ADDRESS. 11 



duced 69,000,000 Inisliels, and exported 34,000,000 bushels. It has 

 a considerable amount of surplus land which can be used for wheat, 

 although for many years the wheat area is not likely to exceed home 

 requirements. 



France comes next to the United States as a producer of wheat ; but 

 for our purpose she counts but little, being dependent on supplies from 

 abroad for an average quantity of 14 per cent, of her own production. 

 There is practically no spare land in France that can be put under wheat 

 in sufficient quantity to enable her to do more than provide for increase 

 of population. 



Germany is a gigantic importer of wheat, her imports rising 700 per 

 cent, in the last twenty-five years, and now averaging 35,000,000 bushels. 

 Other nations of Europe, also importers, do not require detailed mention, 

 as under no conceivable conditions would they be able to do more than 

 supply wheat for the increasing requirements of their local popula- 

 tion, and, instead of I'eplenishing, would probably diminish, the world's 

 stores. 



The prospective supply of wheat from Argentina and Uruguay has been 

 greatly overrated. The agricultural area includes less than 100,000,000 

 acres of good, bad, and indifferent land, much of which is best adapted 

 for pastoral purposes. There is no prospect of Argentina ever being able 

 to devote more than 30,000,000 acres to wheat ; the present wheat area 

 is about 6,000,000 acres, an area that may be doubled in the next twelve 

 years. But the whole arable region is subject to great climatic vicissitudes, 

 and to frosts that ravage the fields south of the 37th parallel. Years of 

 systematised energy are frustrated in a few days — perhaps hours — by a 

 single cruelty of Nature, such as a plague of locusts, a tropical rain, or a 

 devastating hail storm. It will take years to bring the surplus lands of 

 Argentina into cultivation, and the population is even now insufficient to 

 supply labour at seed time and harvest. 



During the next twelve years, Uruguay may add a million acres to 

 the world's wheat fields ; but social, political, and economic conditions, 

 seriously interfere with agricultural development. 



At the present time South Africa is an importer of wheat, and tlve 

 regions suitable to cereals do not exceed a few million acres. Great 

 expectations have been formed as to the fertility of Mashonaland, the 

 Shire Highlands, and the Kikuyu plateau, and as to the adaptation of 

 these regions to the growth of wheat. But wheat culture fails where the 

 banana ripens, and the banana flourishes throughout Central Africa, 

 except in limited areas of great elevation. In many parts of Africa insect 

 pests render it impossible to store gi'ain, and without grain-stores there 

 can be little hope of large exports. 



North Africa, formerly the granary of Rome, now exports less than 

 5,000,000 bushels of wheat annually, and these exports are on the decline, 

 owing to increased home demands. With scientific irrigation, Egypt 



