Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1898 — YEAR’S PRODUCTION OF WHEAT. [ARTICLE]

YEAR’S PRODUCTION OF WHEAT.

Government Gives Tables of Compar* ieons for the World. The monthly statement of finance and commerce issued by the bureau of statistics contains a series of interesting tables on the world’s wheat production, supply and distribution. They show the wheat crop of the world last year at only 2,139,549,1(38 bushels, against 2,430,497,000 in 1896, 2,540,494,000 in 1895 and 1,676,651,000 ip 1894, the world’s crop of 1897 being smaller than that of any year since 1890, while the 1897 crop in the United States is reported as larger than in any year since 1891. A table showing farm prices of wheat in the United States during a term of years gives the average farm price of wheat in 1897 as the high, est, with three exceptions, since 1883, the exceptional years being 1888, 1890 and 1891. A table of freight rates on wheat shows that the average rate by rail from Chicago to New York has fallen from 16.5 cents a bushel in 1886 to 12.32 cents in 1807, and that the rates by lake and canal feii in the same period and between the same points from 8.71 cents a bushel to 4.35 cents a bushel, while in the same period the rate from St. Louis to New Orleans in Iwilk by barges fell from 6.5 cents a bushel to 4.88 cents. The import duties of various countries on wheat are shown to be: Austria-Hun-gary, 19.5 cents a bushel; United States, 25 cents; ' Germany, 22.7 cents, with treaty countries, and 32.3 cents with other countries; France, 36.8 cents; Italy, 36.8 cents, end Portugal, 58.7 cents a bushel. Tables quoted from the reports of the Department of Agriculture estimate the-wheat in farmers’ hands in the United States, March 1, 1898, at 121,320,500 bushels, against 88,149,072 bushels at the corresponding date last year, and 74,909,790 bushels on March 1, 1895.