Vanatioii in the Price and Snpph/ of Wheat. 181 
in tills lespect is European, lilven the Russian labourer claims 
wages, instead of the niiserablo payments in kind which he 
received in the days of serfdom. In those parts of Germany 
where large estates are badly farmed, the condition of the 
labourer must either be improved or emigration will continue 
and cultivation become still worse. 
A scarcity of labourers in impoverished corn-districts abroad 
is more injurious than in England, where the use of machines 
and implements saves labour, and by the care they require edu- 
cates the labourer and increases his efficiency. Improved agri- 
culture, which permanently increases the value of the land, 
requires an outlay which cannot be incurred except in a thickly- 
peopled country where capital is concentrated. 
The rate of wages rose from 6s. per week in the middle of 
the last century to 9.9. at its close. It has been calculated that a 
fair day's wage was the value of a peck of wheat, viz., lOs. a 
week at 53.?. per quarter, and 7*. Qd. at 405. per quarter ; this, 
however, was exclusive of the additional pay in haytime and 
harvest; but this calculation has become obsolete, as increased 
pay is allowed in the use of machinery, task- work is more general, 
and wages have risen. 
Thaer's estimate for the German labourer, sixty years since, 
was the value of three pecks of rye a week. Women were then 
constantly employed in field-work, in cultivation generally, and 
in stock-feeding. " A maid-servant is allotted to every ten 
cows, and she is expected to feed them and carry away their 
dung." " A woman spreads an acre and a quarter of dung a 
day, and a man one and a half to two acres." 
The various consular reports, as well as our sketch of French 
agriculture, confirm the accounts of the average cost of production 
abroad. The following is a curious calculation of the effect of a 
deficient harvest in raising the price of corn : — 
Deficiency of crop : — 
0-1 , 0-3 
0-2 I 0-8 
0*3 / Raises prices < 1'6 
0-4 2-8 
0-5 I 4-5 
Mr. Tooke, in his 'History of Prices,' observes, "No such 
strict rule can be deduced, but there is some ground for sup- 
posing that the estimate is not very wide of the truth," when the 
deficiency has not been relieved by foreign supplies. 
The large imports of wheat and flour in 18G0, 1861, and 1862 
(average 9,150,000 quarters per annum) did not depress prices 
below an average of 53s. 6c?. to 55s. 6c/. ; the moderate imports 
of 1857-8-9 (average 4,780,000 quarters per annum) did not 
