Variation in the Price and Suppli/ of Wheat. 
157 
on the Baltic, connected with the same wide district bj railway or 
water communication. Ka-nigsbcrg:, insignificant twenty years 
ago, has now become a large grain-port ; it is the outlet for 
East Prussia and the adjoining Russian Provinces. Under the 
stimulus of an extraordinary demand for corn in manufacturing 
countries, arising from the rapid increase in wealth and popu- 
lation during the past twenty years, the agricultural capabilities 
of these countries have been severely tested, and the exportations 
of corn from them have greatly exceeded the calculations of Mr. 
Jacob, and the more recent estimates of Mr. Meek, Avho visited 
the corn countries of the Baltic in 1841. All subsequent esti- 
mates of prices and supplies have been based on the elaborate 
Reports of these two gentlemen, who, as agents of our Govern- 
ment, had every facility for acquiring information. They both 
greatly underrated the agricultural capabilities of the countries 
they visited. 
During the fifteen years following the abolition of the Sliding 
Scale in England, the exportation from Dantzig to this country, 
of wheat alone, averaged 465,000 quarters a year ; and the usual 
exports to Holland and Belgium are 80,000 quarters. The 
exports of rye to Sweden, Norway, and elsewhere, were about 
250,000 quarters in 1865, which does not greatly exceed the 
average. From Kccnigsberg, the next largest grain-port of 
Northern Europe, the average exports of all sorts of grain for 
the six years ending 1865 were nearly 900,000 quarters a year. 
This enormous increase in the production of corn shows the 
produce of agricultural industry. Will it continue? and will it 
keep pace with the vast strides in commercial industry ? All 
the rich and thickly-populated countries import corn. Germany 
exports at present, as England did, until towards the end of the 
last centur}' ; and the tide may turn from the same cause. We 
have elsewhere shown the rapid development of manufacturing 
and mining in Germany. 
Mr. McCulloch's estimate of the future price of corn was 
singularly correct. The data on which he formed his opinion of 
future prices were, and still are, comparatively trustworthy, and 
they will probably remain so while new land is available and 
production can easily keep pace with consumption. 
Some of our Consuls, who have the best means of judging, 
have stated that the improving agriculture of the old exporting 
countries will not lead to larger exports of wheat ; because, the 
population being at present fed on rye and inferior grain, will 
absorb the extra growth of wheat. It is impossible to calculate 
the future balance of consumption and supply in these countries, 
where increased production follows, but cannot precede, an in- 
