154 
Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 
is pursued, and grain-crops are separated by green-crops in the 
rotation ; and on the contrary, it is greatest in new or thinly- 
populated countries, where the system of cropping is bare 
fallow, followed bv as many grain-crops in succession as can 
be extracted, until the cleansing and restoring fallow is again 
indispensable. 
In such cases, farming is carried on, without resources, on a 
hand to-mouth system. When there is no demand for stock, 
the "ameliorating crops" cannot be grown, and the repetition of 
grain-crops, without return to the soil, destroys its productive 
power. In a new settlement, production is expansive so long as 
fresh tracts continue to be reclaimed, but the land is wasted by 
constant cropping ; the settler lives on the spoils of the soil ; he 
marches onward, subduing the wilderness and exacting tribute, 
but his course *is marked by the devastation of the land. And 
this is a source of wealth which, however great, is continually 
decreasing. It is well known how much the yield depends on 
season, Mr. Morton's paper in this Journal, on Agricultural 
Maxima*, affords interesting proofs of the immense influence of 
the season ; and Mr. Lawes's experiments show that even on 
land purposely exhausted, the yield, in very favourable years, 
takes a jump and becomes considerable : the extraordinary vigour 
imparted to the plunt apparently overcomes the adverse condi- 
tions of cultivation. In such seasons, even over-cropped and 
slightly-cultivated land becomes productive, as it did in 1863 
and 1864, when the great harvests in England, France, and the 
Continent generally, caused what must be considered a state of 
" over-production " and extreme cheapness. 
These extremes will always be excessive while the system of 
farming in other countries is scourging, and that of our own falls 
short of the high standard which is still exceptional among us. 
In the south of France the extremes of yield, and the evils 
arising therefrom, are far greater than in England. 
The most reliable information as to the agricultural condition 
of the great corn-producing countries is found in the reports 
of British Consuls. We have taken considerable pains to exa- 
mine these, scattered as they are throughout the pages of a great 
number of Parliamentary Blue-Books. They show the effect of 
" crop and fallow " farming in speedily taming the exuberance 
of the most fertile soil, and prove that the supposed fertility of 
new countries is practically a romance, however great their 
capability may be ; the actual average yield of corn being little 
more than half that of our own Avorn-out fields ! Wherever the 
population is scanty and agricultural, the yield of corn must 
* Vol. XX. p. 442. First Series. 
