The bread stuffs, as they are popularly termed, particularly wheat and wheat flour, maize, and rice, form very important articles of commerce, and enter largely into cultivation in various countries for home consumption and export. Russia, India, and the United States, carry on a very considerable trade in grain with other countries. Our local production being insufficient for food and manufactures, we import yearly immense quant.i.ties of grain and flour. In the four years ending 1852, the annual quant.i.ty of corn, of various, kinds, imported into the United Kingdom, exclusive of flour and meal, rice, sago, &c., averaged 8,085,903 quarters.

The flour and meal imported, omitting sago, arrowroot and other starches, averaged in the same period 4,143,603 cwts. annually.

The annual imports of breadstuffs for food, taking the average of the four years ending with 1852, may be thus summed up--

Tons.

Corn and grain, 8,085,903 quarters, at 60 lb. the bushel 173,270 Flour and meal 207,180 Rice 40,817 Potatoes 42,440 Sago, arrowroot, &c. 5,000 ------- Total 468,707

Some portion of this quant.i.ty is doubtless consumed in the arts--as starch for stiffening linens, &c., and for other purposes not coming under the term of food, but I have purposely left out in the calculation about 30,000 to 40,000 quarters of rice in the husk annually imported.

Ireland took, in 1849, of foreign grain 2,115,129 quarters; 1,683,687 quarters in 1850; and 2,504,229 in 1851; as well as 256,837 cwts. of various kinds of meal and flour in 1849; 220,107 cwts. in 1850; and 341,680 cwts. in 1851. England also supplied her with about 500,000 quarters of grain and 350,000 cwts. of meal in each of those years.

The comparative returns of the importations of grain into the United Kingdom for the last four years, are as follows, in quarters:--

1852. 1851. 1850. 1849.

Wheat 3,068,892 3,812,009 3,738,995 3,845,378 Barley 656,737 829,564 1,035,903 1,381,008 Oats 995,480 1,198,529 1,154,473 1,267,106 Rye 10,023 24,609 98,836 240,566 Beans 371,250 318,502 443,306 457,933 Peas 107,017 99,399 181,419 234,366 Maize 1,479,891 1,807,636 1,277,071 2,224,459 Other sorts 8,085 3,432 868 1,150 --------- --------- --------- --------- Quarters 6,667,375 8,124,280 7,930,871 9,651,966

The meal and flour imported in the same years, in cwts., were as follows:--

1852. 1851. 1850. 1849.

Wheat 3,889,583 5,314,414 3,819,440 3,349,839 Barley 212 34 108 224 Oats 521 2,525 5,999 40,230 Rye 92 6,493 964 18,468 Indian corn 742 9,561 11,334 101,683 Other sorts 54 343 163 1,396 --------- --------- --------- --------- Cwts. 3,891,195 5,323,370 3,838,008 3,511,840

Before the famine in Ireland the imports seldom reached 20 millions of bushels of grain and meal of all kinds. In 1848 our imports were about 60 millions; in 1849, 85 millions; in 1850, 68 millions; in 1851, 75 millions; in 1852, 69 millions, with good wheat harvests; showing the great shock received and the slowness of recovery.

With a rapidly increasing population in all parts of the civilized world, the production of bread is obviously the first object to be sought after, alike by the statesman and the peasant. I scarcely dare give the calculation of the immense amount which would be realised in any great country, by the single saving of a bushel to an acre, in the quant.i.ty of seed ordinarily sown. The same result would follow if an additional bushel could be produced in the annual average yield of the wheat crop.

According to Mr. H. Colman, the annual amount of seed for wheat sown in France is estimated at 32,491,978 bushels. If we could suppose a third of this saved, the saving would amount to 10,863,959 bushels per year. Suppose an annual increase of the crops of five bushels per acre, this would give an increase of production of 54,319,795 bushels.

Add this, under improved cultivation, to the amount of seed saved, and the result would be 65,183,754 bushels--I believe under an improved agriculture this is quite practicable.

An eminent agricultural writer placed the average yield in England at eighteen bushels per acre; some years since a man of sanguine temperament rated it at over thirty bushels. In France it is stated, in the best districts, to average twenty-two bushels. These evidently are wholly conjectural estimates. In England Mr. Colman states that fifty bushels per acre were reported to him on the best authority, as the yield upon a large farm in a very favorable season. More than eighty bushels have been returned, upon what is deemed ample testimony, to the Royal Agricultural Society of England, as the product of a single acre. In France Mr. Colman had, upon credible authority, reports of forty, forty-four and seventy-two bushels. It would be of immense importance to any government to know the exact produce grown in any county, or district, or in the whole country; and this might be obtained by compelling, on the part of the owner or cultivator, an actual return of his crop; but it is of little use to found such returns on estimates purely conjectural.

From the best statistical accounts that can be obtained, the wheat annually produced in the United Kingdom.

England, Scotland, Ireland is 111,681,320 bushels.

In France it is 198,660,000 "

United States 100,503,899 "

The amount of seed ordinarily sown to the acre in France is from two to three bushels. The return of crop for the seed sown is represented as in the best districts averaging 6.25 for one; in the least productive 5.40 for one. My readers may be curious to know the calculations which have been made in some other countries in regard to this matter.

CENTRAL EUROPE Increase Countries. Year. for seed sown.

Spain 1828 6 for one Portugal 1786 10 "

Tuscany 10 "

Plains of Lucca 15 "

Piedmont--Plains of Marengo 4 to five Bologna 15 "

Roman States--Pontine marshes 20 "

Ordinary lands 8 "

Kingdom of Naples--best districts 20 "

Ordinary lands 8 "

Malta--the best lands 38 to 64 "

Ordinary lands 22, 25, 30 "

NORTHERN EUROPE.

Sweden and Norway 1838 4.50 for one Denmark 1827 6 "

Russia, a good harvest 1819 5 "

---- province of Tambof 1821 4.50 "

---- provinces north of 50 deg. lat.i.tude 1821 3 "

Poland 1826 8 "

England 1830 9 "

Scotland 1830 8 "

Ireland 1825 10 "

Holland 1828 7.50 "

Belgium 1828 11 "

Bavaria 1827 7 to 8 "

Prussia 1817 6 "

Austria 1812 7.05 "

Hungary 1812 4 "

Switzerland, lands of an inferior quality 1825 3 "

Of a good quality, 8; of the best quality 12 "

France, inferior lands, 3; best lands 6 "

(Statistique des Cereales de la France par Moreau de Jonnes.)

STATISTICS OF WHEAT CULTURE.

As wheat forms the princ.i.p.al nutritious food of the world, claiming the industrious application of labor over the greater part of Europe, throughout the temperate regions of Asia, along the northern kingdoms of Africa, and extending far into the northern and southern regions of the American continents; as it has been cultivated from time immemorial, and has produced in various climates and soils many varieties; it is surprising that so little is generally known of the distinct varieties best adapted to particular climates--and that in Great Britain and the United States we have yet to learn the variety which will yield the largest and best amount of human food!

At the Industrial Exhibition in 1851, twenty-six premiums only were distributed for specimens of wheat; of these, five were awarded to British farmers, three to France, three to Russia, three to Australia, three to the United States, and one each or severally to other nations. Some beautiful specimens of wheat were exhibited from South Australia, weighing seventy pounds a bushel; which were eagerly sought after for seed wheat by our farmers and the colonists of Canada and the United States. But as is well observed by Professor Lindley, it has no peculiar const.i.tutional characteristics by which it may be distinguished from other wheats. Its superior quality is entirely owing to local conditions; to the peculiar temperature, the brilliant light, the soil, and those other circ.u.mstances which characterise the climate of South Australia.

All kinds of wheat contain water in greater or lesser quant.i.ties. Its amount is greater in cold countries than in warm. In Alsace from 16 to 20 per cent.; England from 14 to 17 per cent.; United States from 12 to 14 per cent.; Africa and Sicily from 9 to 11 per cent. This accounts for the fact, that the same weight of southern flour yields more bread than northern, English wheat yields 13 lbs. more to the quarter than Scotch. Alabama flour, it is said, yields 20 per cent.

more than that of Cincinnati. And in general American flour, according to one of the most extensive London bakers, absorbs 8 or 10 per cent.

more of its own weight of water in being made into bread than the English. The English grain is fuller and rounder than the American, being puffed up with moisture.

Every year the total loss in the United States from moisture in wheat and flour is estimated at four to five million dollars. To remedy this great evil, the grain should be well ripened before harvesting, and well dried before being stored in a good dry granary. Afterwards, in grinding and in transporting, it should be carefully protected from wet, and the flour be kept from exposure to the atmosphere. The best precaution is kiln-drying. By this process the wheat and flour are pa.s.sed over iron plates heated by steam to the boiling point. From each barrel of flour 16 or 17 pounds of water are thus expelled, leaving still four or five per cent. in the flour, an amount too small to do injury. If all the water be expelled, the quality of the flour is deteriorated.

The mode of ascertaining the amount of water in flour is this; take a small sample, say five ounces, and weigh it carefully; put it into a dry vessel, which should be heated by boiling water; after six or seven hours, weigh it; its loss of weight shows the original amount of water.

The next object is to ascertain the amount of gluten. Gluten is an adhesive, pasty ma.s.s, and consists of several different principles, though its const.i.tution has not yet been satisfactorily determined. It is chiefly the nutritious portion of the flour. The remaining principles are mostly starch, sugar and gum. On an average their relative amount in 100 parts are about as follows:--

Average. Kobanga wheat, the best.

Water 13 12 Gluten 12 16 Starch 67 60 Sugar and Gum 8 8 --- --- 100 97

Professor Beck examined thirty-three different samples from various parts of the United States and Europe, and he gives the preference to the Kobanga variety from the south of Russia. There would probably be a prejudice against it in this country, from the natural yellowish hue of its flour and bread.

The value of the vegetable food, grain, potatoes, rice and apples exported from the United States within the past few years is thus set down:--

Dollars.