744 27(6 Future of Agricvlhiral Competition. 
restoration of moderately high prices for that grain would do 
more for British agriculture than any other change in values. 
It was not until after 1874 that the average price of wheat fell 
permanently below fifty shillings a quarter, except for one year, 
1877, in which it was fifty-sis shillings and ninepence ; and it wag 
not till after 1874 that the wheat acreage of the United Kingdom 
began to decrease. In that year it was 3,830,767 acres, a total 
only slightly exceeded in any year later than 1860, and not greatly 
before that date, so far as estimates can be relied on. Previous 
to 1874 our net imports of wheat, including flour, had only once 
been up to 12,000,000 qrs. ; but since that year they have in- 
creased, with fluctuations, as the wheat area has declined and 
the population has advanced, until thev now range from about 
19,000,000 to 20,000,000 qrs. The fall in the wheat area of 
the United Kingdom, partly cause and partly effect of the in- 
creased foreign supplies, is 1,438,522 acres, the crop of 1891 
having covered only 2,392,245 acres. But in 1880 the average 
price of wheat was still over forty-four shillings a quarter, and 
the area of the crop in the United Kingdom was 3,065,895 acres, 
while in the United States, Canada, and Australasia the acreage 
had not begun to decline. It was in the natural order of things 
that British growers, with their heavy expenses, should be the 
first to suff'er from the fall in j^rices. The strain upon them was 
more severe at about that time than it had been before, or has 
been since, for rents had reached their maximum in 1879, after 
which they rapidly declined, while other expenses also have been 
greatly reduced. But in the United States the price of wheat 
on the farm had not regularly fallen below a dollar a bushel. 
It was nearly eleven cents over the dollar in 1879, only five 
cents below in 1880, and more than nineteen cents above in 
1881. Consequently, the area of the wheat crop was nearly 
38,000.000 acres in 1880, the maximum up to that period, and 
an acreage only twice reached in subsequent years before 1891. 
For all Australasia, too, the area in 1880 was 3,379,239 acres, 
which showed a considerable increase over the total of any pre- 
ceding year. The total for Canada in 1880 is not available ; 
but in 1881 it was 2,342,355 acres, which appears to have been 
the greatest acreage grown in the Dominion in any year pre- 
vious to 1890, as a considerable decline took place for some 
years, only covered by the recent increase in Manitoba and the 
North-west, if at all. In India and South America, too, there 
had been increases in the wheat acreage, as well as in Europe 
as a whole, and in some of the minor sources of supply. 
There is no doubt that, in the ten years ending with 1880, 
the growth of wheat in the world had extended much out of 
proportion to the increase of population. In tlie United States 
