September 20, 1900] 



NATURE 



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inhabitants the United Kingdom is now one actually greater 

 by 2,ooo,ocx3 persons than is France. This is an increase 

 of more than 30 per cent., while the surface under 

 wheat has heavily fallen, the main loss occurring under 

 circumstances which have been amply discussed between 

 1879 and 1895. With some revival, as in America, consequent 

 on an improvement of price in recent years, the slight apparent 

 decline I have shown in the cultivation of oats is in fact con- 

 fined to Ireland, the area in Great Britain being greater than 

 at the beginning of the period. The cattle stock of the United 

 Kingdom is increased by some 23 per cent., and the swine by 

 about 8 per cent., while our flocks of sheep have been main- 

 tained at a level far exceeding that of other European States, 

 and distinctive in a peculiar manner of the agriculture of Great 

 Britain, for they still represent, as it appears, on the average 400 

 sheep to every 1000 acres of land, against 164 in France, 81 in 

 Germany, 32 in Belgium, and 17 in the United States. 



Passing to a comparison with another great country, which, 

 like the United States, is a typical exporter of more than 

 one form of agricultural produce, it may be asked how far 

 the available statistics of Russia allow such information to be 

 furnished. For the earliest of the three years contrasted the 

 dates from the Russian empire are meagre and unsatisfactory. 

 Poland must be excluded as blank in our statistics at that time, 

 while as regards animals no figures at all would appear to have 

 been made public for any of the last twelve years. With such 

 qualifications as these, the available data for the nearest year in 

 the larger crops stood as under :— 



1 In 1872. •■! In 1883. 3 Census of 1897. ■* In 1888. 



Thirty years ago the population of European Russia, ex 

 Poland, would appear from such data as we possess to have 

 been estimated in round numbers at under sixty-six million 

 persons. It is given as somewhere about eighty-two millions in 

 1885, and according to the recent census it is ninety-four 

 millions now. The bread corn of the country continues to be 

 much more largely rye than wheat, and the area in the year 

 1872, for which statistics are available, occupied by the former 

 crop was practically an acre to the person, or in all 66,400,000 

 acres, less than half an acre per inhabitant, or 29,000,000 acres, 

 being under wheat. The combined surface devoted to these 

 two bread grains together was thus 95,000,000 acres in the 

 aggregate, or 145 acres to every 100 persons. 



Fifteen years later, when the population was apparently 

 greater by 16,000,000 persons, or 24 per cent., the statistics of 

 rye acreage indicate 2,000,000 acres less than before, or 

 64,600,000 acres. The wheat acreage, if the official data be 

 accepted, was little if at all in excess of the 1872 figure, the rye 

 and wheat together roughly giving 115 acres to iio persons. 

 The suggestion of this decline, while the exports of both grains 

 were maintained or extended, affords an opportunity for closer 

 inquiry into the basis of the published returns which are 

 received from that country. 



But carrying the review of the official figures further, the 

 very latest data for this section of the Russian territory would 

 appear to indicate a yet further shrinkage in the acreage of 

 rye, but accompanied now, as was apparently not the case 

 until lately, by a considerable increase in land under 

 wheat. The total of this cereal is now put as high 

 as 38,000,000 acres, but the net available area of 

 bread-stuffs, although brought up to 101,000,000 acres, 

 represents a still diminishing ratio to population, or 

 107 acres to every 100 persons. Moreover, as Russia must 

 be regarded as growing both wheat and rye for export as well 

 as consumption, the larger proportions of her acreage which is 

 employed in feeding a non- Russian population deserve to be 



NO. 161 2, VOL. 62] 



specially marked in this connection, when the low yields of both 

 cereals are remembered. 



Whether the foregoing figures do indeed represent the facts of 

 each period is, I think, a worthy object of inquiry for some of 

 our younger statisticians, and it is a problem one would like to 

 see solved as regards this particular country before venturing on 

 any too confident conclusion as to what is the real meaning of 

 the changes of the past, and what may be the future position in 

 regard to the growth of bread-stuffs and the growth of population 

 in the world as a whole. 



Calculations, hotvever, such as those just quoted cannot fail 

 to remind the student how very different in productive power the 

 "acre " of wheat may be, and is, in different countries. Assuming 

 that we take the existence of 38,000,000 acres as reported of 

 wheat land in Russia in Europe (if jr Poland) to be proved, a com- 

 parison of the estimated yields shows that such an area repre- 

 sents less than 12,000,000 acres of the productive power we are 

 accustomed to in Great Britain. So, too, for the vast wheat 

 area of the United States, it takes two and a third acres to pro- 

 duce what is now our average yield in this country. Three 

 Indian or three Italian acres of wheat of the calibre now in use 

 would in the same way be required to supply the number of 

 bushels that a single acre of our soil in the climate we enjoy, 

 and worked under the system of farming that we practise here, 

 would in ordinary seasons produce. In other extensive areas of 

 wheat-growing the yields, though greater than the above, are 

 very considerably below our own, the Austrian, Hungarian and 

 French yields standing at 16, 17 and 18 bushels respectively, 

 against the 30 bushels which is apparently the average yield of 

 the last five years in the United Kingdom. Only when we 

 come to very small total areas do we find instances where the 

 average wheat yields approach or over any considerable periods 

 exceed our own. When Denmark, for example, is referred to 

 as reaching 42 bushels per acre in the season of 1896, it is not 

 to be forgotten that only a minute area of selected land, in this 

 case only 84,000 acres, is devoted to this cereal. Results 

 realised on this small scale can hardly be spoken of as an average 

 in contrast with those of countries where millions of acres are 

 grown, and can usually be paralleled in some sections of the 

 bigger country. 



Nor should it be forgotten, if the agricultural position of one 

 State be compared with another, how widely the conditions of 

 different parts vary from the picture presented by the average 

 figures credited to the State as a unit, and how often sections of 

 one country differ more from each other agriculturally than from 

 the country with which they are contrasted. Within the United 

 Kingdom alone we are, or ought to be, familiar with essential 

 local differences of this type, which have to be kept in mind. 

 Even in respect of the relative density of population and the 

 number of mouths to be sustained in a given area, it may be 

 quite correct to describe every 1000 acres in the United King- 

 dom as carrying on their surface on the average 519 persons, 

 but it may be remembered with advantage that, considered 

 geographically apart, Scotland, for example, is a country of but 

 220 persons, and Ireland of but 219, to the looo acres of area. 



Such a position suggests that it might be fair to draw our 

 agricultural comparisons between Scotland or Ireland as units of 

 area, and such a country as Denmark, where the population is 

 248 to the 1000 acres. Thus one-third of the cereal area of 

 England is still devoted to the growth of wheat, while Denmark 

 has but 3 per cent, so occupied, thereby resembling Scotland or 

 Ireland, where some 4 per cent, only of the corn is wheat. 

 Similarly, on this population basis, Austria with 320 persons, or 

 Switzerland with 312, to the lOoo acres may be not inappropri- 

 ately classed with Wales, where the density is 345. In parti- 

 cular, an examination of the live stock maintained by each 1000 

 acres of the surface in all these cases affords parallels and 

 contrasts which are both interesting and instructive. (For 

 table, see p. 512.) 



Thus Wales bears easily the palm as regards the total stock 

 of sheep carried, while Ireland, with a population practically 

 bearing a similar ratio to that of Scotland to her surface, has 

 more than three times as dense a stock of cattle and more than 

 eight times as many pigs, although not much more than half as 

 many sheep to the 1000 acres. Although beaten a5 regards the 

 number of pigs maintained on a given area by Denmark and by 

 Hungary, Ireland's cattle are more than twice as numerous 

 relatively as those of France, where the population is not so 

 very different in proportion to the soil. 



