158 Variation in the Price and Suppli/ of Wheat. 
crease in wealth and population. In the purely agricultural 
countries of Europe, we find th.it the proportion of rye and other 
inferior grain-crops in cultivation is from three to five times as 
much as that of wheat. Wheat is grown for exportation until 
the land is reduced to the rye-stage, and from this low mark in 
the scale of corn-growing it cannot be raised until the con- 
sumption of animal food introduces ameliorating crops into the 
rotation. And this requires a home-population, which returns 
to the soil what it has received from it and maintains its fertility. 
More wheat and more animal food are consumed, and much 
grain is used as food for cattle in the winter months. 
Quoting the case of an essentially agricultural country, where 
other industries are quite subordinate, and the only manufacture 
is that of abstracting sugar from beet, we find that in Poland 
there are five times as much rye and four times as much oats as 
wheat; whilst there is a smaller breadth of green-crops than of 
wheat, and five times as much bare fallow. The official returns 
of the growth of grain in 1860 were 11,400,000 quarters; the 
inhabitants living chiefly on rye-bread. Wheat is grown only 
on the best of the fallow which can be manured, and its average 
production is only 1,470,000 quarters, — slender rations, as far as 
wheat goes, for a population of 4,840,466. The export depends 
on the temptation to sell. A sudden rise on our markets has 
a singular effect in wringing wheat out of poor countries. A 
Report of the Agricultural Society of Poland points out, with 
great truth, that a succession of crops is not of itself sufficient 
to restore fertility ; the mere subdivision of the cultivated soil, 
when it is exhausted, is insufficient. The want of capital pre- 
cludes the use of artificial manures, or the adoption of draining 
and similar improvements. The length and severity of the 
winter, and the coldness and frequent dryness of the spring, are 
also great drawbacks. In 1861, the price of wheat was 42s. per 
quarter ; whereas the average for the previous thirty years had 
been 18s. per quarter. Prices generally, both of grain and of 
stock, have doubled of late years. 
The Government statistics state the yield of grain at a little over 
1 quarter per acre ; the Consul, however, prefers the figure 14 as 
representing the average yield of wheat in bushels. It is singular 
that this unknown quantity — the yield of wheat per acre — should 
be expressed by the same symbols in so many countries. In 
America, the south of France, the Russian provinces, in the 
countries of the Black Sea and the Baltic, the same figures are 
used. In England, the figures 26 or 28 represent our unknown 
quantity, and perhaps express our belief that we farm twice as 
well as anybody else ! 
