10 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



iQu alone, at present prices, exceeds one hundred mil- 

 lion dollars, and has increased over 800 per cent, in 

 ihirty years. If laborers can be had to pick this 

 vciivtabie wool (it has all to be gathered by hand, 

 dill the crop is now full three thousand five hundred 

 ]niilion pounds of seed cotton a year), our annual ex- 

 port will soon reach $200,000,000 of this article 

 alone. 



Kugland, which is so large a purchaser of cotton, 

 U becoming a vciy liberal consumer of American 

 l)readstuifs. Jler commercial ^yants in this line have 

 never been stucUed in this country so closely as they 

 deserve ; and we can hardly render the farming com- 

 munity a better service than to point out the intimate 

 relations which are so rapidly growing up between 

 the wheat and corn fields of the United States and 

 the gi'eat commercial and manufacturing towns of 

 Great Britain. 



McQ^iieen's Statistics of the British Empire gives 

 the quantity of cultivated land in Enghxnd at 25,- 

 630,000 acres ; of these he computes that about 

 three-fifths, or 1.0,379,200 acres, were pasture and 

 meadow, and two-fifths, or 10,252,800 acres, were gar- 

 den and arable. He calculates the average value of 

 the whole to be twenty-five shillings per acra I'his 

 is an annual rental of about six dollars, and equal to 

 an average of two hundred dollars per acre, paying 

 three per cent, interest in perpetuity. 



There are at this time not far from two inhabitants 

 to one arable acre in England — a fact of gi-eat im- 

 portance to the land-holders of this country. In our 

 researches into the statistics of Great Britain, we 

 learn from Porter that the annual consumption of 

 grain in the manufacture of beer (involving the use 

 of land on which to grow barley and hops) is greater 

 in England than in any other country. We have not 

 the volume at hand from which to copy the exact 

 ngiues, but we have given them in another work, as 

 ■ve!l as evidence that in some orphan asylums more 

 'rallons of beer are given to young children than 

 of milk ! 



The ofiBcial returns to Parliament show that the 

 average importations of wheat into the United King- 

 dom, during the last twelve yeai-s, were 32,000,000 

 bushels per annum ; and during the four years of 

 1849, 1850, 1851, and 1852, the annual average was 

 over 40,000,000 bushels; while the crops of this gi-ain 

 grown at home were a full average. The London 

 Bankers^ Magazine, with the best means of being 

 well informed on the subject, makes the following re- 

 marks : "The average annual production of wheat 

 bv this country being about 24,000,000 quarters 

 [192,000,000 bushels], there will be a deficiency of 

 about 5,000,000 quarters. If to this we add the 

 deficiency that must necessarily arise from the very 

 limited breadth of land sown with wheat — probably 

 nearly one-fifth — and that an importation of 8,000,000 

 quarters has been on an average required and ob- 

 tained for the last few years, it will be seen that we 

 shall require the astounding quantity of neariy 18,- 

 000,000 quarters of wheat during the period inter- 

 vening between the harvests of 1853 and 1854." A 

 quarter being about eight bushels, eighteen million 

 quarters of wheat are one hundred and forty-four mil- 

 lion bushels, to be imported in one year. 



While we regard this as an over-estimate, it is 



proper to say that the lowest one which we have seen 

 is in ihQ'Mark Lane Express. It is sixty-four mil- 

 lion bushels. Tliat old and most reliable journal has 

 discussed " The Wheat Trade " during tlie last few 

 months with characteristic clearness and ability. The 

 following remarks deserve the attention of American 

 fanners : " It is now a well-known and admitted fact 

 that the supply of wheat from Northern Europe has 

 for some years been declining in quantity. Many 

 causes have contributed to produce this falling otF; 

 but we will mention only four of these as being of a 

 permanent character, and likely still further to dimin- 

 ish the exporting power. The first of these is the 

 fact that the poi^ulation of Europe has increased to 

 the extent of from 80 to 100 miUions since the peace 

 of 1815, and consequently there must have been a 

 corresponding increase of consumption." 



The writer is too prolix for our limited space to be 

 copied entire ; and we will attempt to express his 

 idciis in fewer words. The second cause is tliis : The 

 Austrian, llussian, Prussian, Belgian, and French 

 governments are now, and have been for some years, 

 trying to render their respective nations more inde- 

 pendent of all others for the sugar needed for home 

 consumption. To attain this important object, a good 

 deal of arable land and farm labor has been diverted 

 from grain-culture to the business of gi-owing Silesian 

 beets, and the mainifacture of sugar. This is preferred 

 to the growing of wheat for foreign consumption. 



The third cause is the operation of the landwehr, 

 or conscription law, now generally adopted by the 

 continental nations, by virtue of which every male 

 subject, except ecclesiastics, when he arrives at the 

 age of twenty, is bound to seri'e three years in a regi- 

 ment of the line as a private soldier. To teach eveiy 

 youth the trade of a soldier is a system admirably 

 calculated to beget habits of idleness, dissipation, and 

 vagabondism, most undriendly to sober, steady farm 

 labor in after life. 



A fourth cause is the subdivision of the land into 

 small proprietaries, which has been adopted by Prus- 

 sia, as is now the practice in almost all the conti- 

 nental states and kingdoms. Our farmers have no 

 idea of the inconveniences attending the extreme sub- 

 division of landed estates, so that no one head, or one 

 family, can control more than five or ten acres of 

 ground; and millions not over the fourth of an acre. 

 Under such circumstances garden-culture may flourish, 

 but wheatH^ulture can not. 



Without enlarging on this view of European agri- 

 cultiu-e, enough has been said and suggested to justify 

 us in congratulating our brother farmers on the bright 

 prospects ahead for them and their noble calling. 

 Let us be grateful to God that we are permitted to 

 have nearly five acres of improved land to every in- 

 habitant in this incomparable and happy republic. 

 Five acres of improved land to each soul ! The his- 

 tory of mankind furnishes no parallel to this in all the 

 ages that have come and gone since the creation. 

 Europe is about to be convulsed with the wars long 

 anticipated by that conscious weakness and conscious 

 wrong which train every male twenty years of age, 

 whether high or base born, to be a soldier of the line; 

 and twenty harvests may be garnered in this peaceful 

 repubUc before the monarchial governments of the 

 old world, or their republican successors, shall sen- 



