Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheal. 193 
Is lost by that waste of liuman excreta which constantly in- 
creases with the growth of the towns. Since J 821 ten millions 
have been added to the number of consumers. Whatever the 
actual waste may be, those who know the value of oilcake and 
beans in manure can form some conception of its enormous 
amount. No agricultural " improvements " can maintain the 
fertility of the soil under such a drain of plant food. Mere 
tillage — even by steam — does not create anything ; practically, 
it destroys, if the fruits are thrown into the sea. Mr. Lawes's 
experiments in growing wheat-crops successively show the small 
yield of unmanured plots, and the exhaustion even of a strong 
wheat-soil. Ours is not a " virgin soil ;" it is an old maxim 
that "it should be fed before it is hungry, and rested before it is 
weary." The present social system wastes, so far as reproduc- 
tion is concerned, a large portion both of imported and of home- 
grown food. Against such waste, the manures and cattle-feeding 
"stuffs" are a very trifling set-off. Agriculture has to contend 
with a gigantic system of spoliation, and it must inevitably suffer 
from the diminished fertility of the land. 
It has been stated that the purchase-money paid for foreign 
wheat returns in payment for our exported manufactures, and 
that by getting corn from abroad we gain a foreign customer. 
This is true ; but we lose one at home and incur the cost of 
carriage, &c., amounting in some instances to .30 per cent, of the 
price of the corn. According to the principles of political 
economy, unnecessary labour is "profitless." It is in this light 
that agricultural hindrances and defects should be considered : 
they diminish the yield, while they increase the cost of pi'oduction 
and our dependence on foreign growth. 
Note. — Since cm- estimates were made, the elaborate paper by 
Messrs. Lawcs and Gilbert, on the 'Home Produce, Imports, and 
Consumption of Wheat,' has appeared in the last nnmbcr of this 
Journal : 5^ bushels are there estimated to be the average yearly con- 
sumption, per head, of the population of the United Kingdom. There- 
fore, the average number of the population maintained by imported 
M'heat, in each year, in the seven years ending 1867, will be 11,563,000; 
leaving 18,051,000 as the number maintained by home-grown corn, 
maize, &c. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert believe that the average con- 
sumption of wheat, per head, has increased in the last sixteen years ; 
but assuming it to remain at 5J bushels, then they calculate that the 
l)resent totail retiuirement for the United Kingdom of 21,175,000 qrs. 
will have increased by about 687,500 qrs. at the end of the next live 
years, on accoimt of the addition of one million to the number of 
the population. 
It must be remembered, however, that it is the wheat-eating popu- 
lation of England that increases ; that of Ireland, which is estimated 
VOL. V. — S. S. O 
