less thun in 1870. 



During the eighth decade the area in all food staples— exclusive of the United States 

 — increased but 9,375,000 acres, being 2.2 per cent., as against an increase in the bread- 

 eating populations — also exclusive of the United States — ^of 29,400,000, or 9.2 per cent., the 

 ratio being as one is to four and a half. 



During the ninth decade the area in all food staples— exclusive of the United States 

 — increased but 9,011,000 acres, being 2 per cent., as against an increasein the bread-eating 

 populations — also exclusive of the United States — of 43,700,000, or 11.1 percent., the ratio 

 being as one is to five and a half. 



During the twenty years from 1870 to 1890 the area in si;aple food products iu the 

 temperate zones — exclusive of the United States — increased but 18 386,000 acres, being 4.4 

 per cent., as against an increase in the bread-eaters — also exclusive of the United States — 

 of 73,100,000 or 22.8 per cent., the ratio being as one is to five. 



Including the acreage and population of the United States the world's increase of 

 area under the staple food crops of the temperate zones has during the last twenty years, 

 been 100,580 000 acres and the rate of increase 20.4 per cent, as against an increase in the 

 bread-eating populations of 27 per cent., the ratio beiugasthreeistofour. The aggregates 

 and per centages of such increase and the acreage quota of eai h unit of the bread-eating 

 populations at the end of each of three decennial periods have been as shown in the fol- 

 lowing table: 



The increase in acreage, during the eighth decade, was one-tenth greater than the 

 iucrca.se in population and the lesnlt low prices for farm products and a gi'eat. shrinkage 

 in land values the world ovei'. 



During the ninth decade, on the contrary, population increased at a ratedouble that 



