ig2o.] Agriculture during Two Great Wars. 



233 



over 18,000,000 were supplied — often inadequately, but still 

 supplied — with bread-stuffs produced at home. In 1821, 

 when imports had dwindled to an annual average on the 

 preceding ten years of 450,000 qr., 20,500,000 people were fed 

 from home-grown grain. One other point may be added. 

 The unprecedented heights to which prices from time to time 

 soared have seized on our imaginations and remained in our 

 memories. The falls are forgotten. The following figures 

 of prices afford another proof of the agricultural advance and 

 the increased productiveness of the soil. They show that, 

 when seasons were favourable, farmers, even after 22 years of 

 war and with higher costs of production, could not only feed 

 the people, but fed them with comparative abundance and 

 cheapness : 



Date. 



Wheat. 



Barley. 



Oats. 





s. d. 



s. d. 



s. d. 



1792, December 



47 2 



29 10 



18 6 



1798, November 



. 47 10 



29 



19 10 



1 804, March . . 



49 6 



229 



19 9 



1 816, January 



52 6 



24 8 



18 7 



Ag^riculture and Weather Influences. — One lesson which the 

 course of the war of 1793-1815 might well bring home to con- 

 sumers is the dependence of the farmer on the weather. For 

 many years past, the nature of the season at home has mattered 

 nothing to the present generation of townsmen. If the home 

 harvest failed, the urban consumer got his bread from a country 

 where it had succeeded. He neither knew nor cared whether 

 the home crop was large or small ; the loss fell on farmers, 

 and he was in no way affected. But in the French war every 

 man, woman and child knew what an adverse season meant. 

 There was practically no alternative supply. A severe winter, 

 a cold spring, a wet, sunless summer, even before their effect 

 on the yield of the coming harvest was known, sent prices up 

 and doubled the cost of bread. All England watched the 

 weather as eagerly as the farmer, because between the weather 

 and prices there existed the closest correspondence. It was 

 the character of the season which, in the main, determined the 

 price of the quartern loaf. The intimate connection between 

 the two is hidden from us to-day by the method of recording 

 the average yearly price of corn from ist January to 31st 

 December. The averages are thus made up as to two-thirds 

 by the results of one season, and as to one-third by the results 

 of another. No one who reads these averages would suppose 

 that 1799, with its relatively low price of 69s., and 1813 with 

 its high price of 109s. (^d., were respectively the worst and the 

 best harvests within living memory. 



