past history of the country to show it, that for a period of more than one hundred years, the supply of the Atlantic wheat States has generally been constant, and for the most part abundant.  They have furnished the “staff of life” to several generations of men, and cotemporary with it, an annual amount for export, that materially assisted in regulating the exchanges of the country.

England requires for her own consumption, upon the average of years, somewhere about 32,000,000 bushels of wheat more than she produces.  The average annual entries of foreign wheat for consumption in the United Kingdom, for the sixteen years ending with 1845, were about nine and a half million bushels.  Inasmuch as the average number of acres in wheat crop were in 1846 about 4,600,000, the average produce 142,200,000 bushels, or over 30 bushels to the acre—­an improvement in the harvest to the extent of two bushels per acre, will destroy the demand, and a deficiency to that extent will double it.  Now as there is an available surplus at the neighbouring ports in Europe, in the Baltic and the Black Sea, of about 18,000,000 of bushels only, whenever there is a demand for home consumption, for, say 20,000,000 bushels, as was the case in each of the five years from 1838 to 1843, larger shipments from America will take place; but whenever there are good harvests, as in the six years from 1831 to 1837, in which the deficiency only ranged from 230,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, the trade is not worth notice.  It must be remarked, however, that in a country like Britain, where capital is abundant, consumption great, speculation rife, the harvest so uncertain, and the stake so great that a cloudy day transfers thousands from one broker to another, the importation cannot be closely assimilated to the actual wants of the country.  The ordinary yield of grain in the United Kingdom after deductions for seed, is about 400,000,000 bushels, and as nearly 100,000,000 bushels of grain and meal were imported in 1847, there must have been a general deficiency of nearly twenty-five per cent.

In the “Statistics of the British Empire,” the average extent of land under grain culture, &c., in 1840, was estimated as follows:—­

ENGLAND AND WALES. 
Produce per Acre.       Total Produce. 
Wheat               3,800,000      31/4 quarters.            12,350,000
Barley and rye.       900,000      4         "              3,600,000
Oats and beans.     3,000,000      41/2        "             13,500,000

SCOTLAND. 
Wheat                 220,000      3                          660,000
Barley                280,000      31/2                         980,000
Oats                1,275,000      41/2                       5,737,500

In Scotland, ten years ago, 150,000 acres were reckoned to be under cultivation with wheat, 300,000 with barley, and 1,300,000 with oats, which is the great crop and chief food of the people.