Delmar.] d-iZ [ jan. 15, 



ting maize) at 12,584,322 quarters, or say 100,674,576 bushels. Allowing 

 20 million bushels for maize and two million bushels for rice, we have a 

 total in round figures of 123 million bushels of grain. The population at 

 that time amounted to abovit 13,700,000, and the product of grain was 

 therefore about nine bushels per capita, a proportion which aijpears to 

 be siibstantially correct. 



Says Mr. Sackville "West: "In 1863, France produced * * * and 

 Spain 66 million hectolitres of grain." As it is evident from the context 

 and also from the fact that the cadastral census of Spain vpas taken in 

 1857, that that is the year to which Mr. West refers in regard to Spain, 

 I have taken the liberty to so treat his statement. Sixty-six million hec- 

 tolitres amount to 184,800,000, bushels, and this, among a population of 

 15,000,000, amounts to an average of about 12|^ bushels each. If Mr. 

 West's statement is applied to the year stated, 1863, when the population 

 was a fraction over 16,000,000, the result would be an annual product per 

 capita of about 11^ bushels. From both of these results I am inclined to 

 believe that Mr. West's estimate includes potatoes, chestnuts and le- 

 gumes. In such case I regard it as substantially correct. 



For the year 1857 we have another account. This was given by no less 

 an authority than the late Albany W. Fonblanque, the accomplished sta- 

 tistician of the British Board of Trade, and is published in the Agricultural 

 Returns of H. B. M. Board of Trade for the year 1867. Ever since that 

 year it has been regularly published in the Returns as the "estimated 

 quantities of the principal kinds of corn and potatoes produced in Spain," 

 and it therefore appears in the A. R. for 1874, over the signature of Mr. 

 A. R. Valpy, Mr. Fonblanque's no less accomplished successor. Not- 

 withstanding these high authorities and the official sanction which the 

 publication of the account in such a work conveys, I am compelled to 

 regard it as defective. It states that Spain produced in 1857, 168,140,692 

 bushels of wheat ; of barley 76,427,587 bushels ; and of rye, 24,727,483 

 bushels ; together, 269,295,762 bushels of grain ; an average of nearly 18 

 bushels per capita of population, to say nothing of maize and patatoes, 

 which at e important articles of consumption in Spain ; nor of oats, rice, 

 buckwheat, millet, chestnuts nor legumes — proportions that so radically 

 dilfer from all other accounts as to lead to the suspicion that error has 

 been committed in the conversion of the quantities. 



For the year 1868 we have the account laid before the Statistical 

 Congress at the Hague, by Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, of New York. This 

 is as follows : 



Cereal product of Spain, with Balearic Islands, in 1868 : wheat, impe- 

 rial bushels, 87,732,150; rye, 44,427,940; barley, 47,731,500; oats (included 

 with other cereals); buckwheat and millet, 22,975,300; maize, nil; rice, 

 2,000,000; total 204,866,890 imperial bushels. With the exception of rye 

 which is over-estimated, and buckwheat and millet, the estimated pro- 

 duct of which ought to be credited almost entirely to maize, I am inclined 

 to regard Mr. Ruggles' account as substantially correct. The total sum 



