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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 200. 



tributed to the world's food? The with- 

 drawal of 145,000,000 bushels will cause a 

 serious gap in the food supply of wheat- 

 importing countries, and unless this deficit 

 can be met by increased supplies from other 

 countries there will be a dearth for the rest 

 of the world after the British Isles are suffi- 

 ciently supplied. 



Next to the United States, Russia is the 

 greatest wheat exporter, supplying nearly 

 95,000,000 bushels. 



Although Eussia at present exports so 

 lavishly, this excess is merely provisional 

 and precarious. The Russian peasant pop- 

 ulation increases more rapidly than any 

 other in Europe. The yield per acre over 

 European Russia is meagre — not more than 

 8.6 bushels to the acre — while some author- 

 ities consider it as low as 4.6 bushels. The 

 cost of production is low — lower even than 

 on the virgin soils of the United States. 

 The development of the fertile though 

 somewhat overrated 'black earth,' which 

 extends across the southern portion of the 

 Empire and beyond the Ural Mountains 

 into Siberia, progresses rapidly. But, as we 

 have indicated, the consumption of bread 

 in Russia has been reduced to danger point. 

 The peasants starve and fall victims to 

 ' hunger typhus,' whilst the wheat growers 

 export grain that ought to be consumed at 

 home. 



Considering Siberia as a wheat grower, 

 climate is the first consideration. Summers 

 are short — as they are in all regions with 

 continental climates north of the 45th par- 

 allel — and the ripening of wheat requires a 

 temperature averaging at least 65° Fahr. 

 for fifty-five to sixty-five days. As all Si- 

 beria lies north of the summer isotherm of 

 65°, it follows that such region is ill adapted 

 to wheat culture unless some compensating 

 climatic condition exists. As a fact, the con- 

 ditions are exceptionally unfavorable in all 

 but very limited districts in the two west- 



ernmost governments. The cultivatabl© 

 lands of western Siberia adapted to grain- 

 bearing equal neither in extent nor in po- 

 tential productive powers those of Iowa, 

 Minnesota and Nebraska. There are limited 

 tracts of fair productiveness in central Si- 

 beria and in the valleys of the southern afflu- 

 ents of the Amoor, but these are only just 

 capable of supporting a meager population. 



Prince Hilkoif, Russian Minister of Ways 

 and Communications, declared in 1896 that 

 " Siberia never had produced, and never 

 would produce, wheat and rye enough to- 

 feed the Siberian population." And, a year 

 later, Prince Krapotkin backed the state- 

 ment as substantially correct. 



Those who attended the meeting of the 

 British Association last year in Canada 

 must have been struck with the extent and 

 marvellous capacity of the fertile plains of 

 Manitoba and the Northwest Provinces. 

 Here were to be seen 1,290,000 acres of 

 fine wheat-growing land yielding 18,261,950 

 bushels, one-fifth of which comes to hungry 

 England. Expectations have been cher- 

 ished that the Canadian Northwest would 

 easily supply the world with wheat, and ex- 

 aggerated estimates are drawn as to the 

 amount of surplus land on which wheat 

 can be grown. Thus far performance has 

 lagged behind promise, the wheat-bearing 

 area of all Canada having increased less- 

 than 500,000 acres since 1884, while the ex- 

 ports have not increased in greater propor- 

 tion. As the wheat area of Manitoba and the 

 Northwest has increased, the wheat area of 

 Ontario and the Eastern Provinces has de- 

 creased, the added acres being little more 

 than sufficient to meet the growing require- 

 ments of population. We have seen calcu- 

 lations showing that Canada contains 500,- 

 000,000 acres of profitable wheat land. The 

 impossibility of such an estimate ever being 

 fulfilled will be apparent when it is remem- 

 bered that the whole area employed in both. 



