Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1879 — About Wheat. [ARTICLE]

About Wheat.

Statisticians have been exercising their abilities in trying to arrive at the wants of the countnes in Europe for breadstuff's during the year 1879-80, and find the requirements unprecedentedly large. They do not attempt more than approximate results, and we think they have a pretty arduous task in trying to reach the amount of foreign wheat which will be required. With Great Britain set down for 181,000,000 bushels, France at 80,000,000. Belgium and the German Empire at 28,000,000, Italy and the Mediterranean countries, other than Spain and France, at 87,000,000, and with a total estimate of 295,000,000 bushels as the amount wanted, the question arises, Where is this vast amount of food to come from? They claim 170,000,000 from the United States and Canada, 50,000,000 from Russia. 16,000.000 from the Danubian and Turkish Provinces, and 22,000,000 from India, Australia, Chili, New Zealand and other countries, making a total of 258,000,000. This leaves a deficiency of 87,000,000 of bushels, which cannot be made up except by the use of com or other grains for food. Were the estimates of supply reliable it might possibly be taken as correct, but it is just possible that neither Russia, Australia nor Turkey may be able to furnish the amounts contemplated by some ten or fifteen millions of bushels, and it is certainly putting the surplus of the United States at an extreme figure to call upon her for 160,000,000 and Canada 10,000,000 of bnshels. It is very evident from these figures that we may regard wheat at tne present time as worth nearly twice its present value, and that by next May it will approximate to fully two dollars per bushel. We see that association

of capitalists who purchased so largely of spring wheat No. 2 in Chicago and Milwaukee last year have not been tempted to Bell that wheat yet, though it is good at the present time for fuUy twenty cents more than it cost them per bushel. When this wheat is not sold we may suspect that these stores of wheat are kept because they are sure to afford a larger margin of profit in the future. If these men are thus careful about their purchases why should not the fanners of this State be just as careful about their stocks of the new crop of 1879? We put this question as a conundrum which is well worth think.

ing over. We are pouring out a hundred thousand bushels per aay, as if it were necessary to get rid of the grain. The figures we have given above tell us that au this wheat will be needed far more during the next ten months. The recent advance in wheat is not caused by speculation. It was for the interest of the large exporters and iroKrters to keep prices down, but they ve been forced up both in Liverpool and New York by the known tact that there is not a sufficient production of wheat this year to meet the requirements of consumption. Mostly men have been waiting In the hope that the weather might turn so as to exert a favorable influence on the crops. But the passage of the harvest season has rendered alljiope of that kind nugatory. The plain fact of a deficit in the crop foroes itself upon the markets, ana prices have gone up at this eariv season in spite bf the most determined efforts to keep them at low figures as long as possible. This is the true reason for he advance of the past week, and there wQI be no going back whatever, except

a few local changes that will have DO several years. —Michigan