28 Our Corn Crops, Roots, and Fruits 



6. OUR CORN CROPS, ROOTS, AND 

 FRUITS. WOODS AND FORESTS 



The area of the British Isles is a little over 120,000 

 square miles or 78,000,000 acres ; but about one-third 

 of this is occupied by the mountains of Scotland and 

 Wales, and the bogs of Ireland, which cannot be 

 cultivated on account of the poor soil and inclement 

 climate. Of the cultivated area the greater part has 

 a rotation of crops cereals, roots, and grasses. The 

 chief corn crops of the British Isles are oats, wheat, 

 and barley, and the chief root-crops are turnips, 

 potatoes, and mangolds. 



The chief cereal crop is oats, which being able to 

 stand cold and wet weather much better than wheat 

 are more commonly grown in most parts of the country. 

 Indeed, in parts of Sc'otland and Ireland oats are the 

 only grain that is cultivated. The barley that is grown 

 in the British Isles is not very much used for food, but 

 is sold to brewers and distillers for the making of beer 

 and whisky. Barley requires less sun than wheat and 

 is more widely distributed than that cereal. 



Wheat requires rich soil, abundant summer sunshine, 

 and little rain, in order to ripen well, and as these 

 conditions prevail largely in the south and east of 

 England, we can understand why it is the most 

 important English cereal. The farms of Yorkshire, 

 Lincolnshire, and Essex produce one-fourth of all 

 British wheat, and the yield sometimes approaches 

 40 bushels an acre. Much of the wheat grown in 

 England is winter wheat, that is wheat sown before 



