Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/788

766 much. In 1871 Russia gave 15,654,000 hundredweight, and in the following year 17,855,658 hundredweight, a figure that was not again attained until 1888. This effort was all the more necessary, as Germany cut down her quota of supplies from an average of more than 6,000,000 hundredweight a year to one of 3,000,000 hundredweight, and after a slight recovery in 1877 and 1878 began to fall rapidly in the rank of wheat exporters to insignificance after 1880. Thus, at a time when England required larger supplies of foreign-grown wheat, Europe failed her. From 1871 to 1875 Europe gave an average of 18,138,823 hundredweight, and in 1876 to 1880 only two thirds of that quantity, or 12,806,670 hundredweight. Outside of Europe must be looked upon to make good the growing deficiency of European supplies.

The reason of this change of sources is not far to seek. The land in Great Britain could be turned to more profitable use than for wheat-growing. "Writing in 1878, before the full force of the current in agriculture could have been felt, Sir James Caird said: "'Excluding good lands capable of being rendered fertile by drainage, we appear to have approached a point in agricultural production beyond which capital can be otherwise more profitably expended in this country than in further attempting to force our poorer class of soils. It is cheaper for us as a nation to get the surplus from the richer lands of America and southern Russia, where the virgin soil is still unexhausted; or from the more ancient agriculture of India, which, with its cheap and abundant labor more skillfully applied, and its means of transport extended and better utilized,seems destined to become one of the principal sources of our future supply of corn (wheat)."

At the time this was written it was assumed that the cost of transporting a bushel of wheat from a distant country was about the same as the rent paid by the wheat farmer in Great Britain. Given ordinarily good returns, the home-grown wheat could meet the foreign wheat on an equality. Two circumstances combined to destroy this relation. The one was an extraordinary succession of bad seasons in England, and the other was such a development of production abroad as to result in a permanently lower range of price. This situation brought to bear an enormous pressure on agricultural properties, and a tendency to reduce rents.

The first notable drop in the wheat acreage in England occurred in 1876, and was due to the great floods in the autumn seedtime of 1875, which prevented a considerable proportion of the land being sown. In 1874 the acres returned under wheat were 3,391,440; in 1875, 3,128,547; and in 1876, only 2,823,342, a loss in two