TitA^^SACTIONS OF seChon f. 831 



38,600,000, and grew an acre of maize for each unit of tbe population, and an 

 acre of wheat for every two persons, and somewhat more than an acre of cotton 

 for every four. At this period the surplus exported to other nations, it may be 

 added, represented two-thirds of the cotton, rather more than one-fifth of the 

 wheat, but less than one per cent, of the maize. 



In 1885 the population had augmented to an estimated total of 50,000,000, or 

 by 45 per cent. The area under the crops above quoted had meantime been ex- 

 tended in nearly twice this ratio. The United States exported still about two- 

 thirds of the cotton grown ; the wheat export was slightly greater in proportion 

 to the product than before, or 26 per cent., while neai'ly 3 per cent of the maize 

 crop found a market abroad. 



The population of the States is now estimated to have risen to 76,000,000, or 

 twice what it was thirty years ago, altliough the census has yet to say if this 

 calculation has been realised. The cultivation of maize had meantime reached 

 82,000,000 acres, wheat was reported to cover 44,000,000 acres, and cotton 

 25,000,000 acres, while the foreign market received 65 per cent, of the cotton, 

 33 per cent, of the wlieat, and now as much as 9 per cent, of the maize grown on 

 these areas. 



In none of these cases, it will be noted, has the area under crop failed to 

 increase, but in all the rate of increase was distinctly slower in the second than 

 in the first half of the period. If time sufficed to trace the annual course of move- 

 ment between the contrasted dates, it might be well remembered that from 1871 

 onward to 1889, with only a single slight check in 1887, the growth of the maize 

 acreage has been continuous. From 1889 to 1894 fluctuations were reported 

 yearly, ending in the latter year at a total acreage no higher than that of 1880, but 

 returning again in a single year, if the record can be trusted, to the highest point 

 reached. The wheat acreage movement has been more irregular, and the latest 

 figures are complicated by the admitted corrections which were made to an 

 amount of 5,000,000 acres for too low previous estimates in 1897. Allowing for 

 this, the regular upward movement of the wheat acreage was apparently checked 

 in 1880, and has only begun again since 1898 under the stimulus of higher prices in 

 that year. 



In live stock the development would seem to have been arrested altogether 

 between 1885 and the end of the century in the case of cattle, and turned into an 

 absolute decline in the number of sheep and swine, although in the fifteen years 

 before 1885 cattle had increased more than 71 per cent., swine 74 per cent., and 

 sheep 25 per cent. As a matter of fact the maximum number of cattle was reached 

 in 1892, when the numbers were 54,000,000, or ten millions more than at present, 

 the stock of swine declining in a still greater ratio from the same year, and sheep 

 declining and rising again in the separate periods between 1883 and 1889, and 

 between 1893 and 1897. If the ratio under each head to population is considered, 

 it would appear that the United States possessed 661 cattle lor every 1,000 of her 

 citizens in 1870. This was raised to 829 per 1,000 persons in 1885, while the ratio 

 now has fallen again below the starting-point, or to 604 per 1,000 persons. Sheep 

 have fallen in the thirty years from 1,060 in 1870 to 880, and now to 537 head 

 only per 1,000 inhabitants. These remarkable changes are worthy of note in 

 connection with the exports of living animals and animal products, which last have 

 been maintained at a still higher level than before. 



Turning to a country of nearly stationary population, provided for in the main 

 from its own agricultural produce with only slight assistance from abroad, a like con- 

 trast for the beginning, the middle, and the end of the period under review will 

 give roughly the results shown below. Here, although we are provided with an 

 annual figure, the start has to be made after the Franco-German war with the data 

 two years later, or in 1872. (For table see p. 832.) 



ThusinFrance, where wheat-growing has always had such apredominance among 

 the cereals, the area is neither increasing nor diminishing. The total of 17,000,000 

 acres falls, however, somewhat short of the provision of an acre to two persons, 



