Variation in the Price and Siqypli/ of Wheat. 
177 
NOUTIIERN LIMIT OF WhEAT CULTIVATION. 
The northern limit of the profitable cultivation of wheat in 
Russia is at about the latitude of Petersburg, viz. 60". 
The saxonka, and other kinds of superior red Avheat from 
Petersburg, so esteemed at Mark Lane, are grown in the Baltic 
provinces south of the capital. The limit of cultivation extends 
furtlier north on tlie Atlantic shore, under the influence of the 
Gulf stream. 
Belgium, 
Like other manufacturing countries, also imports corn, as do 
Hamburg and the Hanse Towns, and, in fact, any portion of 
the poorer seaboard of the German Ocean where a considerable 
population is collected. 
When the Dutch were the carriers of the world, Rotterdam 
and their coast towns were the emporiums for the corn of other 
nations ; and corn was always abundant in Holland, though little 
was grown there. Now, this industrious people have become 
essentially agricultural, and, in addition to their famous pastures, 
the}' manage to cultivate enough corn to diminish their necessary 
imports from year to year. 
America. 
Of America we shall say but little; because, when con- 
sidering the vast extent and great resources of the countrv, we 
seem to be approaching the illimitable and unknown.* Before 
the war she exported largely in good years. A slight variation 
in yield over a great area gives a large aggregate dift'erence. 
America has sometimes had a large surplus, and sometimes 
barely enough for her own wants. In 1862, the United States 
exported to England about five millions of quarters of wheat and 
flour against less than a hundred thousand quarters in 1859. 
More recent deficits were owing to the interruption of cultiva- 
tion during the civil war, and to the bad wheat-harvests of 1864 
and 1865. The average yearly exportations of wheat and flour to 
this country from the United States for the eleven years including 
1867 were 1,824,000 quarters, and for the eleven previous years 
1,053,000 quarters. The increase is partly due to Canadian corn, 
* After remai-king on the low average yield of wheat in the new States, which 
he thought did not exceed 12 or 13 bushels, while in Ohio, supposed to be the most 
productive State, it was only 15i bushels, Mr. MacCulloch gives his opinion tliat 
" at no very distant period the exports of wheat and flour from the United States 
-will, if they do not cease altogether, become comparatively inconsiderable." — Geo- 
grapliical Dictionanj, 1834. 
VOL. V. — S. S. N 
