FOOTNOTE:_Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses" Volume 12, Slice 3

[1] The etymology of the O. Fr. _graal_ or _greal_, of which "grail"

is an adaptation, has been much discussed. The Low Lat. original,

_gradale_ or _grasale_, a flat dish or platter, has generally been

taken to represent a diminutive _cratella_ of _crater_, bowl, or a

lost _cratale_, formed from the same word (see W. W. Skeat, Preface

to _Joseph of Arimathie_, Early Eng. Text Soc).--ED.

GRAIN (derived through the French from Lat. _granum_, seed, from an

Aryan root meaning "to wear down," which also appears in the common

Teutonic word "corn"), a word particularly applied to the seed, in

botanical language the "fruit," of cereals, and hence applied, as a

collective term to cereal plants generally, to which, in English, the

term "corn" is also applied (see GRAIN TRADE). Apart from this, the

chief meaning, the word is used of the malt refuse of brewing and

distilling, and of many hard rounded small particles, resembling the

seeds of plants, such as "grains" of sand, salt, gold, gunpowder, &c.

"Grain" is also the name of the smallest unit of weight, both in the

United Kingdom and the United States of America. Its origin is supposed

to be the weight of a grain of wheat, dried and gathered from the middle

of the ear. The troy grain = 1/5760 of a lb., the avoirdupois grain =

1/7000 of a lb. In diamond weighing the grain = 1/4 of the carat, =

.7925 of the troy grain. The word "grains" was early used, as also in

French, of the small seed-like insects supposed formerly to be the

berries of trees, from which a scarlet dye was extracted (see COCHINEAL

and KERMES). From the Fr. _en graine_, literally in dye, comes the

French verb _engrainer_, Eng. "engrain" or "ingrain," meaning to dye in

any fast colour. From the further use of "grain" for the texture of

substances, such as wood, meat, &c., "engrained" or "ingrained" means

ineradicable, impregnated, dyed through and through. The "grain" of

leather is the side of a skin showing the fibre after the hair has been

removed. The imitating in paint of the grain of different kinds of woods

is known as "graining" (see PAINTER-WORK). "Grain," or more commonly in

the plural "grains," construed as a singular, is the name of an

instrument with two or more barbed prongs, used for spearing fish. This

word is Scandinavian in origin, and is connected with Dan. _green_,

Swed. _gren_, branch, and means the fork of a tree, of the body, or the

prongs of a fork, &c. It is not connected with "groin," the inguinal

parts of the body, which in its earliest forms appears as _grynde_.

GRAINS OF PARADISE, GUINEA GRAINS, or MELEGUETA PEPPER (Ger.

_Paradieskorner_, Fr. _graines de Paradis_, _maniguette_), the seeds of

_Amomum Melegueta_, a reed-like plant of the natural order

_Zingiberaceae_. It is a native of tropical western Africa, and of

Prince's and St Thomas's islands in the Gulf of Guinea, is cultivated in

other tropical countries, and may with ease be grown in hothouses in

temperate climates. The plant has a branched horizontal rhizome; smooth,

nearly sessile, narrowly lanceolate-oblong alternate leaves; large,

white, pale pink or purplish flowers; and an ovate-oblong fruit,

ensheathed in bracts, which is of a scarlet colour when fresh, and

reaches under cultivation a length of 5 in. The seeds are contained in

the acid pulp of the fruit, are commonly wedge-shaped and bluntly

angular, are about 1-1/4 lines in diameter and have a glossy dark-brown

husk, with a conical light-coloured membranous caruncle at the base and

a white kernel. They contain, according to Fluckiger and Hanbury, 0.3%

of a faintly yellowish neutral essential oil, having an aromatic, not

acrid taste, and a specific gravity at 15.5 deg. C of 0.825, and giving

on analysis the formula C20H32O, or C10H16 + C10H16O; also 5.83% of an

intensely pungent, viscid, brown resin.

Grains of paradise were formerly officinal in British pharmacopoeias,

and in the 13th and succeeding centuries were used as a drug and a

spice, the wine known as hippocras being flavoured with them and with

ginger and cinnamon. In 1629 they were employed among the ingredients of

the twenty-four herring pies which were the ancient fee-favour of the

city of Norwich, ordained to be carried to court by the lord of the

manor of Carleton (Johnston and Church, _Chem. of Common Life_, p. 355,

1879). Grains of paradise were anciently brought overland from West

Africa to the Mediterranean ports of the Barbary states, to be shipped

for Italy. They are now exported almost exclusively from the Gold Coast.

Grains of paradise are to some extent used illegally to give a

fictitious strength to malt liquors, gin and cordials. By 56 Geo. III.

c. 58, no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use

grains of paradise, under a penalty of L200 for each offence; and no

druggist shall sell the same to a brewer under a penalty of L500. They

are, however, devoid of any injurious physiological action, and are much

esteemed as a spice by the natives of Guinea.

See Bentley and Trimen, _Medicinal Plants_, tab. 268; Lanessan, _Hist.

des Drogues_, pp. 456-460 (1878).

GRAIN TRADE. The complexity of the conditions of life in the 20th

century may be well illustrated from the grain trade of the world. The

ordinary bread sold in Great Britain represents, for example, produce of

nearly every country in the world outside the tropics.

General considerations.

Wheat has been cultivated from remote antiquity. In a wild state it is

practically unknown. It is alleged to have been found growing wild

between the Euphrates and the Tigris; but the discovery has never been

authenticated, and, unless the plant be sedulously cared for, the

species dies out in a surprisingly short space of time. Modern

experiments in cross-fertilization in Lancashire by the Garton Brothers

have evolved the most extraordinary "sports," showing, it is claimed,

that the plant has probably passed through stages of which until the

present day there had been no conception. The tales that grains of wheat

found in the cerements of Egyptian mummies have been planted and come to

maturity are no longer credited, for the vital principle in the wheat

berry is extremely evanescent; indeed, it is doubtful whether wheat

twenty years old is capable of reproduction. The Garton artificial

fertilization experiments have shown endless deviations from the

ordinary type, ranging from minute seeds with a closely adhering husk to

big berries almost as large as sloes and about as worthless. It is

conjectured that the wheat plant, as now known, is a degenerate form of

something much finer which flourished thousands of years ago, and that

possibly it may be restored to its pristine excellence, yielding an

increase twice or thrice as large as it now does, thus postponing to a

distant period the famine doom prophesied by Sir W. Crookes in his

presidential address to the British Association in 1898. Wheat well

repays careful attention; contrast the produce of a carelessly tilled

Russian or Indian field and the bountiful yield on a good Lincolnshire

farm, the former with its average yield of 8 bushels, the latter with

its 50 bushels per acre; or compare the quality, as regards the quantity

and flavour of the flour from a fine sample of British wheat, such as is

on sale at almost every agricultural show in Great Britain, with the

produce of an Egyptian or Syrian field; the difference is so great as to

cause one to doubt whether the berries are of the same species.

It may be stated roundly that an average quartern loaf in Great Britain

is made from wheat grown in the following countries in the proportions

named:--

+------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+

+------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+

| Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. | Oz. |

| 26 | 13 9 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |

| Or expressed in percentages as follows:-- |

| 40 | 20 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 |

+------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+

For details connected with grain and its handling see AGRICULTURE, CORN

LAWS, GRANARIES, FLOUR, BAKING, WHEAT, &c.

Wheat occupies of all cereals the widest region of any food-stuff. Rice,

which shares with millet the distinction of being the principal

food-stuff of the greatest number of human beings, is not grown nearly

as widely as is wheat, the staple food of the white races. Wheat grows

as far south as Patagonia, and as far north as the edge of the Arctic

Circle; it flourishes throughout Europe, and across the whole of

northern Asia and in Japan; it is cultivated in Persia, and raised

largely in India, as far south as the Nizam's dominions. It is grown

over nearly the whole of North America. In Canada a very fine wheat crop

was raised in the autumn of 1898 as far north as the mission at Fort

Providence, on the Mackenzie river, in a latitude above 62 deg.--or less

than 200 m. south of the latitude of Dawson City--the period between

seed-time and harvest having been ninety-one days. In Africa it was an

article of commerce in the days of Jacob, whose son Joseph may be said

to have run the first and only successful "corner" in wheat. For many

centuries Egypt was famous as a wheat raiser; it was a cargo of wheat

from Alexandria which St Paul helped to jettison on one of his

shipwrecks, as was also, in all probability, that of the "ship of

Alexandria whose sign was Castor and Pollux," named in the same

narrative. General Gordon is quoted as having stated that the Sudan if

properly settled would be capable of feeding the whole of Europe. Along

the north coast of Africa are areas which, if properly irrigated, as was

done in the days of Carthage, could produce enough wheat to feed half of

the Caucasian race. For instance, the vilayet of Tripoli, with an area

of 400,000 sq. m., or three times the extent of Great Britain and

Ireland, according to the opinion of a British consul, could raise

millions of acres of wheat. The cereal flourishes on all the high

plateaus of South Africa, from Cape Town to the Zambezi. Land is being

extensively put under wheat in the pampas of South America and in the

prairies of Siberia.

In the raising of the standard of farming to an English level the volume

of the world's crop would be trebled, another fact which Sir William

Crookes seems to have overlooked. The experiments of the late Sir J. B.

Lawes in Hertfordshire have proved that the natural fruitfulness of the

wheat plant can be increased threefold by the application of the proper

fertilizer. The results of these experiments will be found in a

compendium issued from the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station.

It is by no means, however, the wheat which yields the greatest number

of bushels per acre which is the most valuable from a miller's

standpoint, for the thinness of the bran and the fineness and strength

of the flour are with him important considerations, too often overlooked

by the farmer when buying his seed. Nevertheless it is the deficient

quantity of the wheat raised in the British Islands, and not the quality

of the grain, which has been the cause of so much anxiety to economists

and statesmen.

Freight rates.

Sir J. Caird, writing in the year 1880, expressed the opinion that

arable land in Great Britain would always command a substantial rent of

at least 30s. per acre. His figures were based on the assumption that

wheat was imported duty free. He calculated that the cost of carriage

from abroad of wheat, or the equivalent of the product of an acre of

good wheat land in Great Britain, would not be less than 30s. per ton.

But freights had come down by 1900 to half the rates predicated by

Caird; indeed, during a portion of the interval they ruled very close to

zero, as far as steamer freights from America were concerned. In 1900 an

all-round freight rate for wheat might be taken at 15s. _per ton_ (a ton

representing approximately the produce of an acre of good wheat land in

England), say from 10s. for Atlantic American and Russian, to 30s. for

Pacific American and Australian; about midway between these two extremes

we find Indian and Argentine, the greatest bulk coming at about the 15s.

rate. Inferior land bearing less than 4-1/2 quarters per acre would not

be protected to the same extent, and moreover, seeing that a portion of

the British wheat crop has to stand a charge as heavy for land carriage

across a county as that borne by foreign wheat across a continent or an

ocean, the protection is not nearly so substantial as Caird would make

out. The compilation showing the changes in the rates of charges for the

railway and other transportation services issued by the Division of

Statistics, Department of Agriculture, U.S.A. (Miscellaneous series,

Bulletin No. 15, 1898), is a valuable reference book. From its pages are

culled the following facts relating to the changes in the rates of

freight up to the year 1897.[1] In Table 3 the average rates per ton per

mile in cents are shown since 1846. For the Fitchburg Railroad the rate

for that year was 4.523 cents per ton per mile, since when a great and

almost continuous fall has been taking place, until in 1897, the latest

year given, the rate had declined to .870 of a cent per ton per mile.

The railway which shows the greatest fall is the Chesapeake & Ohio, for

the charge has fallen from over 7 cents in 1862 and 1863 to .419 of a

cent in 1897, whereas the Erie rates have fallen only from 1.948 in 1852

to .609 in 1897. Putting the rates of the twelve returning railways

together, we find the average freight in the two years 1859-1860 was

3.006 cents per ton per mile, and that in 1896-1897 the average rate had

fallen to .797 of a cent per ton per mile. This difference is very large

compared with the smallness of the unit. Coming to the rates on grain,

we find (in Table 23) a record for the forty years 1858-1897 of the

charge on wheat from Chicago to New York, via all rail from 1858, and

via lake and rail since 1868, the authority being the secretary of the

Chicago Board of Trade. From 1858 to 1862 the rate varied between 42.37

and 34.80 cents per bushel for the whole trip of roundly 1000 m., the

average rate in the quinquennium being 38.43. In the five years

immediately prior to the time at which Sir J. Caird expressed the

opinion that the cost of carriage from abroad would always protect the

British grower, the average all-rail freight from Chicago to New York

was 17.76 cents, while the summer rate (partly by water) was 13.17

cents. These rates in 1897, the last year shown on the table, had fallen

to 12.50 and 7.42 respectively. The rates have been as follows in

quinquennial periods, via all rail:--

_Chicago to New York in Cents per Bushel._

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

| 1858- | 1863- | 1868- | 1873- | 1878- | 1883- | 1888- | 1893- |

| 1862. | 1867. | 1872. | 1877. | 1882. | 1887. | 1892. | 1897. |

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

| 38.43 | 31.42 | 27.91 | 21.29 | 16.77 | 14.67 | 14.52 | 12.88 |

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

Calculating roundly a cent as equal to a halfpenny, and eight bushels to

the quarter, the above would appear in English currency as follows:--

_Chicago to New York in Shillings and Pence per Quarter._

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+-------+

| 1858- | 1863- | 1868- | 1873- | 1878- | 1883- | 1888- | 1893- |

| 1862. | 1867. | 1872. | 1877. | 1882. | 1887. | 1892. | 1897. |

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+-------+

| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |

| 12 8 | 10 6 | 9 3 | 7 1 | 5 7 |4 10-1/2| 4 10 | 4 3 |

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+-------+

Another table (No. 38) shows the average rates from Chicago to New York

by lakes, canal and river. These in their quinquennial periods are given

for the season as follows:--

_In Cents per Bushel of_ 60 lb.

+----------+----------+----------+

|1857-1861.|1876-1880.|1893-1897.|

+----------+----------+----------+

| 22.15 | 10.47 | 4.92 |

+----------+----------+----------+

_In Shillings and Pence per Quarter of_ 480 lb.

+----------+----------+----------+

|1857-1861.|1876-1880.|1893-1897.|

+----------+----------+----------+

| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |

| 7 4 | 3 6 | 1 7 |

+----------+----------+----------+

_In Shillings and Pence per Ton of_ 2240 lb.

+----------+----------+----------+

|1857-1861.|1876-1880.|1893-1897.|

+----------+----------+----------+

| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |

| 34 6 | 16 6 | 7 6 |

+----------+----------+----------+

This latter mode is the cheapest by which grain can be carried to the

eastern seaboard from the American prairies, and it can now be done at a

cost of 7s. 6d. per ton. The ocean freight has to be added before the

grain can be delivered free on the quay at Liverpool. A rate from New

York to Liverpool of 2-1/2d. per bushel, or 7s. 10d. per ton, a low

rate, reached in Dec. 1900, is yet sufficiently high, it is claimed, to

leave a profit; indeed, there have frequently been times when the rate

was as low as 1d. per bushel, or 3s. 1d. per ton; and in periods of

great trade depression wheat is carried from New York to Liverpool as

ballast, being paid for by the ship-owner. Another route worked more

cheaply than formerly is that by river, from the centre of the winter

wheat belt, say at St Louis, to New Orleans, and thence by steamer to

Liverpool. The river rate has fallen below five cents per bushel, or

7s. per ton, 2240 lb. In Table No. 71 the cost of transportation is

compared year by year with the export price of the two leading cereals

in the States as follows:--

_Wheat and Corn--Export Prices and Transportation Rates compared._

+------+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+

| | Wheat. | Corn. |

| +---------+-------------+----------+---------+-------------+----------+

+------+---------+-------------+----------+---------+-------------+----------+

| 1867 | $0.92 | 15.95 | 5.77 |$0.72 | 14.58 | 4.94 |

| 1868 | 1.36 | 16.23 | 8.38 | .84.1 | 13.57 | 6.20 |

| 1869 | 1.05 | 17.20 | 6.10 | .72.8 | 14.98 | 4.86 |

| 1870 | 1.12 | 14.85 | 7.54 | .80.5 | 13.78 | 5.84 |

| 1871 | 1.18 | 17.75 | 6.65 | .67.9 | 16.53 | 4.11 |

| 1872 | 1.31 | 21.55 | 6.08 | .61.8 | 19.62 | 3.15 |

| 1873 | 1.15 | 16.89 | 6.81 | .54.3 | 15.39 | 3.53 |

| 1874 | 1.29 | 12.75 | 10.12 | .64.7 | 11.29 | 5.73 |

| 1875 | .97 | 9.90 | 9.80 | .73.8 | 8.93 | 8.26 |

| 1876 | 1.11 | 8.63 | 12.86 | .60.3 | 7.93 | 7.60 |

| 1877 | 1.12 | 10.76 | 10.41 | .56.0 | 9.41 | 5.95 |

| 1878 | 1.33 | 9.10 | 14.62 | .55.8 | 8.27 | 6.75 |

| 1879 | 1.07 | 11.60 | 9.22 | .47.1 | 10.43 | 4.52 |

| 1880 | 1.25 | 12.27 | 10.19 | .54.3 | 11.14 | 4.87 |

| 1881 | 1.11 | 8.19 | 13.55 | .55.2 | 7.26 | 7.60 |

| 1882 | 1.19 | 7.89 | 15.08 | .66.8 | 7.23 | 9.24 |

| 1883 | 1.13 | 8.37 | 13.50 | .68.4 | 7.66 | 8.93 |

| 1884 | 1.07 | 6.31 | 16.96 | .61.1 | 5.64 | 10.83 |

| 1885 | .86 | 5.87 | 14.65 | .54.0 | 5.38 | 10.04 |

| 1886 | .87 | 8.71 | 9.99 | .49.8 | 7.98 | 6.24 |

| 1887 | .89 | 8.51 | 10.46 | .47.9 | 7.88 | 6.08 |

| 1888 | .85 | 5.93 | 14.33 | .55.0 | 5.41 | 10.17 |

| 1889 | .90 | 6.89 | 13.06 | .47.4 | 6.19 | 7.66 |

| 1890 | .83 | 5.86 | 14.16 | .41.8 | 5.10 | 8.20 |

| 1891 | .93 | 5.96 | 15.60 | .57.4 | 5.36 | 10.71 |

| 1892 | 1.03 | 5.61 | 18.36 | .55 | 5.03 | 10.93 |

| 1893 | .80 | 6.31 | 12.68 | .53 | 5.71 | 9.28 |

| 1894 | .67 | 4.44 | 15.09 | .46 | 3.99 | 11.53 |

| 1895 | .58 | 4.11 | 14.11 | .53 | 3.71 | 14.29 |

| 1896 | .65 | 5.38 | 12.08 | .38 | 4.94 | 7.69 |

| 1897 | .75 | 4.35 | 17.24 | .31 | 3.79 | 8.18 |

+------+---------+-------------+----------+---------+-------------+----------+

The farmers of the United States have now to meet a greatly increased

output from Canada--the cost of transport from that country to England

being much the same as from the United States. So much improved is the

position of the farmer in North America compared with what it was about

1870, that the transport companies in 1901 carried 17-1/4 bushels of his

grain to the seaboard in exchange for the value of one bushel, whereas

in 1867 he had to give up one bushel in every six in return for the

service. As regards the British farmer, it does not appear as if he had

improved his position; for he has to send his wheat to greater

distances, owing to the collapse of many country millers or their

removal to the seaboard, while railway rates have fallen only to a very

small extent; again the farmer's wheat is worth only half of what it was

formerly; it may be said that the British farmer has to give up one

bushel in nine to the railway company for the purpose of transportation,

whereas in the 'seventies he gave up one in eighteen only. Enough has

been said to prove that the advantage of position claimed for the

British farmer by Caird was somewhat illusory. Speaking broadly, the

Kansas or Minnesota farmer's wheat does not have to pay for carriage to

Liverpool more than 2s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. per ton in excess of the rate

paid by a Yorkshire farmer; this, it will be admitted, does not go very

far towards enabling the latter to pay rent, tithes and rates and taxes.

The subject of the rates of ocean carriage at different periods requires

consideration if a proper understanding of the working of the foreign

grain trade is to be obtained. Only a very small proportion of the

decline in the price of wheat since 1880 is due to cheapened transport

rates; for while the mileage rate has been falling, the length of

haulage has been extending, until in 1900 the principal wheat fields of

America were 2000 m. farther from the eastern seaboard than was the case

in 1870, and consequently, notwithstanding the fall in the mileage rate

of 50 to 75%, it still costs the United Kingdom nearly as much to have

its quota of foreign wheat fetched from abroad as it did then. The

difference in the cost of the operation is shown in the following

tabular statement, both the cost in the aggregate on a year's imports

and the cost per quarter:--

_Quantity of Wheat and Wheaten Flour (as wheat) imported into the United

Kingdom from various sources during the calendar year 1900, together

with the average rate of freight._

1900.

+----------------------+-------------+---------------+------------+

+----------------------+-------------+---------------+------------+

| | | s. d. | L |

| Atlantic America | 11,171,100 | 2 3 | 1,257,100 |

| South Russia | 569,000 | 2 2 | 62,000 |

| Pacific America | 2,389,900 | 8 1 | 966,000 |

| Canada | 1,877,100 | 2 8 | 250,000 |

| Rumania | 176,400 | 2 6 | 22,000 |

| Argentina and Uruguay| 4,322,300 | 4 10 | 1,045,000 |

| France | 251,900 | 1 3 | 16,000 |

| Bulgaria and Rumelia | 30,600 | 2 6 | 4,000 |

| India | 2,200 | 4 0 | 400 |

| Austria-Hungary | 389,300 | 1 9 | 34,000 |

| Chile | 600 | .. | .. |

| North Russia | 462,700 | 1 6 | 35,000 |

| Germany | 438,700 | 1 6 | 33,000 |

| Australasia | 883,900 | 6 5 | 284,000 |

| Minor Countries | 225,100 | 2 6 | 28,000 |

| +-------------+---------------+------------+

| Total | 23,190,800 |Average 3s. 6d.| L4,036,500 |

+----------------------+-------------+---------------+------------+

Comparing these figures with a similar statement for the year 1872, the

most remote year for which similar facts are available, it will be found

that the actual total cost per quarter for ocean carriage has not much

decreased.

_Quantity of Wheat and Wheaten Flour (as wheat) imported into the United

Kingdom from various sources during the calendar year 1872, together

with the average rate of freight._

1872.

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+------------+

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+------------+

| | | s. d. | L |

| South Russia | 3,678,000 | 8 6 | 1,563,000 |

| United States | 2,030,000 | 6 6 | 659,000 |

| Germany | 910,000 | 2 0 | 91,000 |

| France | 660,000 | 3 0 | 99,000 |

| Egypt | 536,000 | 4 6 | 120,000 |

| North Russia | 490,000 | 2 0 | 49,000 |

| Canada | 400,000 | 7 6 | 150,000 |

| Chile | 330,000 | 12 0 | 198,000 |

| Turkey | 195,000 | 7 6 | 72,000 |

| Spain | 130,000 | 3 6 | 23,000 |

| Scandinavia | 160,000 | 2 0 | 16,000 |

| +-----------+---------------+------------+

| Total, Chief Countries| 9,519,000 |Average 6s. 5d.| L3,040,000 |

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+------------+

_N.B._--A trifling quantity of Californian and Australian wheat was

imported in the period in question, but the Board of Trade records do

not distinguish the quantities, therefore they cannot be given. The

freight in that year from those countries averaged about 13s. per

quarter.

The exact difference between the average freight for the years 1872 and

1900 amounts to about 2s. 11d. per quarter (480 lb.), a trifle in

comparison with the actual fall in the price of wheat during the same

years.

The following data bearing upon the subject, for selected periods, are

partly taken from the _Corn Trade Year-Book_:--

+------+----------------+-------------+--------------+

| | Qrs. | Per qr. | |

+------+----------------+-------------+--------------+

| | | s. d. | L |

| 1872 | 9,469,000 | 6 5 | 3,040,000 |

| 1882 | 14,850,000 | 7 4 | 5,420,000 |

| 1894 | 16,229,000 | 3 9 | 3,041,000 |

| 1895 | 25,197,000 | 3 0 | 3,825,000 |

| 1896 | 23,431,000 | 2 9 | 3,258,000 |

| 1900 | 23,196,000 | 3 6 | 4,036,000 |

+------+----------------+-------------+--------------+

In passing, it may be pointed out that for a period of four years, from

1871 to 1874, the price of wheat averaged 56s. per quarter (or 7s. per

bushel), with the charge for ocean carriage at 6s. 5d. per quarter,

whereas in 1901 wheat was sold in England at 28s. (or 3s. 6d. per

bushel), and the charge for ocean carriage was 3s. 6d. per quarter; the

ocean transport companies carried eight bushels of wheat across the seas

in 1901 for the value of one bushel, or exactly at the same ratio as in

1872.

The contrast between the case of railway freight and ocean freight is to

be explained by the greater length of the present ocean voyage, which

now extends to 10,000 miles in the case of Europe's importation of white

wheat from the Pacific Coast of the United States and Australia, in

contrast with the short voyage from the Black Sea or across the English

Channel or German Ocean. It is largely due to the overlooking of this

phase of the question that an American statistician has fallen into the

error of stating that about 16s. per quarter of the fall in the price of

wheat, which happened between 1880 and 1894, is attributable to the

lessened cost of transport.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses" Volume 12, Slice 3 · 第 19 / 30 题