OF AGRICULTURE. 85 



in 1887 ? The answer is plain : merely and 

 simply because agriculture had fallen into 

 neglect. 



In fact, the area under wheat had been 

 reduced since 1853-1860 by fuU 1,590,000 acres, 

 and therefore the average crop of the years 

 1883-1886 was below the average crop of 

 1853-1860 by more than 40,000,000 bushels; 

 and this deficit alone represented the food of 

 more than 7,000,000 inhabitants. At the same 

 time the area under barley, oats, beans, and 

 other spring crops had also been reduced by a 

 further 560,000 acres, which, alone, at the low 

 average of thirty bushels per acre, would have 

 represented the cereals necessary to complete 

 the above, for the same 7,000,000 inhabitants. 

 It can thus be said that if the United Kingdom 

 imported cereals for 17,000,000 inhabitants in 

 1887, instead of for 10,000,000 in 1860, it was 

 simply because more than 2,000,000 acres had 

 gone out of cultivation.* 



These facts are well known ; but usually they 



* Average area under wheat in 1853-1860, 4,092,160 acres; 

 average crop, 14,310,779 quarters. Average area under wheat 

 in 1884-1887, 2,509,055 acres ; average crop (good years), 

 9,198,956 quarters. See Professor W. Fream's Rothamstead 

 Experiments (London, 1888), page 83. I take in the above Sir 

 John Lawes' figure of 5*65 bushels per head of population 

 every year. It is very close to the yearly allowance of 5'67 

 bushels of the French statisticians. The Russian statisticians 

 reckon 5'67 bushels of winter crops (chiefly rye) and 2*5 bushels 

 of spring crops (sarrazin, barley, etc.). 



