Certainly we can. The average yield per acre in Britain is 28 bushels, or 3½ quarters. That is the average yield on British farms. It can be increased; but let us take it first upon that basis.
At 3½ quarters to the acre, 8,000,000 acres would produce 28,000,000 quarters; 9,000,000 acres would produce 31,500,000 quarters.
Therefore we require less than 9,000,000 acres of wheat land to grow a year's supply of wheat for 40,000,000 persons.
Now we have in Great Britain and Ireland about 33,000,000 acres of cultivatable land. Deduct 9,000,000 for wheat, and we have 24,000,000 acres left for vegetables, fruit, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry.
Can any man say, in the face of these figures, that we are incapable of growing our own wheat?
Suppose the average is put too high. Suppose we could only average a yield of 20 bushels to the acre, or 2½ quarters, we could still grow 29,000,000 quarters on less than 12,000,000 acres.
It is evident, then, that we can at anyrate grow our own wheat.
Here I shall quote from an excellent book, Fields, Factories, and Workshops, by Prince Kropotkin. Having gone very carefully into the facts, the Prince has arrived at the following conclusions:—
1. If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated only as it was thirty-five years ago, 24,000,000 people could live on home-grown food.
2. If the cultivatable soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated as the soil is cultivated on the average in Belgium, the United Kingdom would have food for at least 37,000,000 inhabitants.
3. If the population of this country came to be doubled, all that would be required for producing food for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil as it is now cultivated in the best farms of this country, in Lombardy, and in Flanders.