The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-22 00:00:00

AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS.

The following letter from Mr. James Caird, and whioh has
been published in The Times, will be read with interest at
the present time, when agricultural questions are engaging
so much of the attention of politicians as well as of practical
agriculturists. Mr. Caird commences his letter by remark-
ing that it may be useful, in the pause before a fresh depart-
ure is taken by the new Parliament, to review the agricul-
tural position, in order to show the pressing need for the
early removal of every impediment which unnecessarily
hampers the agricultural interest in the competition to
which it is now exposed. He then proceeds :

Nothing like the present depression in the agricul-
tural interest has been seen since the repeal of the
Corn Laws. In nine years there have been seven
defective wheat harvests, the last culminating in in-
tensity, and including in its grasp a portion of the
animal in addition to the other produce of the land.
In England, where the bulk of the wheat crop is grown,
there has been lost in these years a fourth more than a
whole year's wheat crop, a loss to the wheat-growers
of more than 30 millions sterling, with no compensa-
tion in higher prices.
The agriculture of America has been stimulated in
an extraordinary degree by the rising demand occa-
sioned by this long-continued diminution in our own
crops, and in those of Western Europe. The magni-
tude to which this has now attained may be judged of
by the fact that the United States have ten times
more acres of wheat than the United Kingdom. They
produce twice as much corn of all kinds as England
and France together, and have twice the number of
horses, one third more cattle, and four times more
hogs than both. The wheat crop in 1878 was 52 mil-
lion quarters, their Indian corn 173 million quarters,
capable, if used solely for that purpose, of feeding
four times the population of the 'United States. In
addition to this, they raise cotton, tobacco, and
sugar, worth nearly 50 millions sterling.
This prodigious development of agricultural wealth
has practically an unlimited power of expansion.
For, in addition to the Vast areas of the United States
still untouched by advancing agriculture, there is the
great region of Manitoba and the "fertile belt" of
North-Western Canada, stretching in a block of rich
land 700 miles westward from the Red River to the
North, watered by navigable rivers, in extent many
times larger than the British Islands, with abundance
of coal, now at last brought into prominent notice by
the Canadian Government. A railway from Lake
Superior to the Red River is completed, and another
in progress, which will tap the produce of this vast
region, and, after a run of 500 miles of land carriage,
place it on board cargo steamers which, traversing the
Lakes and the St. Lawrence, will tranship it at
Quebec, by elevators, on board ocean-going ships for
Europe. The extent of water carriage, and the
economy of fuel effected by the improvements in
niarine engines, have immensely diminished the cost
of transport.

The Canadian Government are circulating widely
in this country certain reports of tenant farmers, dele-
gated from Scotland and the North of England, who
visited the North-West Territory during last autumn.
These gentlemen, men selected for skill and judgment,
speak in the most confident terms of the unequalled
productive quality of the soil and the ease with which
it can be cultivated. The natural produce of an acre
there, they say, is equal to that here which has con-
stantly to be kept up to the mark by costly ex-
penditure, and it is in this cheapness of production
that the advantage lies. We have been forcing the
ground in this country beyond its natural produce,
and, so long as the cost of transport from abroad
exceeded the cost of this operation, it was profit-
able. The average yield of wheat per acre in the
United States has been II bushels, against .which
our superior produce of 28 bushels, plus the cost of
transport, afforded us a safe margin. But that advan-
tage is gone if this "fertile belt" in North-West
Canada yields as is alleged a natural return equal to
ours. or can we reckon on on early exhaustion
of this soil, for, in severall instances mentioned by the
delegates, the crops which they found so good were the
produce of soil which had been constantly cropped for
many successive years. In the comparatively old
State of Illinois the yield of wheat per acre, as I
learn from the last agricultural report of the State,
has never been greater than in the last three years.
It is now twenty-two years since Professor Voelcker
analyzed for me four samples of prairie soils from
America, which proved richer in nitrogen than any
of which he could find record. It is thus not only the
boundless extent of corn land in the North-Western
America, but its highly productive quality that Euro-
pean agriculture must in future compete with.
And it is not in corn only, but in all kinds of
animal produce, that this competition-has to be met.
Our imports of animal produce from all foreign
countries, inclusive of wool, last year exceeded 60
millions in value a sum closely approaching to
the entire land rental of this kingdom. The imports
of corn of all kinds during the last three years give an
annual average slightly exceeding 60 millions -in
value. The enormous volume already reached shows
that this country still affords the best market, but
also that in the face of some decline of price there is
no cessation of supply, the reduction being met by
scientific appliances which minimize the cost of trans-
port and lessen the risk of bringing fresh meat from
the great grazing- grounds of America, North and
South, and the more distant plains of Australia.
A recent French patent has proved that, without
the direct use of ice,- the temperature of fresh meat
and other provisions can be kept so reduced that
they are now being transported with safety from
the most remote fields of production. The com-
petition to which European agriculture is now
exposed thus includes nearly all the principal
articles of consumption. It is of immense benefit
to the consuming classes in Europe, who in recent
times of depression of trade must otherwise
have been sorely pressed. And American states-
men recognize in it what they term a revolution in the
economic conditions of European agricultural industry.
They see that, though their home consumption is in-
creasing, it is not doing so to anything like the extent
necessary to absorb their enormous increase of crops,
and they believe that they are rapidly gaining control
of this trade, and can maintain it even at lower prices.
We must meet it by production of articles which will
bear neither long storage nor carriage—milk, fresh
butter, early meat, vegetables, hay, straw, potatoes,
sugar beet in the south-eastern counties, grass farms,
dairying, and market gardening. As the summer
heats on the north-western plains ripen barley and
oats too rapidly, there is still hope for them; for wheat
also where there is a demand for the straw, and for
sheep, in which there appears less pressure a com-
petition.
There seems, indeed, a probability of an over-pro-
duction of wheat in America for a time, and a tem-
porary reaction. But there can no longer be any
doubt that a great change in our agricultural position
is impending. The older States on the eastern sea-
board of America.are rapidly going out of cultivation
by the competition of the richer virgin soils of the
West. That competition is nearer to our doors now,
by the cheapening of transport, than it was to theirs
twenty years ago. The time has come that it must be
promptly met if we would avoid the same fate. ' The
difficulties and embarrassments of "tenants for life"
are notorious and increasing. The control of the
"dead hand" must be removed. All the interests in
land, whether of owner' occupier, or labourer, must
be disenthralled and left free to make the best of their
position. In those new countries land can be bought
and transferred in the land office in a few minutes,
and at little cost. Trusts, and the Law Courts,
hamper it here. A man can neither buy nor sell land
without the help of the lawyers, and the possibility of
a lawsuit. That is the reason why agricultural land
in this country sells at a lower price than in France or
Holland.

_
Mr. Caird refers to the effect of the present land laws,
and concludes his observations on this branch of the sub-
ject by anticipating an alteration in this respect, which
would lead to rapid improvement, and adds—" When this
has been accomplished, the landed interest will be better
able to meet the coming changes."
He then proceeds: Within ten years it is expected
that the Canada Pacific Railway will be completed,
and will tap the "fertile belt " by that or by a
shorter route, open for at least three months of the
year, from Port Nelson by Hudson's Bay. What-
ever may be the result on the value of land in this
country, nothing, in my opinion, can stop the in-
eTitable outflow to it of a large proportion of our
agricultural strength. A territory of great fertility,
better adapted for the production of wheat than the
United States, healthy and entirely suited to the
British people, within a short and pleasant pas-
sage of a fortnight, will open to the farmer
and labourer of these kingdoms prospects • which
they dO.not yet fully realise. Many difficult social
problems gradually growing into prominence
will here find a natural solvent. Workers of every
class in the whole country, who have been growing
uneasy 'and discontented with the difficulty of sup-
porting their families, may there plant themselves on
a homestead where no preliminary clearance of forest,
as in the older settlements of Canada, is required, but
on which with little labour, and that of the simplest
kind, they can in the first season extract from the
rich soil abundance of food. The movement is begun ;
labourers and farmers' sons, carrying some capital
with them, are preparing to go. It may be five years.
or it may be ten, before the full current sets in which,
before it ceases to flew, will alter the existing condi-
tions of agricultural property in this country. As a
State, we shall be richer by the abundance of cheap
food, purchased from our thriving countrymen in
the Noah-West with the produce of our mines,
our manufactories and workshops. ale residential
advantages of this country will tend to maintain
the capital value of the land, which with its
equable and healthy climate, its varied scenery,
and admirable combination of liberty and order, will
have the further attraction of having become one of
the cheapest in which to live. But its agricultural
character will be changed. Pasture will have, over
wide districts, taken the place of arable. This is now
going on, and it proceeds with greatest speed on the
side of the country best suited to grass. But this
change may not in the end prove injurious. The grass
counties yield a better rent and higher rate of wages,
with a smaller poor-rate, than the corn counties. On
the line drawn by me 30 years ago, separating the
corn and grass counties, the corn crops in ten
years have decreased by 3 per cent. in the former,
and 10 per cent, in the latter. In Ireland they
have diminished nearly 19 per cent. In all cases
1 the diminution has been chiefly in wheat, which
.\7
has fallen 16 per cent. in England, and
nearlyearly 40 per cent. in Scotland and Ireland.
'lie 1 people are at the same time altering rapidly in
tc
aproportion
etiablnews fresh
h,
icli f
theyro usefrom
o übrr bread and
fields, meat.
s n
Bakers' shops are diminishing and butchers' shops in-
g eg
brought by fast steamers from the ports of the neigh-
bouring continent, are more an 'more displacing
years a°
bread. That proportion which 30 the
richer classes in this country, alone could afford to
spend on other articles of household consumption than
bread, is being rapidly reached by the workin
Our agriculture must adapt itself to the change, freely
accepting the good it brings, and skilfully using the
advantages which greater proximity to the best market
must always command.

Two contested elections were decided on Tuesday.
At Sandwich, were there was a vacancy through the tip_
proaching elevation of Mr. linatehimll-Hugessen to the
peerage, the Conservative candidate,
.Mr. Crompton Roberts,
was in a majority of 445 votes; and in the Wigtown Burghs,
Mr. Mark Stewart, the Conservative member in the last
Parliament, defeated the Lord Advocate of Scotland by a
majority of 6votot

THE AMERICAN FLOUR TRADE,

The Times of the 14th had an interesting article on the
American flour production, from which we make the follow-
ing extracts :

The production of wheat flour, like many other in-
dustries, has of late years grown enormously through-
out America. Advantage has been widely taken of
the great and extensively-distributed water power.
Numerous mills have been erected and fitted up with
the most modern and effective machinery. Besides
fully providing for the growing wants of a population
of 45 millions, the exports have been expanding
largely. Last year the flour exports of the United
States to Great Britain alone reached 6,863,172ewt. ;
they are double those of 1878, they are four times those
of 1877. This is exclusive of the 460,435 cwt. for-
warded from British North America, which has
nearly doubled her exports since 1877. The wheat
for grinding is carefully selected and cheaply
' handled; railroads, canals, or rivers bring it into the
mill and take away the flour: on through bills of
lading it is cheaply forwarded to European ports;
special agents distribute it throughout this country;
and American millers declare that this important
industry can be still further developed, and that flour
can be made in America and forwarded and sold in
Great Britain cheaper than it can be made there.
Although this latter proposition is untenable, there is
no doubt that the production of flour throughout the
world has been improved and cheapened by American
invention and skill, while the large surplus supplies
both of the States and of Canada notably reduce
prices and narrow the profits of British millers.
Owing to shortened consignments from Hungary and
Austria, many American mills in the spring wheat
States have for two years been turning out large pro-
portions of the highly albuminoid patent flour.
The head-quarters of the manufacture of American
patent flour is Minneapolis, the twin capital of the
fertile State of Minnesota, where the mighty stream
of the Mississippi pours over a precipice 50ft. high.
On either side of the river the flood has been deflected
into tunnels of stone and concrete, drives turbine
wheels which move saw mills and turn out annually
150 to 200 million feet of sawn timber, distributed
hundreds of miles to build settlers' houses and supply
the wants of States less bountifully provided with
timber. Still more widely distributed is the flour
ground by twenty-five mills, varying from three to
eight stories high; their floors computed to occupy an
area of one and a quarter million feet, and filled with
supeeior modern machinery. This milling enterprise has
grown rapidly. In 1873 there were but twelve mills,
not worth more than 50,000 dols. each; now there are
25 valued at a low estimate at 75,000 dols. . . . In
1860 Minneapolis turned out annually 30,000 barrels
of flour. Her present producing powers would almost
enable her to do this in two days. With a little extra
effort she could nearly manage to furnish the 12,000
sacks (of 280 lbs.)' which are said to be consumed
daily in London. Her actual daily turn out when all
the mills are working is 12,000 barrels. She giound
in 1879 upwards of 1i million barrels, and of this large
produce nearly one-third (442,598 barrels) was exported.
The only other place where anything approaching to
this business is overtaken is St. Louis where the flour
produce of 1879 was upwards of 2,000:000 barrels. . . .
The Minneapolis millers have formed an association
through which all purchases of wheat are made, which
employ agents in various parts of the country, and
distribute the supplies as required to the different
mills in proportion to their run of stones or rollers.
Settlements are made once a week. Every mill is
provided with its elevators, so that the cars, contain-
ing 400 bushels, all loose, are brought up, unloaded,
and are ready for despatch in 15 minutes. The grain
is usually winnowed several times, run through
a smut machine passed down a shoot, in which
powerful magnets retain any portions of wire,
nails, or other metal, which, besides injuring the
stones and rollers, are also a fertile cause of ex-
plosions, such as that which in May, 1878, destroyed
Ex-Governor Washburn's large mill and killed four-
teen persons. Flour and dust in a confined atmosphere
are found to be almost as explosive as gun-cotton, and
hence a spark or light often does incalculable damage.
Even the running of the empty stones sometimes suffices
to strike the fatal spark. Down copper tubes, enclosed
in a jacket containing steam, the wheat passes to dry
and toughen the skin and facilitate the separation of
the bran. Between slack rollers the wheat is
cracked, that the bran may be separated with as
little flour as possible attached to it. The stones
to which it passes, unlike those which grind the
soft winter wheats, are run at low speed. Using
hard spring wheats, slow movement is found to pro-
duce the best quality of flour. The stones, as at
home, are dressed with the diamond machine and
hand-pick; but the dressing is generally better done
by fewer hands at- lower wages, while sharpness is
maintained by the use of solvents. From the stones
the ground wheat is thrown on to the silken bolting
cloths, which carry over their furthest end the husk
or bran, discharge into other hoppers the tailings and
middlings, in another channel run off the cheaper
bakers flour, which has occupied the central layers
of the grain, while the germ, situate close to the
hilum and containing oil, which discolours and spoils
the flour, is also separated as an oily flake ancl made
into the "red dog "—the lowest quality of flour.
But the Minneapolis and many modern American
mills where spring wheat is used still further separa-
tion and reduction are effected. The middlings are
run repeatedly between . stones, iron or porcelain
rollers, and through the silk bolting cloths. These
processes, first adopted in Hungary, and hence called
the Hungarian process, are repeated four times,
and in some mills as many as twelve times. From
these repeated reductions of the middlings,
which constituted the layers of the wheat
berry immediately under the bran, and
which until recently were almost classed with the
refuse, are made the finest qualities of the highly
albuminokl or patent flour. This flour has not
hitherto been sufficiently appreciated in England. It
has, however,. much greater strength than the ordinary
bakers' flonr ; it takes up more water; it makes lighter
bread; a barrel of 1961 b. makes 140 loaves of 21b.,
while the same weight of ordinary bakers' flour turns
out about 125 similar loaves. Forty-five per cent, of
patent flour is sometimes taken, but this large amount
reduces unduly the quality of the other grades, and
most millers are satisfied with 35 to 40 per cent, of
patent. The better qualities of spring wheat—a grain
grown on tolerably fresh, unexhausted soils, and in a,
favourable, rather dry season—are understood to pro-
duce the heaviest yields of patent flour. . . .

An increasing proportion of flour is exported in
sacks, which costs from 12c.t0 16c., according as they
hold 1401 b. or 2001 b. The smaller are preferable on
account of their facility of movement. In sacks, the
flour is easily and cheaply packed both on car and on
shipboard. The sack costs less than one-half the price
of the barrel .

British millers and bakers anxiously inquire
whether these improved American processes pay. A
few figures may afford experts the basis for their
calculation. At Minneapolis it appears that 2851 b.
to 3001 b. of No. 2 spring wheat, weighing 621 b. per
bushel, are required to make a barrel of flour. About
50 per cent, of this flour is the ordinary bakers'
qualities; about 40 per cent, is the patent, worth
about 30 ver cent. more than the bakers'; about 10
per cent. is "low grade," sold at about half the price
of the bakers' flour. Besides about 101 b. of
waste in the making of each barrel of flour,
there is about 801 b. of bran and offal, worth 10d. to
is., or sold at the mill at 5 dols. or 54 dols. per ton
of 2,0001 b. This low price of the offal is one of the
American miller's disadvantages, which he has hitherto
vainly sought to remedy by condensing the bulky
bran into a portable form and thus profitably forward-
ing it to British markets, where it would be worth
about five times the price it brings at Minneapolis. The
transport of the flour to European markets, whether
in sacks or in barrels, is, however, effected on through
bills of lading on terms very favourable for the
American miller. By several routes the barrel of flour
can be transported from Minneapolis to Liverpool,
London, or Glasgow at ss. to ss. 6d. . . •
To the British public it probably matters little
whether the staff of life is imported as wheat or as
flour. Their chief anxiety is to secure plentiful
and cheap breadstuffs, and never was there better
prospect of such plenty and cheapness. The British
wheat-produsiing capacity is limited. On many
British farms it is greatly more profitable to grow
other produce, especially of a more perishable
description, and which cannot be so readily brought
from abroad. Between one-third and one-half the
wheat annually required in the United Kingdom
omuurstconloonwiesbeanimd ptohretedu.
niOtetahesr
tactoeusntri ,
caens,
finlolta6biliyr
deficit. For many years to come America from
her surpbss can supply not only the wheat we need,
but various other agricultural produce. She has a,
vast extent of cheap, good land. In the great trans-
Mississippi zone, where nearly half the wheat of
America is now grown, liot one-fourth of the land
available for wheat is yet cultivated or even occupied.
Throughout these regions wheat can be profitably
raised at 225. to 255. a quarter. In many older States
and on most farms a little more care in cultiva-
tion and in the selection Of seed would profitably
secure an increment of several bushels per acre
over the present meagre 121 bushels—the acre-
able wheat average of the 'United States, The
enhanced prices of the last six months have
greatly extended to the wide area devoted to wheat
alike in Canada and the States. With anything
like a favourable season, America will have a bigger
surplus than ever to dispose of. Hitherto she had
spared one-third of her great yield, or upwards of 18
million quarters. Future crops will doubtless pro-
vide still snore if it is needed. The transport
charges on the American continent and across the
ocean add 50 per cent., and sometimes more, to the
first cost of these cheaply-grown breadstuffs. Any.
permanent or considerable rise in these transit
rates would obviously effect the price of bread in
England. But such rise will be counteracted by
the introduction of improved machinery and
appliances in the several modes of transport, by
competition among carriers by land and sea, by
augmented trade insuring the loading of ships and
cars going west, as well as east, by the reduced
wages and expense induced by amendment or removal
of the present costly duties which the United States
levy on all imports. These considerations favour the
conclusion that the present moderate charges are very
unlikely to be aavanced. A quarter of wheat (4801 b.
is now carried on through bills of lading 1,200 to 1,400
miles by railway cars or barges and 3,000 miles over
the ocean to British ports for about 15s. For 2s. 6d.
landing, dock, and other charges are met. With a
living profit to all concerned; American wheat can,
therefore, be landed in the United Kingdom at 40s. to
425. per quarter, and with tolerably favourable seasons
this price is not likely to be exceeded.

DISASTERS AT SEA.—There were 15 British and
foreign wrecks reported during the past week, making
a total of 575 for the present year, or a decrease of
105 as compared with the corresponding period of
last year. The approximate val-ae of property lost
was £510,000, including British £400,000.
A MONARCH'S REFLECTION.--Charles the Fifth,
Emperor of Germany, when he abdicated a throne,
and retired to the monastery of St. Juste, amused
himself with the mechanical arts, and particularly
with that of a watchmaker. Ile one day exclaimed,
"What an egregious fool must I have been to have
squandered so much blood and treasure, in an absurd
attempt to make all men thinlg alike, when I cannot
Inakg for watchea keep time togtther•'.'

THE 'PEACE SOCIETY.

The Peace Society held their annual meeting in
London on Tuesday evening at Finsbury Chapel;
Mr. Henry Pease in the ohair._ _

-
A resolution proposed by Mr. Firth, M.P. , was
adopted, in which the meeting, regarding the issue
submitted to the country in the recent parliamentary
election as being substantially whether we are to have
a warlike or a pacific foreign 'policy, expressed the
warmest satisfaction at the explicit and emphatic
response made by the nation in favour of peace—a
result attributed, at least in part, to the quiet and
persistent teaching of the society.
Other resolutions were unanimously adopted pledg-
iug the society to support with all its power Mr.
Richard's motion about to be submitted to the House
of Commons, praying the Queen to instruct the
Government to take the initiative in a proposal for
bringing about a mutual and simultaneous reduction
of European armaments; and noting with satisfaction
a growing tendency to adopt the principle of arbitra-
tion in preference to settling disputes by the
sword.