AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF EUROPE-; GERMANY 33 
The greater part of Germany's domestic wheat supply was grown 
in the southern and western provinces, but at the same time these 
regions, particularly the western, were the most highly industrialized 
sections of the Empire, in which the ratio of wheat consumers to 
producers was high. These districts consumed all the wheat they 
grew at home, all of the surplus from the eastern and northern dis- 
tricts and imported nearly half as much as the domestic surplus from 
foreign countries. Importations into these deficit districts were 
facilitated by their proximity to cheap water transportation of the 
Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe, and the great ports of Bremen and 
Hamburg. 
The German people consumed annually, on the average, before the 
war 192.6 pounds (3.21 bushels) of wheat per capita. The use 
of wheat as an article of diet, however, varied considerably in dif- 
ferent parts of the Empire. When we contrast the wheat-eating 
Alsatians on the west, consuming at least 434 pounds each per year, 
with the rye-eat' ng Poles on the east, who consumed yearly not more 
than 164 pounds of wheat per capita, this dietary variation is striking. 
The district of Posen, with a population of 1,946,461 had only 
194,000 acres under wheat, but exported on the average 2,000,000 
bushels annually; Alsace-Lorraine, with a smaller population (1,874,- 
014), had 341,000 acres under wheat and in addition to wheat pro- 
duced locally imported yearly some 6,500,000 bushels. 
EFFECT OF VERSAILLES TREATY ON THE GERMAN WHEAT SITUATION 
Germany ceded to Poland from Posen, West Prussia, and East 
Prussia some of her best wheat lands that produced an average 
(1909-1913) surplus of approximately 2,500,000 bushels. Some of 
the ceded districts on the east, particularly Upper Silesia, showed an 
annual average deficit of about 1,500,000 bushels. Memel had a 
slight deficit, and the territories now composing Danzig Free State 
produced a small surplus. On the west, Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, 
and the districts ceded to Belgium and Denmark required about 
8,500,000 bushels annually in addition to the locally produced wheat. 
The estimated average statistical wheat deficit (1909-1913) of 
the territories now comprised within the Republic of Germany was 
61,400,000 bushels, as compared with 68,700,000 bushels, the average 
amount of wheat imported annually into the whole Empire. 
It is estimated that the ceded territories, exclusive of the Saar 
district, required an annual net importation of 5,461,000 bushels of 
wheat. 
The statistical analysis of the pre-war wheat situation in the 
ceded districts and in the territory now composing the Republic of 
Germany appears in Table 22. 
Table 22 gives an approximation of production and consumption 
for the territories ceded, in comparison with the rest of the Empire 
now constituting the Republic. It must be borne in mind that these 
figures show a higher production than was actually the case and con- 
sequently a higher per capita consumption. If there were any 
unanimity of opinion as to the amount of the overestimation of crop 
yields, these estimates might be discounted in computing the tables; 
but, as it is, it seems better to publish the figures as they are officially 
given and merely call attention to the possibility of error. Several 
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