September 8, 1898] 



NATURE 



439 



Before proceeding with my address I wish to refer to the 

 severe loss the British Association has sustained in the death of 

 Lord Playfair. With Sir John Lubbock and Lord Rayleigh, 

 Lord Playfair was one of the Permanent Trustees of our Asso- 

 ciation, and for many years he was present at our meetings. It 

 would be difficult to overrate his loss to British science. Lord 

 Playfair's well-matured and accurate judgment, his scientific 

 knowledge, and his happy gift of clothing weighty thoughts in 

 persuasive language, made his presence acceptable, whether in 

 the council chamber, in departmental inquiries, or at light 

 social gatherings, where by the singular laws of modern society, 

 momentous announcements are sometimes first given to the 

 world. Lord Playfair (then Sir Lyon Playfair) was President 

 of the British Association at Aberdeen in 1885 ; his address on 

 that occasion will long be remembered as a model of profound 

 learning and luminous exposition. 



And now I owe a sort of an apology to this brilliant audience. 

 I must ask you to bear with me for ten minutes, for I am afraid 

 what I now have to say will prove somewhat dull. I ought to 

 propitiate you, for to tell the truth, I am bound to bore you 

 with figures. Statistics are rarely attractive to a listening 

 audience ; but they are necessary evils, and those of this 

 evening are unusually doleful. Nevertheless when we have 

 proceeded a little way on our journey I hope you will see that 

 the river of figures is not hopelessly dreary. The stream leads 

 into an almost enexplored region, and to the right and left we 

 see channels opening out, all worthy of exploration, and 

 promising a rich reward to the statistic explorer who will trace 

 them to their source — a harvest, as Huxley expresses it " im- 

 mediately convertible into those things which the most sordidly 

 practical of men will admit to have value, namely, money and 

 life." My chief subject is of interest to the whole world — to 

 every race — to every human being. It is of urgent importance 

 to-day, and it is a life and death question for generations to 

 come. I mean the question of food supply. Many of my 

 statements you may think are of the alarmist order ; certainly 

 they are depressing, but they are founded on stubborn facts. 

 They show that England and all civilised nations stand in 

 deadly peril of not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply, 

 food resources dwindle. Land is a limited quantity, and the 

 land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on difficult 

 and capricious natural phenomena. I am constrained to show 

 that our wheat-producing soil is totally unequal to the strain put 

 upon it. After wearying you with a survey of the universal 

 dearth to be expected, I hope to point a way out of the colossal 

 dilemma. It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the 

 threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that 

 starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty. 



The food supply of the kingdom is of peculiar interest to this 

 meeting, considering that the grain trade has always been, and 

 still is, an important feature in the imports of Bristol. The 

 imports of grain to this city amount to about 25,000,000 bushels 

 per annum — 8,000,000 of which consist of wheat. 



What are our home requirements in the way of wheat ? The 

 consumption of wheat per head of the population (unit con- 

 sumption) is over 6 bushels per annum ; and taking the 

 population at 40,000,000, we require no less than 240,000,000 

 bushels of wheat, increasing annually by 2,000,000 bushels, to 

 supply the increase of population. Of the total amount of 

 wheat consumed in the United Kingdom we grow 25 and 

 import 75 per cent. 



So important is the question of wheat supply that it has 

 attracted the attention of Parliament, and the question of 

 national granaries has been mooted. It is certain that, in case 

 of war with any of the great Powers, wheat would be con- 

 traband, as if it were cannon or powdeiT, liable to capture even 

 under a neutral flag. We must therefore accept the situation 

 and treat wheat as munitions of war, and grow, accumulate, or 

 store it as such. It has been shown that at the best our stock 

 of wheat and flouramountsonly to 64,000,000 bushels — fourteen 

 weeks' supply — while last April our stock was equal to only 

 10,000,000 bushels, the smallest ever recorded by *' Beerbohm 

 for the period of the season. Similarly, the stocks held in 

 Europe, the United States, and Canada, called " the world's 

 visible supply," amounted to only 54,000,000 bushels, or 

 10,000,000 less than last year's sum total, and nearly 82,000,000 

 less than that of 1893 o"^ ^894 at the corresponding period. To 

 arrest this impending danger, it has been proposed that an 

 amount of 64,000,000 bushels of wheat should be purchased by 

 the State and stored in national granaries, not to be opened, 



NO. 1506, VOL. 58] 



except to remedy deterioration of grain, or in view of national 

 disaster rendering starvation imminent. This 64, 000,000 bushels 

 would add another fourteen weeks' life to the population ; 

 assuming that the ordinary stock had not been drawn on, the 

 wheat in the country would only then be enough to feed the 

 population for twenty-eight weeks. 



I do not venture to speak authoritatively on national granaries. 

 The subject has been discussed in the daily press, and the 

 recently published Report from the Agricultural Committee on 

 National Wheat Stores brings together all the arguments in 

 favour of this important scheme, together with the difficulties to 

 be faced if it be carried out with necessary completeness. 



More hopeful, although difficult and costly, would be the 

 alternative of growing most, if not all our own wheat supply 

 here at home in the British Isles. The average yield over the 

 United Kingdom last year was 29*07 bushels per acre, the 

 average for the last eleven years being 29*46. For twelve 

 months we need 240,000,000 bushels of wheat, requiring about 

 8,250,000 acres of good wheat-growing land, or nearly 13,000 

 square miles, increasing at the rate of 1 00 square miles per 

 annum, to render us self-supporting as to bread food. This area 

 is about one-fourth the size of England. 



A total area of land in the United Kingdom equal to a plot 

 no miles square, of quality and climate sufficient to grow 

 wheat to the extent of 29 bushels per acre, does not seem a 

 hopeless demand. ^ It is doubtful, however, if this amount of 

 land could be kept under wheat, and the necessary expense of 

 high farming faced, except under the imperious pressure of 

 impending starvation, or the stimulus of a national subsidy or 

 permanent high prices. Certainly these 13,000 square miles 

 would not be available under ordinary economic conditions, for 

 much, perhaps all, the land now under barley and oats would 

 not be suitable for wheat. In any case, owing to our cold, 

 damp climate and capricious weather, the wheat crop is 

 hazardous, and for the present our annual deficit of 180,000,000 

 bushels must be imported. A permanently higher price for 

 wheat is, I fear, a calamity that ere long must be faced. At 

 enhanced prices, land now under wheat will be better farmed, 

 and therefore will yield better, thus giving increased productior> 

 without increased area. 



The burning question of to-day is. What can the United 

 Kingdom do to be reasonably safe from starvation in presence 

 of two successive failures of the world's wheat harvest, or 

 against a hostile combination of European nations ? We eagerly 

 spend millions to protect our coasts and commerce ; and millions 

 more on ships, explosives, guns, and men ; but we omit to take 

 necessary precautions to supply ourselves with the very first and 

 supremely important munition of war — food. 



To take up the question of food-supply in its scientific aspect, 

 I must not confine myself exclusively to our own national re- 

 quirements. The problem is not restricted to the British Isles — 

 the bread-eaters of the whole world share the perilous prospect 

 — and I do not think it out of place if on this occasion I ask 

 you to take with me a wide, general survey of the wheat supply 

 of the whole world. 



Wheat is the most sustaining food grain of the great Caucasian 

 race, which includes the peoples of Europe, United States, 

 British America, the white inhabitants of South Africa, 

 Australasia, parts of South America, and the white population 

 of the European colonies. Of late years the individual con- 

 sumption of wheat has almost universally increased. In 

 Scandinavia it has risen 100 per cent, in twenty-five years ; in 

 Austro- Hungary, 80 per cent. ; in France, 20 per cent. ; while 

 in Belgium it has increased 50 per cent. Only in Russia and 

 Italy, and possibly Turkey, has the consumption of wheat per 

 head declined. 



In 1871 the bread-eaters of the world numbered 371,000,000. 

 In 1881 the numbers rose to 416,000,000; in 1891, to 

 472,600,000, and at the present time they number 516,500,000. 

 The augmentation of the world's bread-eating population in a 

 geometrical ratio is evidenced by the fact that the yearly 

 aggregates grow progressively larger. In the early seventies 

 they rose 4,300,000 per annum, while in the eighties they 

 increased by more than 6,000,000 per annum, necessitating 

 annual additions to the bread supply nearly one-half greater 

 than sufficed twenty-five years ago. 



How much wheat will be required to supply all these hungry 

 mouths with bread ? At the present moment it is not possible 



1 The total area of the United Kingdom is 120,979 square miles ; there- 

 fore the required land is about a tenth part of the total. ^^ _ . 



