No. 1. 



The Question of Breadstuff's. 



11 



accordinoly as wheat or oats are substituted. 

 So that whether the potatoe crop be good or 

 bad this year is an unimportant matter, when 

 the fact of the extent to which the cultiva- 

 tion of the potatog has been abandoned, is 

 brougiit under consideration. By the first 

 table in the article, it will be teen that 

 2,560,000 acres usually planted with the 

 potatuc, are this year devoted to other pur- 

 poses, principally to the Swedish turnip, so 

 that the articles substituted will not be of 

 much value in sustaining human life. The 

 crop of potatoes in Great Britain last year, 

 bad as it was, yielded over 12,000,000 tons 

 of good tubers. In this year I find but 840,000 

 acres planted. So that admitting this land 

 produces 400 bushels to the acre of good 

 sound potatoes, the yield will still be less 

 than that of last year"by more than 3,000,000 

 tons. If the plants prove diseased, the defi- 

 ciency will be increased the amount of the 

 disease — hence it will require 1,300,000 

 acres of oats, or 1,000,000 acres of wheat 

 to have been cultivated over the usual quan- 

 tity, to place this country in as good a posi- 

 tion as she occupied at the gathering in of 

 the harvest last year, as well as the diflljr- 

 ence between the amount of stock on hand 

 last June and this June. Official documents 

 furnish me with the following figures: 



Stock on hand— June 5th, 1846. June Ifith, 1847. 



Equivalent in grain qrs. 2,226,710 



qrs. 27,694 



The same documents enable me to give 

 the amount of grain, &c., taken for consump- 

 tion from June 5th, 1845, to June 5th, 1846, 

 and from June 5th, 1846 to 1847 — as per 

 under — 



Foreign grain and flour taken into consumption from 

 June 5, '45 to '46. June 5, '46 to '47. 



Wheat qrs. 99,162 qrs. 2,.'520,793 



Barley 97,361 846,166 



Oats 477,309 1,444,531 



Rye 5 18,474 



Peas 90,714 223,994 



Beans 184,559 342,413 



Indian Corn 184,048 1,802,384 



Buckwheat 223 37,975 



Flour cwt. 726,132 cwt. 4,824.875 



Barley Meal 20,099 



Oatmeal 65,846 16,880 



Rye Meal 2,629 



Indian Meal 383,664 



Buckwheat Meal 296 



Equivalent to total 

 Grain, qrs. 1,359.388 



qrs. 8,435,730 



Showing that no less than 8,43.5,730 qrs, 

 — equal to the produce of 2,000,000 acres 

 of land — of foreign grain have been con- 

 sumed during the past year. The aggre- 

 gate imports from June .5th, 1846, to June 

 5th, 1847, have been as tbliows: 



Stock on hand June 5th, 1846, 



Deduct quantity consumed 



qrs. 6,692,709 

 2,226,710 



8,919,419 

 8,435,730 



leaving qrs. 483,689 



now on hand. So that the diflference between 

 the past and the coming twelve months may 

 be summed up thus: 



Deficiency in yield of potatoe crop Tons 3,000,001) 

 Difi'erence between amount of 



foreign grain on hand, June 



5ih, '46 and June 5lh, '47, Qrs. 1,743,021 



From the first item, however, must be de- 

 ducted the produce of the 2,560,000 acres 

 hitherto appropriated to the potatoe, and 

 principally now to the cultivation of the 

 turnip, carrot, and other green crops, which, 

 so far as food for mankind is concerned, is of 

 little value. Looking fairly at all these 

 tables and calculations, I am led to believe 

 that the demand for breadstuff's, from the 

 United States, which probably amounted the 

 past year to about one half the quantity 

 brought into the United Kingdom, will be 

 fully as great the coming season as the past. 



For much of the foregoing information I 

 am indebted to the London Economist, which 

 publication has lately devoted much space 

 to the subject of the potatoe, its cultivation, 

 and probable e.xtinguishment. 



A few evenings since Lord John Russell 

 in an able speech on the Irish Railway Bill, 

 eA'pi-essed his belief that the potatoe would 

 fail this year, as it had done for the past two 

 years, and that the famine which had already 

 cut otf hundreds of thousands of human 

 beings, was, as yet, in its infancy. In ad- 

 verting to the prospective condition of Ire- 

 land, he made use of the following language : 

 "Take the condition in which Ireland may 

 be in future. Some people say that the 

 quantity of potatoes planted this year is one- 

 fourth, one-fifth, or one-sixth, of the usual 

 quantity. But whatever may be the amount, 

 the potatoe crop is in the utmost peril. There 

 is at least a reasonable fear that a great 

 portion of that crop may perish. The peo- 

 ple, however, though there was not that ap- 

 pearance for some time, have exerted them- 

 selves latterly with great industry to sow 

 the ground that hitherto produced potatoes, 

 with different kinds of corn, and a great 

 deal of land has been sown with turnips, 

 which will produce a far greater amount cf 



