The Agricultural Department of the United States has issued. a
Report showing the immense increase of the growth and ex- port of corn in the last few years. There are now 4008,807 separate farms in the States, against 1,449,073 in 1850, while the acreage under grain culture has increased from 293,000,000 acres to 536,000,000. The total agricultural exports have risen, from less than £10,000,000 in 1820 to £110,000,000 in 1882, and of these, the largest amount goes to the United Kingdom. The average import of food into Great Britain and Ireland for the ten years ending-June, 1883, has amounted to.£'75,000,000 a year, and is always increasing. It is characteristic that the drafts- man of the Report adds that the Union has only imported back again articles worth £32,000,000 a year, and obviously thinks the balance pure gain. We wonder if he thinks the American farmers gave us D4,000,000 a year ! If not, they must have imported their returns somehow, and English trade must have benefited by sending them. The corn was not all paid for, we suppose, in United States' bonds, and it certainly was not pait for in bullion.
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