October 8, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



477 



king lectures on agricultural chemistry. 

 Common-field cultivation, with aU its hin- 

 drances to progress, was rapidly being ex- 

 tinguished, accelerated by the General In- 

 closure Act of 1801. A general idea of the 

 state of agriculture may be obtained from 

 the estimates made by W. T. Comber of 

 the area in England and Wales under 

 different crops in 1808. There were then 

 no official returns, which, indeed, were not 

 started until 1866 ; but these estimates have 

 been generally accepted as approximately 

 accurate and are at any rate the nearest 

 approach we have to definite information. 

 I give for comparison the figures from 

 the agricultural returns of 1914, which ap- 

 proximately correspond to those of the 

 earlier date: 



The returns in 1914 comprise a larger 

 variety of crops than were cultivated in 

 1808. Potatoes, for instance, were then 

 only just beginning to be grown as a field- 

 crop, and I have included them together 

 with Kohl-rabi and rape, among "roots and 

 cabbages." 



The population of England and Wales 

 in 1801 was 8,892,536, so that there were 

 35| acres under wheat for every hundred 

 inhabitants. In 1914 the population was 

 37,302,983, and for every hundred inhabi- 

 tants there were 5 acres under wheat. 



The yield of wheat during the twenty 

 years ending 1795 was estimated at 3 qrs. 



per acre;* in 1914 it was 4 qrs. per acre. 

 The quantity of home-grown wheat per 

 head of population was therefore 8-J- bushels 

 in 1808, and 1-| bushels in 1914. Never- 

 theless, even at that time, the country was 

 not self-supporting in breadstuffs. In 1810, 

 1,305,000 qrs. of wheat and 473,000 cwt. of 

 flour were imported. The average annucil 

 imports of wheat from 1801 to 1810 were 

 601,000 qrs., and from 1811 to 1820 458,000 

 qrs. Up to the last decade of the eighteenth 

 century England was an exporting rather 

 than an importing country, and bounties on 

 exports were oifered when prices were low, 

 from 1689 to 1814, though none were, in 

 fact, paid after 1792. 



During the war period we are consider- 

 ing, the annual average price of wheat 

 ranged from 49s 3d per qr. in 1793 to 

 126 s 6d per qr. in 1812; the real price in 

 the latter year, owing to the depreciation of 

 the currency, being not more than 100 s. 

 In 1814 the nominal price was 74 s 4 d and 

 the real price not more than 54 s per qr.^ 

 The extent to which these high and widely 

 varying prices were affected by the Euro- 

 pean war has been the subject of contro- 

 versy. As we mainly depended on the Con- 

 tinent for any addition to our own re- 

 sources, the diminished production during 

 the earlier years in the Netherlands, Ger- 

 many and Italy, and in the later years of 

 the war in Russia, Poland, Prussia, Saxony 

 and the Peninsula, reduced possible sup- 

 plies. At the same time the rates of freight 

 and insurance, especially in the later years 

 of the war, increased very considerably. 

 Tooke mentions a freight of £30 per ton on 

 hemp from St. Petersburg in 1809. On the 

 other hand, a powerful impetus was given 



* Eeport of Select Committee on the means of 

 promoting the cultivation and improvement of the 

 waste, uninclosed and unproductive lands of the 

 kingdom, 1795. 



5 Porter 's ' ' Progress of the Nation, " by F. W. 

 Hirst, p. 183. 



