OCTOBEK 8, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



479 



try. It was a time of great agricultural 

 activity and of rapid progress. To their 

 astonishment, farmers had found, after an 

 interval of panic, that the repeal of the 

 corn laws had not obliterated British agri- 

 culture and that even the price of wheat 

 was not invariably lower than it had often 

 been before 1846. Caird had preached 

 "high farming" in 1848 and found many 

 disciples, capital was poured into the land, 

 and the high prices of the Crimean period 

 stimulated enterprise and restored confi- 

 dence in agriculture. 



To generalize very roughly, it may be 

 said that while the Napoleonic wars were 

 followed by the deepest depression in agri- 

 culture, the Crimean War was followed by 

 a heyday of agricultural prosperity which 

 lasted for over twenty years. What the 

 agricultural sequel to the present war may 

 be, I leave to others to estimate, and I turn 

 to consider briefly some of its effects on 

 British farming up to the present time. 



Harvest had just begun when war broke 

 out on August 4 ; indeed, in the earlier dis- 

 tricts a good deal of corn was already cut. 

 The harvest of 1914 was, in fact, with the 

 exception of that of 1911, the earliest of 

 recent years, as it was also one of the most 

 quickly gathered. The agricultural situa- 

 tion may perhaps be concisely shown by 

 giving the returns of the crops then in 

 hand, i. e., in course of gathering or in the 

 ground, with the numbers of live stock as 

 returned on farms in the previous June. 

 The figures are for the United Kingdom, 

 and I add the average for the preceding ten 

 years for comparison: 



Average 



1914 1904-13 



Qrs. Ore. 



Wheat 7,804,000 7,094,000 



Barley 8,066,000 7,965,000 



Oats 20,664,000 21,564,000 



Beans 1,120,000 1,059,000 



Peas 374,000 525,000 



Tons Tons 



Potatoes 7,476,000 6,592,000 



Turnips and swedes . . 24,196,000 26,901,000 



Mangold 9,522,000 9,934,000 



Hay 12,403,000 14,148,000 ' 



Cwts. Cwts. 



Hops 507,000 354,000 



No. No. 



Cattle 12,185,000 11,756,000 , 



Sheep 27,964,000 29,882,000 



Pigs 3,953,000 3,805,000 



Horses 1,851,000 2,059,000 



Farmers had thus rather more than their 

 usual supplies of nearly every crop, the 

 chief deficiencies being in peas, roots and 

 hay. The shortage of the ha;y-crop was, 

 however, in some measure made up by the 

 large stocks left from the unusually heavy 

 crop of 1913. It was fortunate from the 

 food-supply point of view that two of the 

 most plentiful crops were wheat and pota- 

 toes. The head of cattle was very satis- 

 factory, being the largest on record, and 

 pigs were well above average. Sheep, al- 

 ways apt to fluctuate in numbers, were 

 much below average, the total being the 

 smallest since 1882 with the exception of 

 1913. 



On the whole, it was a good year agricul- 

 turally, and the supply of home-grown pro- 

 duce at the beginning of the war was boun- 

 tiful. Nature at any rate had provided for 

 us more generously than we had a right to 

 expect. 



At first it appeared as if farmers were 

 likely to be sufferers rather than gainers by 

 the war. Prices of feeding-stuffs, espe- 

 cially linseed and cotton-cakes, maize-meal, 

 rice-meal and barley-meal, rose at once, re- 

 cruiting affected the labor supply, and diffi- 

 culties arose in the distribution of produce 

 by rail. With one or two exceptions, such 

 as oats, the prices of farm produce showed 

 but little rise for three or four months after 

 the war began. Wheat rose about 10 per 

 cent., barley remained about normal, cattle 



