progress through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly dwelling on the In the division of modern Europe into many independent nations, no single imperial NOTE. The export of Russia for the average of the years 1862 to 1866, is officially reported as being Wheat, exports.. Scheffels*. 150, 321, 701 Barley, exports.. 40, 269, 474 Oats and other grains, exports.... 27, 310, 905 or 148,542,342 bushels, average 8,252,352 yearly. Rye, exports Schefels. 131,854, 582 34, 241, 140 Imports.. 67, 067, 214 Excess of imports.. 32,826, 074 99, 028, 508 N. B.-This import of rye enabled Germany to export a portion of its wheat to the United Kingdom. NOTE. The cereal exports of the United States from 1862 to 1868, inclusive, were in bushels as follows: N. B.-The exports of animal food in the year ending July, 1868, were 235,439,678 pounds. 22, 180, 168 695, 669 35,028,851 The Pacific cereal exports from San Francisco for the six months ending December 31, 1868, were in CEREAL COMMERCE. The space necessarily occupied in presenting the leading features of the cereal product of the Christain world, will not permit a statement more in detail of its distribution, by commerce, among the various nations. It can be summed up in general terms, that in Europe, Russia is the largest exporter of cereals; that Germany, united in the "Zollverein," (Customs Union,) stands next, followed successively by Egypt, Turkey, and Roumania; that Austria, strengthened by her railways now in course of construction in Hungary, connecting its fruitful fields with the Adriatic, is now exporting wheat in considerable quantities and of excellent quality; that Italy, Spain, and Portugal supply very nearly, if not fully, their own cereal necessities; that Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, with their hardy agricultural industry, reaching northward from the fertile archipelago in the Baltic to the confines of the polar circle, export barley and oats in comparatively large quantities; and that Belgium substantially feeds itself. On the other hand, it appears that Holland* and Switzerland are supplied with wheat, in moderate quantities, from the neighboring nations: and that the cereal imports of France, in the period of fifteen years from 1851 to 1866, being 66,826,520 hectoliters, exceeded the cereal exports, being 59,499,369 hectoliters, by 7,327,151 hectoliters, or 20,094,664 bushels, averaging 1,349,664 bushels yearly. These deficiencies are, however, wholly insignificant, in face of the cardinal and transcendent fact, now become, so to speak, the centripetal point in the cereal system, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (within the present century a considerable exporter of cereals) has deemed it safe and wise to divert so large a portion of her people from agricultural pursuits, that their cereal product has become largely insufficient for their own consumption. This deficiency is in no way exceptional or temporary. It results from no accidental or unexpected failure of crops. It is deep-seated and cronic, beyond all chance or hope of cure. The government have met the emergency by throwing open the ports of the kingdom to the free admission of cereals from every portion of the world, unfettered by restrictions or duties, the last remnant of which (in the shilling a bushel, yielding a revenue of £900,000) has been abolished within the last six months. Their statesmen evidently favor a world-wide policy, permitting every member of the family of nations to do what it can do best, and to sell and buy where it can sell and buy best, and recognizing in the differing capacities and necessities of nations only the farseeing providence of the all-wise Creator for securing universal peace. It is not within the proper functions of a statistical congress like the present, having no party or political aims or predilections, and seeking only for scientific truth, to express any opinion upon the question so much controverted upon both sides of the Atlantic, of the dependence or independence of nations, by means of free trade or protective tariffs. Its only office is to carefully collect and collate and truly to state the facts needed for the accurate understanding of that or any other question affecting the material condition of men or nations. The "Statistical Abstract," annually presented to Parliament, fully shows the yearly imports of cereals into the United Kingdom, from which it appears that the deficiency of home production, as shown by the imports, has been in the two cycles of seven years each, ending with 1867, as follows: NOTE.-In one of the admirable essays of Francis Lieber, for whom America is indebted to Ger many, he forcibly adduces the memorable saying of De Witt in the seventeenth century, that "Holland produces very little wheat, but with her free commerce has the cheapest and best supply of bread in the world." In the year 1868 the United Kingdom imported 65,484,76 cwt. or 120,055,390 bushels of cereals from the following countries: By the British Channel, from France. By the Atlantic Ocean, from British North America By the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, from the United States of America. By the Pacific Ocean, from Chili.... From other countries not specified in the British tables.. Total or 120,055,390 bushels. 2.298,829 1,214,946 10,812, 811 1,477,536 3,949, 542 65, 484, 75 The total consisted of 38,032,444 cwt. of wheat; 7,476,284 barley; 8,112,563 oats: 11,472,226 maize; and 391,301 rye and buckwheat. To obtain an adequate idea of the immensity of the quantity arithmetically described as 65,484,758 cwt., it is necessary only to consider the number of vessels required to carry it. Amounting to 3,274,237 tons, it would fill 6,548 vessels, carrying 500 tons each, which, placed in line, stem to stern, would reach more than half-way from the Land's End to the Straits of Dover. If carried on land in railway cars, the train would stretch across the continent of Europe, from Calais to Marseilles, and leave a remnant more than long enough to span the Mediterranean. In the nine years from 1860 to 1868, inclusive, the cereal quantities exported by the United States and by Russia to the United Kingdom were in the aggregate The statistics of the comparative cereal capacities of these continental nations just entering on their allotted task of feeding the Christian world stand out in bold relief. The area of the United States, without including Alaska, (valuable in furs and fisheries, and especially important in its extensive water front on the Pacific,) is in round numbers 3,000,000 square miles; that of European Russia is 2,000,000. NOTE. The different species of cereals imported from the various countries were as follows: Wheat-from Russia. 10,055,33 cwt.; United States of America, 6,753,389; Germany, 5.697,248; Hanse Towns, 1,526,349; Egypt, 3.237,380; Turkish Dominions, 1.730,492; Roumania, 1,356,105: Austria. 1.286.913; Denmark, 17,173; France, 846,863; Spain, 2,982; Chili, 1,577,538; British North America. 698,505 other countries, 938,772. Barley-from France, 1,248,764 cwt.; Russia. 1,082,016; Prussia, 909,202; Hanse Towns, 892,228 ; Denmark, 938,627; Turkey, 849,443; Egypt, 263,964; United States, 219; other countries, 1,291,753. Oats-from Russia, 3,253,920 cwt.: Sweden. 1,984,201; Denmark, 797.581; Holland, 475,291; Prussia. 289,350, France, 24,336: United States, 49.333; British North America, 416,435; other countries, 812,610 Maize-from United States, 4,009,770 cwt.; Turkish Dominions, 2,913,008; Austria, 1,156,850; Ron mania, 1.113.523: Russia, 664,881; Egypt, 537,726; France. 178.461; other countries, 897,407. Of the area of the United States there are, within 36 States, in improved farms..... In farms as yet unimproved In wild lands, not in farms, and including waste.......... In the Territories..... Total Of the area of European Russia, 1,201,336,000 acres, there are In cultivated and arable lands.. In prairies and pastures. Acres. 244, 215, 500 143, 212, 500 387,428,000 470, 108, 000 343, 800, 000 1, 201, 336, 000 The wheat lands of the United States extend with varying degrees of fertility from the mouth of the Rio Grande, the southern boundary of the Union in latitude 27°, to the Canadian boundary, in latitude 49°. The wheat belt of European Russia extends northwardly from latitude 46° on the Black Sea near Odessa, into the interior of the empire as far as latitude 57° or 580, and eastwardly from the upper waters of the Dnieper quite across to the western base of the Ural Mountains, more than thirty-seven degrees of longitude. It contains an area exceeding 1,000,000 square miles, much of it of great fertility, embracing the whole of the southern basin of Russia tributary to the Black Sea, and the larger portion of the widely-extended valley of the Volga. The culture of oats, barley and rye extends northwardly to the shores of the White Sea, which furnishes a northern outlet for Russia cereals from Archangel into the polar basin, and thence through the North Sea to the British Islands. On the other hand, the wide-spread harvests of wheat and Indian "corn" in the United States, lying from ten to twenty degrees nearer the equator than those of Russia, and enjoying constant and unobstructed access to the two great oceans, can be much more readily interchanged for the rich tropical products, which have now become necessities in modern civilization. By the synoptical cereal statement hereto appended, it will be seen that the combined yearly cereal product of the United States and of Russia already amounts to 2,889,886,500 bushels, being nearly half of the total cereal product of the aggregated nations therein tabulated, as being 6,214,567,697 bushels. The figures plainly demonstrate that the two great continental producers will be abundantly able, for many succeeding ages, to feed not only the British Islands, now so resplendent in their well-directed industry, but, if necessary, large portions of Western Continental Europe. The broad and fertile flanks of the civilized world, "stauding thick with corn," have been providentially committed to their care, to render any general or wide-spread famine hereafter impossible. Nay, more. It is to be alike their privilege and their duty, for centuries to come, to increase and to cheapen the food of the hundreds of millions that are to crowd the older countries of Europe. The wonder-working power of steam, in securing the uninterrupted and rapid navigation of the seas and oceans, renders it mechanically certain that within fifteen days, or twenty at furthest, any needed quantity of cereals can be transported from New York or Odessa to any port on the Atlantic coast of Europe. The advancing civilization of the age now demands increased facilities on the land, with freedom from monopolies and every other unnecessary burden on internal transportation. Under any imaginable contingency, the increase of population in the American Republic, still in the freshness of early manhood, will go vigorously forward, though possibly with somewhat of slackened speed. The statistics show that the population of Europe, great as it has already become, is also destined to moderate but steady increase, notwithstanding any probable amount of future emigration, while the very increase in numbers will be stimulated and vivified by the immense increase of food, vegetable and animal, which the two great continental powers will be able and ready to furnish. What will be the respective ratios of increase in the population both of Europe and the United States within the present century, and to what extent the ratio in each may be affected by emigration and immigration, are questions plainly within the proper scope of an international statistical congress, and will be considered in the second part of the present report. SAMUEL B. RUGGLES. NOTE. The action of the international statistical congress on the proposition in the preceding report for periodical returns of agricultural products to any succeeding congresses, appears at page 53 ante. The text of the procès verbal, or official report of the proceeding, states that on the 11th of September, 1869 "M. Ruggles (Amérique) obtient la parole et développe la proposition suivante: "Les délégués officiels à la prochaine session du congrès international de statistique, sont priés de fournir, autant que possible, des données statistiques sur les produits agricoles de leurs pays, pour les trois années que précèdent celle de la session. "Il est à désirer que les quantitiès des céréales produits dans chaque pays sont exprimées en poids, plutôt qu'en mesures de capacité." "Cette proposition est mise aux voix et adoptée." [Translation.] "Mr. Ruggles (delegate of the United States of America) by leave of the president took the floor, and addressed the congress on the merits of the following proposition: "The official delegates at the next session of the international statistical congress are requested to furnish, as far as practicable, statistics of the agricultural products of their countries, for the three years preceding that of the session. "It is desired that the quantities of cereals of each country should be expressed in measures of weight, rather than those of capacity." "The proposition, being put to vote, was adopted." |