834 - REPORT — 1900. 



be regarded as growing both wheat and rye for export as well as consumption, the 

 larger proportions of her acreage which is employed in feeding a non-Russian 

 population deserve to be specially marked in this connection, when the low yields 

 of both cereals are remembered. 



AVhether the foregoing figures do indeed represent the facts of each period is, 

 I think, a worthy object of enquiry for some of our younger statisticians, and it is 

 a problem one would like to see solved as regards this particular country before 

 venturing on any too confident conclusion as to what is the real meaning of the 

 changes of the past, and what may be the future position in regard to the growth 

 of breadstufi's and the growth of population in the world as a whole. 



Calculations, however, such as those just quoted cannot fail to remind the 

 student how very difierent in productive power the ' acre ' of wheat may be, and 

 is, in difierent countries. Assuming that we take the existence of 38,000,000 acres 

 as reported of wheat land in Russia in Europe (e.v Poland) to be proved, a com- 

 parison of the estimated yields shows that such an area represents less than 

 12,000,000 acres of the productive power we are accustomed to in Great Britain. 

 So, too, for the vast wheat area of the United States, it takes two and a third acres 

 to produce what is now our average yield in this country. Three Indian or three 

 Italian acres of wheat of the calibre now in use would in the same way be required 

 to supply the number of bushels that a single acre of our soil in the climate ws 

 enjoy, and worked under the system of farming that we practise here, would in 

 ordinary seasons produce. In other extensive areas of wheat-growing the yields, 

 though greater than the above, are very considerably below our own, the Austrian , 

 Hungarian, and French yields standing at 16, 17, and 18 bushels respectively, 

 against the 30 bushels which is apparently the average yield of the last five 

 years in the United Kingdom. Only when we come to very small total areas do 

 we find instances where the average wheat yields approach or over any consider- 

 able periods exceed our own. When Denmark, for example, is referred to as 

 reaching 42 bushels per acre in the season of 1896, it is not to be forgotten that 

 only a minute area of selected land, in this case only 84,000 acres, is devoted to 

 this cereal. Results realised on this small scale can hardly be spoken of as an 

 average in contrast with those of countries where millions of acres are grown, and 

 can usually be paralleled in some sections of the bigger country. 



Nor should it be forgotten, if the agricultural position of one State be com- 

 pared with another, how widely the conditions of different parts vary from the 

 picture presented by the average figures credited to the State as a unit, and how 

 often sections of one country difler more from each other agriculturally than from 

 the country with which they are contrasted. AVithin the United Kingdom alone 

 we are, or ought to be, familiar with essential local differences of this type, which 

 have to be kept in mind. Even in respect of the relative density of population 

 and the number of mouths to be sustained in a given area, it may be quite correct 

 to describe every 1,000 acres in the United Kingdom as carrying on their surface 

 on the average 519 persons, but it may be remembered with advantage that, 

 considered geographically apart, Scotland, for example, is a country of but 220 

 persons, and Ireland of but 219, to the 1,000 acres of area. 



Such a position suggests that it might be fair to draw oiu- agricultural com- 

 parisons between Scotland or Ireland as units of area, and such a country as 

 Denmark, where the population is 248 to the 1,000 acres. Thus one-third of the 

 cereal area of England is still devoted to the growth of wheat, while Denmark has 

 but 3 per cent, so occupied, thereby resembling Scotland or Ireland, where some 

 4 per cent, only of the corn is wheat. Similarly, on this population basis, Austria 

 with 320 persons, or Switzerland with 311, to the 1,000 acres may be not 

 inappropriately classed with Wales, where the density is 345. In particular an 

 examination of the live stock maintained by each 1,000 acres of the surface in all 

 these cases aflords parallels and contrasts which are both interesting and instruc- 

 tive. (For table, see p. 835.) 



Thus Wales bear's easily the palm as regards the total stock of sheep 

 carried, while Ireland, with a pdpulation practically bearing a similar ratio to that of 



