ABSTRACT
Despite the range of his publications and business interests evident in the eighties and nineties, it seems very unlikely that anyone could possibly have predicted that when Crookes had to choose a topic for a speech from what had become, by the end of the century, ‘the throne of science’ he would have chosen an agricultural topic. However, to the surprise of everyone, it turned out that Crookes was also an expert on the world’s demand for wheat.
