Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1897 — EUROPE NEEDS WHEAT. [ARTICLE]

EUROPE NEEDS WHEAT.

Agjent Atwell Sends a Report to the State Department. W. P. Atwell, commercial agent of the United States at Robaix, France, sends to the State Department a report op the short wheat crop in France. He says the crop in France and in fact in all Europe has fallen much below the average, and that it is estimated that the United States and Canada will be called upon to exnort from 20,000,000 to 130,000,000 bushels more than they exported to Europe last year. France will require about 60,000,000 bushels to meet the deficiency in that country. Consul Heenan at Odessa has made an extensive report to the State Department concerning the failure of the crops in. Russia. In many districts it has been the wettest season ever known, and grain has been destroyed by both rain and hail. Much of the grain was not worth the expense of binding. The wheat received at Odessa is of a very inferior quality. The report predicts that little wheat will be exported from Russia during the season of 1897-8, as there is little available for that purpose, the old stocks being practically exhausted and the new crop little more than sufficient for the home demand.

The failure of the wheat crop in Aus-tria-Hungary, Roumania and Bulgaria, Consul Heenan continues, has brought buyers from those countries into Russia, and wheat which would ordinarily leave Odessa by steamers,is destined to go by rail from the interior into the countries named. Secretary Wilson was at bis desk in the Agricultural Department in Washington Tuesday for the first time for a month, having just returned from bis tour of the trans-Mississippi States. He went as far west as Montana and Utah, giving especial attention to the agricultural interests of the States visited, with particular reference to irrigation, horse-raising and su-gar-beet growing. “I found the farmers in especially good spirits wherever I went,” he said. “There is no doubt that confidence is restored, and that the country is justified in its anticipation of better times. The people are all busy in the West. Indeed, Ido not believe there is an idle man west of the Mississippi who wants ij-ork.” Mr. Wilson predicted a still further advance in the price of wheat, due to the fact that there is not only a short crop abroad, but also because of the fact that, according to his observation, the crop will not be so extensive in this country as has generally been anticipated. * “With the improvement of the times,” he said, “the average American is going to have all the flour his family can consume, even though he may have to pay a little more’-for it. I believe that even without the shortage in the foreign crops the conditions in this country Would have forced wheat to $1 a bushel. But,” he added, “the improved condition of the farmer is due not alone to the enhanced price in wheat. There has been a Corresponding improvement in all farm products.”