THE HOME MARKET 297 



question could be raised of taxing bread, or of raising 

 the price of the loaf to the consumer, for the reason 

 that the bounties would always keep the price of 

 wheat steady and as low as possible. The cultivating 

 owner, by means of the bounty, would prosper, and the 

 land be restored to a high state of cultivation.^ 



If some political economist could work out the 

 financial results of this operation it would be interest- 

 ing. He would have to put on the one side the 

 amount of the bounties, 10^ millions sterling plus the 

 loss of the crops (whatever they may have been) 

 which the extra acreage bore before it was cultivated 

 in wheat, and also the additional cost of cultivation. 

 On the credit side there would be assets (reckoning 

 the yield at 30 bushels an acre and 30s. a quarter) 

 of about 39j- millions sterling for the wheat, about 

 9 millions (a low estimate) for straw,^ and a proportion- 

 ate sum for offal. The loss on offal in connection 

 with imported flour, is too often overlooked. At a 

 meeting of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, a 

 table of calculations was presented by Mr. T. G. Read, 



^ To make the calculation short and plain, the bounty is reckoned at 

 so much per acre. But it might equally well be given in the form of so 

 many shillings per quarter of wheat, so that it might be a premium on 

 good farming and increased production. 



^ Landlords frequently forbid the sale of straw, as it is considered 

 that the fertility of the farm is lessened thereby, which is no doubt the 

 case if no substitutes are used. All depends on the situation of the 

 farm. If it is within carting distance of a populous centre the farmer 

 can sell his straw at a much higher price than its manurial value, indeed, 

 at such a price as would enable him, even now, to grow wheat at a 

 profit. In any case the farmer who cultivated his own land could act as 

 he thought best in the matter. 



Mr. Moreton Frewen states : " The French theory is that cheap food 

 is the resultant of a cheaply fertilized soil, in other words of cows and 

 straw stacks, . . . that with straw enough and cows enough you can have 

 endless cheap beef, mutton, and pork, cheap dairy produce, and cheap 

 poultry."— Letter to the "Times,'' March 4th, 1904. 



