4i6 



NA TURE 



[September 30, 1909 



•bushels in i the decade ending 1892, it seems to have 

 averaged fifteen .in. the ten years ending 1902, while more 

 than eighteen and, nineteen bushels were reported in 

 1903-4. , . 



; These figures omit the Polish, Caucasian, and Asiatic 

 districts, for which a much smaller retrospect is possible. 

 The acreage in Polajid is small — little more than a million 

 —and nearly constant in extent. But the wheat of 

 Northern Caucasia, first accounted for in 1894, has risen 

 from 5,600,000 acres to 8,300,000 in 1906, and the Siberian 

 totals, ■ after increasing, apparently but slightly, from 

 3,400,000 acres in 1895 to 4,800,000 acres at the 'close of 

 .the century, do not seem much to e.xceed 5,000,000 acres 

 now.- Russian wheat production does not therefore seem 

 a wholly arrested process. 



I, .own. I was hardly, prepared :for this old nation's pro- 

 gress in wheat-growing, and I have no doubt that I 

 shall be told that Russia has been exchanging one form of 

 bread corn for another ; in particular, that dependence on 

 rye has decreased as production of wheat has grown. 

 There is some truth undoubtedly in this, for the compara- 

 tively stationary character of the rye area indicates that 

 the Russian people, increasing as they are and continuing 

 still an export of rye to Germany and elsewhere, may 

 themselves eat somewhat more wheat and rather less rye, 

 and it is true also that a fluctuating record has attended 

 the surface under the coarser and lar.ger cereal crop. Its 



low-water " point — 61,900,000 acres— occurs in 1803, while 

 its present figure is 66,000,000 acres. Relatively, there- 

 fore, while the rye shows no progress such as wheat, it 

 cannot be said that the rye area has been utilised for the 

 more valuable cereal, and the fact remains that there is 

 more rye grown to-day, even in European Russia, than 

 at any date since the last decade of last century began. 

 Relatively to population, the available data show the 

 aggregate crops of wheat and rve together, in Russia as 

 a whole, are materially greater than before. 



Inquiry shows that the wheat extension in Russia has 

 been made possible bv an actual addition to the arable 

 land, and not by deduction from other crops. K recent 

 investigation quoted by a competent .American authoritv 

 informs us that some 2^,000.000 acres of new arable land 

 has been accounted for between iSSi and 1004, and. more- 

 over, that a greater surface of this nominally arable area 

 IS now actually under cultivation than at the earlier date. 

 These figures stand : — 



Total Arable 



Year Land Under Crop Wheat Rye 



acres arres a^-res acres 



1881 288,000,000 174,600,000 28,900,000 64,600,000 



1904 310,700,000 205,900,000 45,600,000 65,600,000 



_ It will be noted that this inquiry ends a year or two 

 since but had it been continued to 190b the comparison 

 would have been accentuated, and as it stands the addi- 

 tional area cropped in one way or another exceeds 

 31,000,000 acres. 



In Mr. Wood Davis's later memorandum he combats the 

 Idea that the expected wheat crops from four relatively 

 new areas of production— .Siberia, .Argentina, Australasia 

 and Canada— would meet the shortage he found threatenetl 

 bv his estimate. Not unnaturally he regarded an 8,100,000 

 addition of acres in these four regions in fifteen years as 

 a very insufticient and unpromising quota to feed more 

 than ten times that number of new bread-eaters on the 

 globe between 1883-4 and 1898-9. 



Assuming he rightly gave the increment of wheat between 

 these dates as under, if I add to his table the latest data 

 that 1 have, these new and gradually opening areas \yili 

 show a rate of progress much greater in the nine succeed- 

 ing years than before, even if there was no further increase 

 in Siberia; for as to the areas to be included there I am 

 certain. The figures I give in millions of acres :— 



1 88 -,-4 

 Siberia ... 2'0 

 Argentina 7 '4 

 Australasia 3-2 

 Canada ... 2*4 



3 3 

 6-1 



4'i' 

 3'i 



Fifteen years 

 increase 



• I 3 ■■• 

 •■ 47 .-. 

 .. i-^ ... 



.. 0-8 ... 



Total ... 9-0 ... 17-1 Si 



NO. 2083, VOL. 81] 



iqo?-"! 



3 3 

 14-2 



6-6 



297 



N'ne years 

 increa-e 



".. 8 I 



I I 



•• 3'4 



,. 12-6 



In the - forecasts offered ten years ago Argentina as- a 

 wheat-grower was given a dozen years, from 1898' to. reach 

 a possible acreage of 12,000,000 acres. She has reached 

 that figure and passed it in less than a decade, and later 

 current official estimates seem to concede to that region a 

 close approximation to 15,000,000 acres to-day. .As |the 

 actual pace here has bettered so considerably ' that pro- 

 phesied, one may legitimately question the further limita- 

 tions which allowed to Argentina no ' prospect " of ever 

 reaching a .wheat area of 30,000,000 acres • at any time. 

 That these prophecies by no means coincide with later and 

 probably quite similarly vague forecasts an the other. direc- 

 tion goes without saying. In a recent official publication 

 by the U.S.A. Government containing' the report of ^an 

 expert on the .resources of Argentina and her farming 

 methods,, the competitive prospects of the great , grain- 

 exporting Republic oT the South were scarcely so lightly 

 treated. For my own part I rather agree with an officer 

 of the Argentine triovernment there quoted (Sefior Tid- 

 blom), who candidly admits that it w'as impossible with 

 any accuracy to forecast the ultimate wheat area of Argen- 

 tina, although I observe he adds that there were " more 

 than 80,000,000 acres in the Republic that could be 

 immediately devoted to successful wheat-farming if we had 

 the farmers to do it." I have seen, though I could not 

 accept, even more sanguine estimates in other quarters, 

 which, with a yield of only ten bushels per acre, promised 

 a crop of 1,238,000,000 bushels at some future date, and 

 would involve an area of w'heat land approaching 

 124,000,000 acres. 



No one, I think, can note the strides which Argentina 

 has taken in rapidly augmenting her wheat areas and 

 exports, and that concurrently with the commanding place 

 she is assuming as a meat rearer and exporter to the older 

 peoples of Europe, without some recognition that a great 

 future is possible. On the other hand, apart from climatic 

 conditions, the future must be largely governed by the 

 factor of population ; and the nature of the Italian 

 immigrants, their mode of culture, their non-intention in 

 many instances to remain and own the land or identify 

 themselves with the country — preferring to exploit one farm 

 after another and reside on them until they make a small 

 competence wherewith to return to Europe — are all reasons 

 against the extremely favourable prospects which I have 

 here adverted to. 



Small relatively to the great extent of surface included 

 in the Commonwealth of Australia is the proportion under 

 wheat, but the Commonwealth is none the less as a rule 

 an exporter. A little more than thirty years ago only 

 about 1,400,000 acres were grown. This seems to have 

 been a good deal more than doubled in the five years 

 1876— Si, when a much smaller rate of increase followed 

 for fifteen years — a check apparently reflecting the same 

 tendency to arrest which we have seen so typically illus- 

 trated in the United States. Again, after 1896, just as 

 in the great Western Republic, wheat-growing became 

 again in favour, and the rapid spurt which followed 

 brought the Commonwealth total to 5,700,000 acres as the 

 century closed. Thereafter the rate of growth seemed 

 checked anew, and after passing a maximum of just under 

 6,300,000 acres, it stands to-day under 6,ono,ooo acres. 

 Twice during the last twenty years has Australia shown 

 on balance a net importation of wheat, but from. 1903 to 

 1907 the quantity exported has averaged 36,000,000 bushels, 

 and it is not without interest to observe that the .Australian 

 exports of the present century have not all been consumed 

 in Britain — South .Africa, the western coasts of South 

 America, and even some parts of India sharing in the 

 surplus product of the .Antipodean Continent. 



The conditions and the future of Australian wheat have 

 been quite recently dealt with in an interesting paper by 

 Mr. A. E. Humphreys, read before the Society of .Arts 

 in London. It is here pointed out that the soils on which 

 it is grown are rich in assimilable nitrogen, requiring little 

 manurial expenditure in that direction, but poor in their 

 percentage of phosphoric acid, while the climatic condi- 

 tions as regards moisture have proved remarkably difficult. 

 Efforts have been made, and apparently, if recent experi- 

 ences be confirmed, with success, to breed new varieties 

 of the Wheat plant adapted to the peculiar climatic con- 

 ditions of .Australia and likely to increase the low average 



