September 30, 1909] 



NATURE 



415 



average movement in the States over the whole of the last 

 forty years may be summarised as" under : — 



Five-year Periods Acreage in U.S.A. Distinctive Wheat Acreage Levels 



l8bS-72 



1873-77 

 1878^82 

 1883-87 

 1888-92 



1893-97 

 1S98-1902 

 1903-1907 



19,500,0001 „ ^ J. . ,, „„ 



25,500,000/^"'^"'^'"^ rapidly up to 1880 



|7,'oCo,OTO|'^''"'y stationary from iSSo to 

 38,000,000] "*96 



35,500,000 '^8=*'",. !,".^"'^'"g '° maxima 

 45,500,000- '•cached in 1901 and 1903, 

 46,800,000 "y"*? * '*"''■ '■'g''' <'"!'"« '" 



governments of European Russia alone, and omitting the 

 Polish or Caucasian figures, whicii do not go so far back, 

 the average area of 29,000,000 acres only in the 'eighties 

 became 40,000,000 at the close of the century, rising to a 

 maximum of 49,000,000 acres in 1906, a point from which 

 a decline was shown in 1907 to 45,600,000 acres. This, 

 however, even taking the latest and lower figure, is an 

 advance of 10,000,000 acres in the last decade, or nearly 

 30 per cent. — surely considerably in advance of even the 

 Russian growth of population, great as that is. 



It has, I think, not been sufficiently realised that in 

 the two decades stretching from 1887 to 1906, European 

 Russia has added 1,000,000 acres of wheat per annum. 

 This is not only a 70 per cent, advance in twenty years, 

 but it is double the absolute area of 10,000,000 acres 

 which the United States added in this interval. From 



the latest years 



Population in the States has, of course, augmented 

 steadily all over the forty years, from 37,000,000 to 

 86,000,000, yet all through the stationary years, as well 

 as those of advancing acreage, 

 exports of wheat and flour con- 

 tinued — as much as a third of the 

 crop being shipped abroad in 

 some years — and the transfer ol 

 the wheat lands north-westward 

 in the States was doubtless the 

 striking feature of the recovery. 

 Rightly to understand the revolu- 

 tion in the wheat-growing of 

 certain States of the Union would 

 require a treatise for which time 

 could not be given here. 



Let me, however, recur again 

 to the. general position. In the 

 table already given for the past 

 decade the latest increase to be 

 accounted for is 34,000,000 acres. 

 I ask you to note that the Russian 

 quota forms more than a third of 

 the whole. Now it was Russia 

 tiiat was in a very special degree 

 the subject of unfavourable re- 

 mark in the wheat problem con- 

 troversy of ten years ago. She 

 was spoken of, I remember, as 

 having reduced her consumption of 

 bread by 14 per cent., and only 

 by this means continuing her ex- 

 ports in defiance of her true needs, 

 and contributing to the rest of the 

 world therefore a merely pro- 

 visional and precarious excess. I 

 am not aware how the calculation 

 here alluded to had been arrived 

 at, nor have statisticians perhaps 

 a very robust faith in the estimated 

 numbers of the Russian popula- 

 tion before the great census of 

 1897, but the subsequent history 

 of her apparent wheat surplus is 

 interesting. 



The exports of wheat from 

 Russia, which we were warned 

 could not continue, and which had 

 doubtless been unusually large be- 

 tween 1893 and 189S, shrank for 

 three years after that date as if 

 they would realise the prophecy 

 which would relegate Russia from 



the ranks of exporters to the task of feeding her own popu- 1 such official estimates as are furnished, the total produce 

 lation. But that mysterious empire has since then resumed of these fifty governments, where alone the figures are 

 her large supplies, and from 1902 to 1906 the e.xports ranged j continuous, increased in a still higher ratio. The average 

 higher than before. .Although forming only 24 per cent, of her ' production, which did not exceed 180,000,000 bushels in 



estimated wheat crop, Russia's exports averaged 141,000,000 

 bushels over the first five years of this century, against 

 104,000,000 bushels over the whole preceding fifteen years. 

 Quite lately we seem to see some restriction, but the 

 history of the trade forbids a confident opinion that she 

 has reached the end of her contributions to other lands. 



So far as the areas under wheat are recorded, the 

 Russian agriculturist keeps on extending his industry, and, 

 low as the yields may frequently be, they are tending 

 upward under, it may be presumed, some reform of the 

 very primitive conditions of production. Within the fifty 

 NO. 2083, VOL. 81] 



the five years before 1879, or 226,000,000 bushels in the 

 quinquennium ending 1889, reached what appears to have 

 been a maximum in 1904, and was averaged at 415,000,000 

 bushels for the whole five years' period then ending. If 

 the later years are again at a lower level, they represent 

 very nearly double tlie produce before 1879. The yield 

 per acre, which stood below eight bushels to the acre 

 between 1883 and 1892, averaged nine bushels over the 

 next ten years, and has been 10-9, 10-4, and 11-4 bushels 

 respectively in the three seasons ending 1904. In the 

 south-western region, where the yield was just over eleven 



