Arable Land 
The other extraordinary fact is that our arable land 
is yearly diminishing in area. It does not pay to grow 
corn crops and roots for modern prices and with modern 
taxes. Therefore these scientifically built up and most 
productive fields are gradually changing into pasture 
and the area under corn is incessantly shrinking. 
The average yield per acre is, taken all over England, 
31} bushels, in Australia 9.03 bushels (varying from 
1.24 bushels to 21.86 in Tasmania, 1901-1902), in 
India 11.16 bushels, and in Canada 17.83 bushels, 
Irrigated land at Ajmere Merwana in India has given 
as much as 34 bushels per acre, and even higher yields 
are by no means unusual in favoured districts, 
If our farmers could have foretold the sudden rise in 
the price of wheat to 48 shillings per quarter in April 
1909, there would have been no shrinking in the area 
of our cornlands in 1908, but then American speculators 
would not have been able to make £100,000 in a day 
and 42,000,000 in a week or two! 
1 Dunn. 2 Resvoll. 3 Kraus. 
‘ Ridley, Brandis. 5 Anon. ® Humphries. 
260 
