ture is thus already beginning to accommodate itself to the change which American competition will certainly render necessary. In the northern and western parts of the country, where live stock predominates over corn, and where the labor bill is comparatively moderate, the effects of this connection are little felt, and the suffering that has arisen of late years has been more the result of ungenial seasons and grazings unthrifty for the herds and flocks. In the corn districts the loss has been greater, because not only were the crops inferior, but prices were low, while the labor was very costly. In the least fertile tracts of poor clay, where every operation is expensive and the land is unkindly for grass, it must either go out of cultivation or be turned to some other purpose than that of growing food. It is hopeless to expect that such soils can maintain their old position. Indeed, nothing but the greatest prudence and freedom of action will carry our landowners and farmers, on even the better class of corn lands, through the earlier years of the competition on which they are entered."[1]
The estimates of the losses suffered by the British farmer through the succession of "calamitous" seasons from 1873 to 1879 varied widely, but all agreed in naming a very large amount. Only two good crops in ten years, and the last of the series, that of 1879, the "worst of the century," naturally gave a severe and, as it proved, a lasting blow to wheat-growing in England. Indeed, the loss was placed at one third of the total farming capital of the kingdom, and in many corn (or wheat) districts more than one half of the farmers' capital had disappeared. The acreage under wheat, the gazette price, and the imports of foreign supplies during this period make an interesting and suggestive study.
| Year. | Wheat acreage. | Gazette price per quarter. |
Total imports. | Imports from Europe. | |
| Acres | s. | d. | Cwt. | Cwt. | |
| 1871 | 3,571,894 | 56 | 8 | 39,389,803 | 20,667,593 |
| 1872 | 3,598,957 | 57 | 42,127,726 | 26,543,585 | |
| 1873 | 3,490,380 | 58 | 8 | 43,863,098 | 14,392,135 |
| 1874 | 3,630,300 | 55 | 8 | 41,527,638 | 10,109,357 |
| 1875 | 3,342,481 | 45 | 2 | 51,876,517 | 18,981,444 |
| 1876 | 2,995,957 | 46 | 2 | 44,454,657 | 13,208,705 |
| 1877 | 3,168,540 | 56 | 9 | 54,269,800 | 19,642,475 |
| 1878 | 3,218,417 | 46 | 5 | 49,906,484 | 14,614,540 |
| 1879 | 2,890,244 | 43 | 10 | 59,591,795 | 11,908,821 |
| 1880 | 2,909,438 | 44 | 4 | 55,261,924 | 4,658,807 |
These figures alone would be sufficient to indicate a revolution in the wheat interests of Great Britain. The acreage under wheat
- ↑ Address as President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1880.
