AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST 307 



per cent, of what they were in 1 860, for the sufficient reason that 

 France also, along with Great Britain and all of southern Europe, 

 suffered crop reverses in 1861. The French crop in this year 

 was 25,765,000 quarters, as compared with an average yearly crop 

 of 32,000,000 quarters in 1858, 1859, and i860. Importations, 

 which in 1858, 1859, and i860 had averaged about 400,000 

 quarters, suddenly rose to almost 5,400,000 quarters in 1861. 

 Of these increased importations from one-third to one-half came 

 from the United States. The American shipments to France 

 before 1 86 1 were practically nothing ; but in the year following 

 the poor harvests they were 10,000,000 bushels of wheat and 

 wheat flour, 5,000,000 bushels the next year. 



Our Northern press and the public watched with keen interest 

 these foreign shipments of grain. They noted that, when the 

 British and Continental crops were poor, our own chanced to be 

 unprecedentedly abundant ; and they universally believed that these 

 shipments played a large part in preventing foreign recognition 

 of the Confederacy. The reasoning was most frequently applied 

 to Great Britain, inasmuch as Americans in general were well 

 acquainted with the situation there. American grain was more 

 important to the British than American cotton, reasoned the 

 Northerners. If Great Britain attempted to secure more of the 

 latter by breaking the blockade, her receipts of the former would 

 be materially lessened by the resulting war with the United States. 

 This deficiency other nations were not in a position to make 

 up any more quickly than that in cotton ; and the resulting very 

 high prices of food, going far beyond the prevailing high prices 

 of 1862, and involving the whole kingdom, would be far more 

 serious than a partial loss of work in a single district. Our large 

 American harvests, therefore, were peculiarly fortunate, for, in 

 addition to supplying our wants at home, they affected powerfully 

 our international relations. 



The same considerations apply to our relations with France, 

 though not so forcibly. The French crops, in the first place, were 

 poor but in a single year, not, as in Great Britain, for three years. 

 The French importations were not nearly so large as the British, 

 and prices in France did not go so high. Moreover, the cotton 



