The Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 1908. BRITISH AND FOREIGN HARVESTS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13017, 20 January 1908, Page 6

The Press. MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 1908. BRITISH AND FOREIGN HARVESTS.

In a review of the cereal year, "The Times" of December 7th gives some instructive information regarding the world's cereal crops, which points to high prices again ruling during the current period. It is stated that the gain of production on population from 1881 to 1894 brought about the co-1-lupso of prices in 1894-6, but since 1896 population has been gaining on production, and that tho rate at which it gains appears to bo accelerating. The situation is now that even average crops would not have been sufficient to prevent a gentle rise in cereals. There appears to be a tendency in the older wheat-growing countries to curtail tho growing of this cereal, probably owing to tho fact that increase of population enables the land to be put to more profitable uses in the production of other items of food. Thus we find that in England the supplying of milk to large centres of population is one of the most profitable kinds of farming, and tho most certain Source of incomn. . A remarkable fact about wheat-crowine* in Encland is that while during the last century the area shows a great reduction, the fertility of the wheat lands has practically doubled in that time. In 1807 the yield per aero was 20 bushels, and was regarded as a large return; while in 1907 it was 33.97 bushels, the averag« for the past seven years being 31.6 bushels, and this comes within about two bushels of the average jield in-New Zealand, which for th© last five years amounts to 33 bushels. With a, lessened area in wheat than ir 1906, Great Britain is nearly 4,000,000 bushels short in the 1907 crop. Tlie Continental wheat crop of 1907 is estimated at 181,585 quarters, or 9 per cent, less than tho average, ali countries except Italy and France exhibiting a falling off, the large decrease being in Austro-Hungary. Tho French wheat crop shows a fairly steady return from year to year. Farming in that country is prosperous, but the yield, even with +h© increased tvso of artificial manures, does not quite represent 21 bushels por acre. The American wheat crop of 1007 yielded eleven million bushels less than in 1906, in which year thero was a record yield per acre of 15.5 bushels. ; The averago yield of wheat per acre in America in 1889 was officially declared on the basis of ten years' returns to be 12.3 bushels, and for the last seven years it is returned at 14.1 bushels. Tho improvement in cultivation goes on at the mean rate of about a bushel every ten yiars, and the increase in the area undVii' cultivation not quite half a million acros a year. Tho increase in th© population of the United States and its requirements has, howovcr, in the last seven years been gaining on

duction. The quantity of American wheat available for export will lie only 105,537,000 bushels, as against 130,000,000 bushels in 1906. Tho Canadian wheat crop is estimated to be 34,201,000 bushels smaller than that of the year before, which gave the Dominion an exported surplus ot 40,000,000 bushels, so that the crop just harvested will afford a comparatively small supply for export. The southern hemisphere, which is now reaping its crops, is expected to do something to redress the agricultural balance of the northern hemisphere. The Australian colonies will do less than last year, in consequence of the failure of the harvest in Now South Wales. The Argentine may, however, have about 20,000,000 bushels more to ship in 1908 than last year, when the enormous quantity of 110,000,000 bushels placed her at the head of exporting countries. Tho high prices that the crops of 1907 and 1908 will realise will no doubt act as a stimulus to wheat growing. There is a largo amount of new land in Canada on which wheat could be grown, and in Siberia, according to John Foster Fraser, there ia a vast area that could be turned into wheat fields. It is these northern lands whoro stock raising is not profitable, which must provide the increased area of wheat growing in the future, and at th© same time the older wheat growing countries will have to go on increasing the yield per acre by more scientific methods of farming.