21 OCTOBER 1911, Page 23

WHEAT IN THE NEW WORLD:t PRACTICALLY this volume has to

do with the growing, the transportation, and the marketing of wheat in the two Americas, the subject being regarded from the economic point of view. This limitation does not make it. less interesting; the Americas are great world granaries, though it is probable' that, so far as the wants of the Old World are concerned, the situation of the great supplying countries, the United States, , Canada, and the Argentine, may be changed in a not very!

* Judgments in Vacation. By Edward Abbott Parry. London : Smith, Elder and Co. 7a. ed. net.] t Wheat Growing in Canada, the United States, otitis* Argentina. By W.-4 Butter. London: A. and C. Black. [2e. ed. nat.]. listant future. It is interesting to note that harvesting is going on the whole year round in one State or another of the western world. In a few weeks from the time when this will meet our readers' eyes the Argentine wheat harvest will begin ; Chili takes up the succession in January and February, and Mexico begins the harvests of the Northern Hemisphere in April. Then the varieties of the plant are many, as, indeed, one might expect when the land under cultivation shows so vast a range of climate and soil. Of the whole world's crop of wheat about 30 per cent. comes from the Americas, two-thirds of this belonging to the United States—an amount more than three and a half times as much as that claimed by Canada. The wheat belt is being extended further north, as far as 58 deg. 4 min. (Fort Vermilion in North-West Canada). Even this is exceeded in the Tobolsk provinces of Siberia, where the limit of 63 deg. 5 min. has been reached. Practically, however. 55 deg. may be taken as the northern boundary, while in the south the figure is 42 deg. Possibly varieties suited to a more rigorous climate may come into existence. On the whole the prospect is somewhat reassuring after the alarming prognostics of Sir William Crookes. It must be remembered that the average of production varies very much. That of the Argentine is nearly doubled by that of the United States, Canada is superior to the States ; we beat Canada and are beaten again by Denmark. The subjects of transportation, dec., we must pass by with the remark that Mr. Rutter has some remarkably interesting details to give. We have no conception here of the organization, the grading, checking, carrying, and storing required when the enormous harvests of the West have to be handled.