478 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1084 



to home production, which was stimulated 

 'by government action and private enter- 

 prise. Inclosure was encouraged by the 

 General Inclosure Act of 1801, and 1,934 

 Inclosure Acts were passed from 1793 to 

 1815. The schemes for increasing and eon- 

 serving food supplies were various. The 

 Board of Agriculture, for example, offered 

 prizes of 50, 30 and 20 guineas, respectively, 

 to the persons who in the spring of 1805 

 cultivated the greatest number of acres — 

 not less than 20 — of spring wheat." In 

 1795 a Select Committee recommended that 

 .t)Ounties should be granted to encourage the 

 •cultivation of potatoes on ' ' lands at present 

 ;lying waste, uncultivated, or unproduc- 

 tive," and that means should at once be 

 adopted to add at least 150,000 and perhaps 

 300,000 acres to the land under cultivation 

 "as the only effectual means of preventing 

 that importation of corn, and disadvantages 

 therefrom, by wliieh this country has al- 

 ready so deeply suffered." Another view 

 of importation is presented by Tooke, who, 

 in a discussion of the effect of the war, 

 says: 



Although the war can not have been said to have 

 operated upon the supply of agricultural produce 

 of our own growth and other native commodities, 

 sufficiently to outweigh the circumstances favor- 



, able to reproduction, it operated most powerfully 

 in increasing the cost of production and in ob- 

 structing the supply of such commodities as we 

 stood in need of from abroad. It is therefore to 

 war chiefly as affecting the cost of production and 



, diminishing the supply, by obstructions to impor- 

 tation, at a time when by a succession of unfavor- 

 able seasons our own produce became inadequate 

 to the average consumption, that any considerable 

 proportion of the range of high prices is to be at- 

 tributed.'^ 



The main cause of high prices and sear- 

 city was the failure of the harvests. Mr. 



6 "Annals of Agriculture," 1805. 



7 "History of Prices," ed. 1838, Vol. I., p. 116. 



Prothero thus analyses the wheat harvests 

 of the twenty-two years 1793-1814: 



Fourteen were deficient; in seven out of the 

 fourteen the crops failed to a remarkable extent, 

 namely in 1795, 1799, 1800, 1809, 1810, 1811, 

 1812. Six produced an average yield. Only two, 

 1796 and 1813, were abundant; but the latter was 

 long regarded as the best within living memory.s 



It appears paradoxical, but in a sense it 

 is true, to say that the scarcity of wheat in 

 certain years arose from the fact that the 

 country was too largely dependent on its 

 own crop. The risk of a bad harvest in a 

 climate such as that of the British Isles 

 must always be serious, and by the fortune 

 of war this risk between 1793 and 1814 

 turned out to be very high. Wlien supplies 

 are drawn from the four quarters of the 

 globe, it is evident that the risk of a short- 

 age in time of peace is greatly reduced. 

 Whether in a great war it is preferable to 

 be more dependent on the sea than on the 

 season is debatable. 



In comparison with wars for national 

 existence, such as that against Napoleon 

 and in a stiU sterner sense that in which we 

 are now engaged, other conflicts appear in- 

 significant. The Crimean War, however, 

 did affect our food supplies and had a re- 

 flex action on British agriculture. The 

 cessation of imports from Russia caused a 

 rise in the price of corn. The average price 

 of wheat rose to 72s 5d per qr. in 1854, 

 74s 8d in 1855 and 69s 2d in 1856. Only 

 once before (in 1839) during the previous 

 thirty-five years had it risen above 70s. 

 There were then no agricultural returns, 

 but the estimates of Lawes, which were gen- 

 erally accepted, put the area under wheat 

 at a little more than 4,000,000 acres, a 

 higher figure than has been suggested for 

 any other period. It is, indeed, highly 

 probable that the Crimean War marked the 

 maximum of wheat cultivation in this eoun- 



8 ' ' English Farming, Past and Present, ' ' p. 269. 



