174 
The Cost of Wheat-groiving. 
it as otherwise than exceedingly unremunerative. However, as 
the manuring, cleaning, and cultivation, and subsequent feeding off 
the land, where that custom prevails, are undoubtedly beneficial until 
the end of the rotation, it is not right to charge the whole loss in 
growing green crops to the next year. The same may be said with 
regard to the heavy dressing of farm-yard manure, which is usually 
applied to the ley ground ploughed up for wheat. It is certainly 
not nearly exhausted by the wheat, and its influence is seen through 
the succeeding course of cultivation. 
In the table that has been quoted, no mention is made of manure 
further than the labour attached to it, it being assumed that the 
straw, the value of which is not taken into account, goes to make 
the farmyard manure ; or, if it is sold, that its equivalent is returned 
to the land in the form of bought dung or artificial fertilisers. 
The aim of the cultivator of wheat must be to have his expendi- 
ture so low that there is an assured margin of profit. When that 
is accomplished, and when we can grow wheat remuneratively as 
cheaply as our foreign competitors, there appears to be no reason 
why our home acreage should not be gradually increased, so as to 
put the country generally into a sounder position as regards produc- 
tion of food, without in any way interfering with the doctrines of 
free trade. 
To go back to quite another period, in comparing the various 
payments made by the farmer now with those in the time of Arthur 
Young, it is immediately noticeable that the gainer is the agricul- 
tural labourer. Though more must be allowed in the later figures 
for use of implements and machinery, the three following examples 
show the exjjenditure on labour to be 225. 6f/., 27s. Id., and 33s. per 
acre, at the end of last century, against 63s. 10c?. and 57s. 6rf. at the 
present time. 
ArtJmr Young's Eastern Tour. 
Vol I. p. 349. Vol. II. p. 47. Vol. III. p. 88. 
Doiicaster, 1769. Korfolk, 1771. Hast Kent, 1771. » 
£ s. (/. 
Plough , . 7 0 
Seed and sowiug 13 0 
Weeding . . 16 
Ilarvestiug . 10 0 
Threshing . 8 0 
Carrying . . 4 0 
Rent . . .15 0 
*. 
(/. 
£ 
.t. 
il. 
One ploughing 
5 
0 
One plougli 
.s 
0 
2 harrowings 
1 
0 
Seed and sowing 
1(3 
0 
10 pecks seed 
12 
0 
Manuring . 
1 
0 
0 
Sowings 
3 
Reaping and liar- 
Rent . 
2 
10 
0 
vesting . 
7 
li 
Harvesting 
13 
0 
Threshing . 
.") 
0 
Threshing . 
G 
8 
Carrying . 
.'> 
0 
Carrying . 
1 
8 
Rent . 
12 
0 
4 
Id 
1 
3 
11 
0 
Produce, 30 busli. 
Produce, 3 qrs. @ 
@ 37.S. -hi. 
7 
0 
0 
•10s. . 
6 
0 
0 
Straw . 
1 
10 
0 
8 
10 
0 
3 8 6 
9 0 0 
Straw . . 15 0 
Produce, 4 qrs. 
@ 45ji. . .900 
9 15 0 
These examples are chiefly interesting as showing that, more than 
a hundred years ago, tlie return was better than it is now, with a 
considerably lower outlay. 
It is not easy to put a fixed sum on the wlieat crop alone to 
