Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1903 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

ti u PI “Business again responds n6V lOrlL to i m P rove d conditions. Retail distribution of merchandise is nccelerntetl by more seasonable weather and fewer labor controversies, while wholesale and jobbing trade, especially iu the interior, shows encouraging effect of brighter agricultural prospects. Ther* is the tomary excessive demand for farm hands. Reports of holiday traffic and trade in holiday goods indicate no diminution in purchasing power, and semi-annual inventories show a more gratifying situation than expected,” according to R. G. Dun & Co.’s Weekly Review of Trade. Continuing, the report says: There is less than the mitral midsummer idleness in manufacturing except in the cotton industry. Commodity prices advanced slightly during June, Dun’s index number on July 1 being $99,456, compared with $98,930 a month earlier. A decline of 2.4 per cent is recorded in comparison with July, 1902, chiefly in articles of food. Railway earnings for June are 13.1 per cent larger than last year and 25.3 in excess of 1901. Installation of new converters and other repairs interfere with work at some prominent steel mills, whiejj explains in part the quiet condition of the market. Bessemer pig delivered at Pittsburg can be bought for $18.75, which is the lowest point thus far of the recent decline. Structural material is again an active feature, especially for large buildings and railway bridges at the West. Makers of agricultural implements and vehicles are liberal purchasers of bar iron. Tin and copper are again lower, the latter selling below the official quotation, which has been reduced to 14 cents. Failures this week numbered 194 in the United States, against 193 last year, nnd 24 in Canada, compared with 19 a year ago. . The crop situation has ImlCdtJO. reached a stage where upa on analysis of existing conditions it is now po?sible to arrive at some definite conclusions: It is u certainty that the lower prices for our cereal products that earlier in the season seemed clearly foreshadowed are not to be realized. Remunerative prices may be expected for almost everything the farmer will raise this year, while iu the great staples, especially wheat, there is every probability that the coming crop will sell at pricc-s averaging higher than for several years. The three great States of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota produced in 1901 about 173,000,000 bushels of wheat, and in 1902 about 178,000,000. If we nssupie that these three States will raise 180.000,000 bushels on the standing crop, it is clear that an increase of only 1 cent a bushel in the average selling price would mean $1,800,000 ; 5 cents would mean $9,000,000, while an average price lO ccnts above that of last year would mean $1,8.000,000 more for the farmers. In 1900 the average farm price of wheat in this country was G 2 cents; in 1901 02.4 cents, in 1902 63 cents. Last year’s average was not n high figure for wheat. There is everything to indicate that it will average higher this year. Late reports from the winter wheat fields are running less favorable, while in the Northwest serious deterioration is found iu places as result of the recent drought. Let no one suppose from this that we are not to have much wheat. There is likely to bo an exportable surplus above the average, but late reductions in estimate of probable yield are very important for the reasqp that early in the season, too early in fact for reliability, thege was such an acreage and such a condition as to suggest to some observers the possibility of a production of 500,000,000 bushels. The impx-ession sprend'Through many minds that the United States stood to produce a quantity of wheat greatly in excess of anything ever before known, and this idea* took root abroad and even to the present time has not been entirely eradicated.