=378. Extent and importance of the grain trade at present.=—Grain formed, therefore, one of the least considerable of the wares of foreign commerce before 1800. A French economist estimated the international trade in grain at 30 million bushels at most. From that figure, comparatively insignificant, the grain trade of the world had risen, even in 1887, to over 1,500 million bushels; grain formed then, in value, almost one tenth of the total of the wares of trade, and in importance far exceeded any other ware. The expense of transportation had undergone such a vast diminution that one day’s wages of a common laborer would pay for the carriage over a thousand miles of all the grain and meat which he needed for a year’s subsistence. It would be interesting, if time permitted, to note the far-reaching social and political effects of this revolution. We must, however, confine ourselves to its economic aspect. The English people, to take the most striking example, depend for more than half of their food supply, perhaps two thirds of their wheat supply, on imports from abroad. It is said that in every month in the year wheat is harvested in some country, of the northern or of the southern hemisphere, for the English market; a Floating Cargoes List reported 163 vessels bound for England with cereals, at sea at one time. As formerly the citizens of London depended on the farmer of a nearby county for the supply of his daily bread, so now the inhabitants of England in general depend upon people in the Dakotas, in California, in the Argentine Republic, in Egypt, in India, or in Australia. The Englishman is enabled, by commerce, to share in the agricultural advantages of any and all those countries; he applies himself to his specialty and exchanges the product for his food.