The World's Wheat Area.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 103, 28 October 1897, Page 4

The World's Wheat Area.

-- — o On several occasions in the past we bare, says the LoDdon Standard, pointed •ut that, in the first year of a deficient or even average harvest of wheat in the world, after the absorption of the surplus stocks created by the extraordinarily prolific crops grown in 1891-4, the price of wheat wonid be bound to go up considerably. The basis of tins prediction was the fact that the increase in the world's wheat area lagged far behind the growth of the population of breadeaters, while the area of rye, which is largely ussd as a substitute for wheat, had been absolutely diminished. The careful calculations of Mr C. Wood Davis, of Kansas, in this connection, have been confirmed by the independent reckoning of Sir Robert Giben, as published in the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture. He shows that in the countries practically comprising the bread eating world, the approximate increase of the wheat area in the twenty years ending with 1893 was only 19 per cent as compared with a growth of 26 per cent in the population. For the twenty years ended io 1890 Mr Davis made the increase in the wheat area 18 per cent, ! and the increase in the population of ! [ bread-eaters 262 per cent. As to rye, Sir Robert Giffen shows a decrease of 5 per cent in the area.