Price of Wheat, over ' 40 Harvest-Years, 1852-3 to 1891-2. 127 
birds bad to rely on tbe waste com and other matters they could 
pick up about the farm, as they largely do at present. 
As to butter, unfortunately until the last few years “ butter- 
ine ” or “ margarine ” was included with butter in the returns, 
which show, of the two together, a very great increase. Probably 
in the earlier years of the Returns, the imports were chiefly 
butter; but during the last seven years to 1892 inclusive, 
when margarine has been given separately, it contributed from 
one-third to one-half of the total quantity of the imports, which 
were more than twice as great over the last five as over the 
first five of the last twenty years. Certainly there has been great 
room for improvement, and, indeed, there still is, in the quality 
of much of our home-made butter. But, thanks to the good 
work done in technical teaching on butter-making during the 
last few years, some improvement has already been attained ; 
and there is every reason to hope that it will be more general 
in the near future. As to quantity, the home product has pro- 
bably increased to some extent in recent years ; but when it is 
considered that to produce, in addition to the present home yield, 
the amount annually imported, would require a very large area 
of grass land, besides a good deal of arable land produce, and of 
imported food-stufls as well, the hopelessness of meeting the 
whole requirement of our present, to say nothing of an increased, 
population is obvious. 
Then as to cheese, our imports have gradually increased 
during the last twenty years ; and they have been about one-third 
more over the last five than they were over the first five of the 
twenty years. As in the case of butter, so in that of cheese, im- 
provement in the making is taking place, under the influence of 
more widely disseminated technical teaching. But to increase 
the quantity so as to meet the requirement for consumption with- 
out imports would again involve the devotion of a very large 
acreage of grass — the more the less suitable the land for the 
purpose ; besides, as in the case of butter, the use of a consider- 
able quantity of arable land produce and of imported food. In 
fact, to produce the increased amounts of butter and cheese sup- 
posed, would require several million acres of grass-land, necessa- 
rily displacing some other produce, involving increased importa- 
tion of something else to compensate the loss ; and it would also 
require increased importation of food-stufFs for the cows. 
As to fruit and vegetables, the annual value of the imports 
of which is considerable, their increased production at home is 
more dependent on local circumstances of soil and climate than is 
that of some of the more purely agricultural and more important 
products. It is satisfactory to note, however, that, according to 
