THE BRITISH WHEAT CROP.
[To TII74 EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The Minister of Agriculture, in his speech at Rotham- sted on July 29th, held out a gleam of hope to us farmers that the price of wheat might shortly improve, owing to the diminu- tion of the reserve, which of late has been abnormally sus- tained. Surely it is most misleading to speak of wheat as any longer a dominating factor in British agriculture. If any one will take the trouble to refer to the Agricultural Returns —I quote from those issued by the Board of Agriculture in 1892—he will see that whereas, of the totals for Great Britain, wheat figures for only 2,219,839 acres, permanent pasture stands at 16,358,150 acres, and rotation grasses and clovers at 4,672,802,—reaching together a total of 21,030,952 acres.
Estimating the wheat-yield at twenty-eight bushels per acre, worth 3s. 3d. per bushel, the value of the wheat-crop would reach about ten millions sterling, as against about a hundred millions of feeding and selling value of the produce of the twenty-one million acres under permanent or rotation grasses and clovers. It is unquestionably the complete failure of the hay-crop over one-half of Great Britain which is this season the main cause of our ruin.—I am, Sir, &c., Six-Mile Bottom, August 2nd. W. H. HALL.
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