The Future of Agricultural GompeiUion. 759 
and still the chief source of our imports, has diminished her 
supplies. Apparently our prices have not been good enough. 
America also has fallen back, while India in some years has 
stood next to Canada, with Russia in the third place, and 
Germany fourth. The small supplies from Morocco and Holland 
have increased of late ; but the only steady and important 
increase has been in the Russian supply. Peas and beans, like 
barley and oats, appear to have been cheapened " in sympathy 
with" maize, cakes, and other important feeding-stuffs, rather 
than from direct foreign competition, and this connection will 
probably hold good in the future. Imports of linseed, cotton 
seed, oil-seed cakes, and miscellaneous feeding-grains have all 
increased greatly during the last ten years, and much more 
during the twenty years ending with 1890. As to maize, it 
has been pointed out that the increment, until 1890, had not 
been remarkable during the last decade; but in 1870 our 
imports of that grain were only 16,756,783 cwt., and they 
were nearly the same in the following year, whereas in 1889 
they were 36,192,325 cwt., and, in 1890, 43,437,831 cwt. 
It has already been remarked that prospects as to the future 
supplies of maize are doubtful, and this must also be said in 
respect of cotton seed and linseed. But there is much more 
reason to expect a large increase in the production of maize 
than in either of these seeds, which may be regarded partially 
as bye-products, their supplies being in great measure ruled by 
the demand for cotton and flax, although the oils obtained from 
them are valuable, and one, at least, is indispensable. If flax 
were not grown partly for the seed alone, as in America, as well 
as partly for the fibre alone, as in Ireland, the supply of linseed 
would not keep pace with the demand, as the consumption of 
flax, judging from our imports, has been about stationary for 
the last decade. Supplies of cotton, on the other hand, have 
steadily advanced, and presumably will grow with the popu- 
lation. If wheat rises in value, beans and peas, like other 
grain, are likely to go up more or less " in sympathy with " it ; 
but there seems to be no reason to expect a rise through the 
falling-off of imported feeding-stuffs which compete with pulse. 
The almost stationary imports of flax have been incidentally 
alluded to. They were smaller in the five years ending with 
1887 than in the previous quinquennial period, but have gone up 
since that year, contemporaneously with a decline in our home 
production. The question of flax culture is one for which there is 
no space available to me on the present occasion ; but it is my 
opinion, after giving a good deal of attention to the subject, 
that we could compete with the world in the supply of flax for 
