The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDA y, MAY 17.

Lai us place before our readers sonic curious
intormation of the various countries whence we draw
supplies of core. Under Free-trade the whole world
helps to feed us. It is sufficient to look over any corn
merchant's circular to he astonished at the great
number of strange names met with. Marianople,
Ibrasia. Satanic.. Ghirka, Hard Taganrog, Hard
Hounielia, Hard Sense, Egyptian, Egyptian-Snide,
Egyptuni-kleh.ra. Iturdianski, Moldavian, and Wal-
lachia°, are the names of wine of the wheats now
continually sold in Mark-lane, as well as the old
familiarly known wheats of I)antzic, Konigsberg,
Rostock, Stralsund, Stettin, Odessa, &c.— while
turcign flour is distinguished as American, Canadian,
Ert neh,Thscan,and Spanish. In the four months of the
slay to the 7th lust. there arrived in Mark-lane, by
land and sea, 343,551 qrs. of wheat, of which 264,493
qrs. were foreign. In the same period, the quantity
of flour arrived was 274,439 sacks and 116,325
barrels. Of the wheat, therefore, nearly three-fourths
were of foreign growth ; of the flour all the barrels
and 69,723 sacks were foreign. Of the flour, all the
beards came from the United States; from France
camp 31,603 sacks, from Tuscany 7,329 sacks, from
Diemen 100 sacks, from Hamburg 110 sacks,
from Holland 130 sacks, from Belgium 10
sacks, and from Spain 27,121 sacks. Of the
wheat, the largest quantity, 50,287 qrs., came rom
Prussia ; the rest came from Holland, Russia Ham-
burg, Mecklenburgh, Denmark, France, the 'Neapo-
litan States, the Papal States, Italy, the United
States, Egypt, Bremen, Hanover, Sweden, and
Lubeck. From almost all the countries of Europe,
therefore, from parts of Africa, and from the United
States, does London receive supplies of wheat
and flour; and what is true, in this respect, of the
metropolis, but still more extensively, is true of the
whole country. And precisely because we have
drawn our supplies from so wide • space, the price
here, being us it were the medium price of all these
places, has undergone no fluctuation.
The backwardness of the season, the unfavourable I
condition of the ground during many months for til-
lage, the comparatively small quantity of bread corn
which has been sown, and the sickly appearance in
many places of the young wheat, impart a great inte-
rest at this moment to the trade in corn. In spite
of these untoward circumstances, the report of Fri-
day's corn market is that "English wheat barely
maintaias last week's value, barley is very dull, and
oats 6d. lower than on Monday." The average price
of wheat in the six weeks ending the 7th inst., was
1 is. 7d. per quarter, it having been 40s. in the
week ceding February 3, and it has varied only a
few pence, 17d., through the entire four months of
the year. the harvest last year was not
good, though there was a great breadth of
wheat on the land, notwithstanding that and
the unfavourable spring the price of wheat is
amazingly steady and comparatively low.
Last year at this time the average price of wheat
was 40s. I Id.; thus it is now 3s. 13d. higher than
then. But at that period as compared to the be-
ginning of the year, the market had risen more than
the present year, the average price in the first
week of the year having been 375. 3d.; it advanced
to 425. 73. on March 20, a difference of 3s. 4d., and
was on the Bth of May 3s. Bd. higher than in the first
week of the year. Though the price, therefore, was
3s. Bd. lower last May than at present—the result un-
doubtedly,as the low price at the beginning of the year
shows,of our own excellent harvest in 18,51—it was not
so steady as in the present year. Now this fact is of j
great importance, for it proves that fluctuations in I
the price, now when our supplies are drawn from
a very. large surface, are more caused by the varia-
tions
in our own harvests than by variations in the
foreign supplies.
The pnce is now 3e. 8i higher than last year,
while the fluctuations in the four months were two
and-a-half times greater last year than in the present
year. The home supply. was then greater than now.
This is the plain deduction from the known produce
of the two harvests of POI and 1852 from the pre-
sent higher price and from the greater importation.
To April 5 of the present year, according to the
&wird of Trade tables, there was imported, of corn
of all kinds, and of flour reduced to quarters of
corn, 2,035,896 qrs., whereof 864,083 were qrs. of
wheat, and 1,328,797 were ewts. of flour. To
April .1, 1832 there was imported of corn of all kinds,
and flour reduced to qrs. of corn, 1,339,723 qrs.,
whereof 429,387 were qrs. of wheat, and 699,604
were cwts. of flour. Between April 5 and May 7of
the present year there has been imported, according
to the Gazette, 538,843 qrs. of grain of all kinds and
thaw as grain, against 381,921 qrs. in the same
period last year This makes the total imports of
all kinds of grain in the four months of the two
years, of which the principal part was wheat, or
flour expressed in quarters :
1853
1852

Excess in the four months of 1853 853,095
or arse-halt more than the quantity. imported in 1852.
When we know that the present highest price of the
best English white wheat is 58e. per qr., and take into
consideration the inferior quality of the wheat grown
iu 1852 compared to that grown in 1831, we are satis-
fied that wheat growers have obtained in the rise of
3s. Bd., as compared to the price last year, a fair re-
muneration for the deficient quantity of last harvest,
while that rise of price having been sufficient to
bring in corn and flour from a wide extent of
country, has kept the price, as we have shown,
remarkably steady.
Bat the steadiness of the price caused by the
great importation is not the only benefit it has
conferred on the farmers. It has enabled mer-
chants to victual their ships, and cotton and woollen
and metal and pottery manufacturers to carry on
their works at a comparatively low rate ; it has con-
tinued and increased enterprise and consumption of
all kinds, and caused a great demand for cattle, and
wool, and timber, and all the other produce of land;
so that farming is now, as was recently stated and
admitted in the House of Commons, as flourishing a
hiplines, as any in the country. Last year at this
time Southdown hog's wool was from 13/. to 141. 10s.
per pack; it is now from 191. to 201., a rise of 30 per
cent. Tallow is now 25 per cent. higher than last
year. Cattle and sheep now sell in Smithfield, the
former for one-third and the latter for one-half more
money than they sold for last year. The prices on
May 10, 1832, and on May 9, 1853, copied from the
Smithfield Market tables are these :
Per Slb., sinking the ofd.
la i 2. 1543.

11. d. s. r. 4. s. d. I ,
Inferior beasts 2 2 to 2 4 3 0 to 3 2 '
Prime Scots 3 2 to 3 4 4 0 to 4 4
Isferior sheep 2 6 to 2 8 4 0 to 4 2
Soatkdown wither 3 6 to 3 8 5 2 to 54 ,
In like manner potatoes are 30 per cent., butter
20 per cent., and cheese more than 20 per cent.
dearer than last year. But for the large importation
of food we have referred to the demand for, and the
pries of, all these asticlea would not have been so
great, and thee the farmer has been provided with
both a steady and a good market for ail his produce
by the free importation of corn.
Similar weather to that we have experienced has
prevailed over the greater part of Europe, and in i
places not supplied with breadstuff from
so many quarters as England, people begin to
be a little apprehensive of a scarcity of !bad. The
demand for both wheat and rye has become active
in Holland and Belgium, and purchases of rye and
other inferior grains on account of both countries
have been made lest week IS our markets. Re-
ceiving, as wo now do, all the spare produce from
the countries on the Black Sea and the Baltic, Eng-
land is becoming a great entrepot for corn, and any
of the neighbouring nations which may be tempora-
rily in want will come hither for a supply. The
price of corn here cannot be permanently
either higher or lower to any great extent
than thu price in t.,:hcr conntriN. It' it be
a little higher, corn Sows in from all Tamura and