Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 
161 
afford no evidence that tlie average yield is increasing at the 
present time. 
The true test of agricultural progress is the increase of 
production arising from imjiroved cultivation. In this respect 
the progress in a hundred years under petite culture has been 
slow, and the cost of growing wheat has been reduced very little, 
— and not at all, if the Journal already quoted be correct in 
maintaining that when the price of wheat falls below 495. a 
quarter the French farmer ceases to prosper. Where little 
besides wheat is grown, the dependence on a single article of 
production causes an adverse price to be severely felt, and 
fluctuations in price are at once more frequent and harder to 
bear. The minimum cost of production in France is not likely 
to be at present reduced. 
In average years there is already an excess of imports over 
exports ; and although the northern districts, favoured by climate 
and a large population, will, no doubt, become more productive, 
it seems probable that France will long continue to be a corn- 
importing country. The excess of imports over exports of wheat 
averaged 180,000 quarters a year from 1820 to 1860; from 
1861 to 1865 inclusive, the excess of imports over exports was 
^)12,000 quarters -a year; in 1861, when the harvest was defi- 
cient, the excess of the imports of wheat over the exports was 
4,700,000 quarters; in the following year it was 1,700,000 
quarters ; and it has only been during the recent wheat-flood . 
that France has figured largely in the opposite direction — to the 
extent, in one year, of 2,000,000 quarters. The increased im- 
portation of wheat has been partly owing to the alteration of 
the corn-laws on June 15th, 1861, when the sliding-scale was 
abandoned in favour of a fixed nominal duty on corn imported. 
Wheat for grinding and re-exportation, as flour, is admitted free. 
Quoting from a circular by M. Behec, late Minister of Agri- 
culture : — 
" The process is to import wheat at the southern ports free of duty, and 
available for consumption in that part of France, and to export from the 
northern and western sea-board an equivalent in flour made from French 
wheat. This system has the double advantage of bringing wheat into the 
southern departments, where the growth of cereals is insufficient for consump- 
tion, and of opening a market for the northern and western departments, 
which generally produce more than they require." 
In 1750 the population was sixteen to eighteen millions; it is 
now thirty-sQven millions. With a greatly-increased breadth of 
corn since 1750, the production of wheat has tripled ; that of 
oats has quadrupled ; while that of barley and rye remains the 
same. Twenty-four million quarters of wheat, barley, and rye 
(after deducting seed), and 4,000,000 quarters of oats, were 
VOL. v.— S. S. M 
