i9 io.] International Agricultural Statistics. 929 



verted and heated by braziers or open fires of hardwood at 

 very small cost. The above charges are for the simplest 

 barns adapted to the peculiar requirements of each tobacco, 

 the cigarette Burley alone requiring steam heat. 



Tobacco, like most farm crops, yields little more than a fair 

 return upon the labour and capital involved in its production, 

 though in highly-protected countries, or where labour and 

 virgin soils are very cheap, tobacco growing may produce 

 large net profits. The importance of tobacco as a farm crop 

 is due to the facts that it employs a large amount of labour ; 

 that, when properly packed, it is non-perishable; and that it 

 may be cheaply transported to distant markets. 



The fourth part of the Agricultural Statistics for 1908, 

 published by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 [Cd. 4,989. Price 6^d.], contains the 

 International statistics of the crops and live stock in 

 Agricultural Statistics, the British Empire and in foreign coun- 

 tries, and returns of Colonial and 

 foreign prices of agricultural produce. The tabular matter is 

 prefaced by a report by Mr. Rew, dealing with some of the 

 figures in their international aspect. 



In referring to the wheat area of the world, Mr. Rew 

 observes that statistics of wheat supply still retain pre- 

 eminence in all discussions of the world's production. Their 

 interest to the statistician and economist — as well as ulti- 

 mately to a large proportion of the inhabitants of the earth — 

 lies in the theoretical uncertainty of the wheat crop and the 

 appalling consequences of its possible failure. The exhaus- 

 tion of a mineral product may be contemplated — as Jevons 

 contemplated the possible exhaustion of coal supplies — but 

 it can only be conceived as a gradual process during which 

 the world would have some chance of providing for the new 

 conditions, however alarming they might be. But the conse- 

 quences involved in a failure for one year of the world's 

 wheat-crop are beyond calculation. For this reason the 

 figures relating to wheat supplies have a perennial interest 

 which attaches to no other set of statistics, and for this 

 reason also they have received special attention, and are on 



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