Allotments and Small Holdings. 
4G1 
creased imports. But, owing to the great reduction in price 
consequent on the increased production in various parts of the 
world, the rate of extension of the wheat-growing areas, espe- 
cially in the United States, received some check about eight or 
ten years ago. 
. It has, indeed, been estimated, judging from the increase 
of the population in the United States in the past, that the 
Central, Northern, and Western States, from which we now 
derive such large supplies of grain, will, before many years have 
passed, be as densely populated as the Eastern States are now, and 
that then the export of grain will be rapidly diminished. In 
this calculation, however, the essential difference in the character 
of the land in the Eastern States and in the prairie districts of the 
Central, Northern, and Western States, is not taken into account. 
At present our imports come chiefly from large areas of formerly 
prairie land, often as rich as a ploughed-up old pasture in our own 
country, and frequently so to the depth of some feet. The land 
is only skimmed, practically no labour is bestowed on cleaning, 
and a very small produce of grain per acre is obtained compared 
with that which such land properly cultivated should yield. So 
long as the population is sparse, the grain is harvested, the straw 
generally burnt, and the manure of the working stock sometimes 
floated away on the ice in the rivers or otherwise wasted, and grain 
is grown for several years in succession. As population becomes 
more dense, however, local markets will arise for rotation products, 
stock will be kept, the straw and the manure will be utilised, 
cultivation will be improved, and there will for some time be 
more rich prairie land to bring under the plough ; so that it is 
probable that it will be long before increased density of popula- 
Uon in those States will materially diminish the capability of 
production for export. The same may be said of Canada in a 
less degree ; whilst the resources of the rest of the world, taken 
as a whole, show no signs of diminution. 
There can, in fact, be little hope that, with the greatly 
increased foreign competition that has been so thoroughly 
established, our own wheat-growing area will ever regain its 
former proportions ; unless, indeed, it should happen, from un- 
foreseen causes, that the price were to range much higher than 
that which has prevailed in recent years. But to produce the 
whole of the wheat we require for consumption would involve 
a vastly larger extension of our own wheat-growing area than 
this. Thus, the area under wheat in the United Kingdom 
during the last eight years has averaged rather less than one- 
eighth of the total arable area, and to produce all the wheat 
required for ponsumption, more than poe-third of our exist- 
