84 



1908. 



Area in Total Yield 



Cereal. Crop. Returns. per Acre. 



Acres. Bush. Bush. 



Kidney beans 641,345 3,978,931 6-20 



Field beans 455,790 5,990,237 13-14 



Chickpeas 421,355 4,141,034 9-83 



Vetches 159,303 2,132,966 13-39 



Field peas 72,717 391,274 5-38 



Lentils 37,142 428,472 11-54 



Peanuts 18,875 502,150 26-60 



Lupins 14,842 199,166 13-42 



Additionally there were under carob trees in 1908 about 371,247 acres, 

 which returned 86,452 tons of carob beans, or about 4|cwts. to the acre. 



And yet, in spite of these returns, Spain is not a cereal-exporting country, 

 nor apparently does local production come up to the food requirements 

 of its 19| million inhabitants ; indeed, at the present moment there appears 

 to be an outcry throughout the peninsula to the effect that wheat, and con- 

 sequently the wheaten loaf, is higher priced in Spain than anywhere else 

 in the world. It is stated that less than half a century ago wheaten bread 

 was worth in Spain from 2Jd. to 2Jd. the 2lb. loaf, whereas present 

 ruling rates vary between 3 Jd. and 4 Jd. the loaf ; hence much of the bread 

 consumed in some of the Spanish provinces is made from maize, imported 

 very largely from the Argentine Republic. The following figures, collected 

 for the British Chamber of Commerce at Barcelona during 1910, will serve 

 to show that wheat v as higher in Spai than w. s the case in other parts 

 of the world. 



Average Price of Wheat on Various Markets in 1910. 



s. d. 



Paris 5 5 a bushel. 



Budapesth 6 3 



Antwerp 4 10 



Liverpool 4 10 



New York 5 



Chicago 4 8 



Barcelona (Spain) 6 9J " 



Madrid " 611 



It is stated that during the course of the Spanish- American war there was 

 a very general tendency on the part of prices of commodities to rise, in sym- 

 pathy with the depreciation of currency and consequent high rates of foreign 

 exchange. Exchange, however, is now approximately normal, but prices 

 show no tendency to fall, and particularly the prices of wheat and bread. 

 I may state that a very similar phenomenon has arisen in Greece : general 



