Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-08-22
NASHVILLE:
SATURDAY, AUGUST %, 1857.
Will the Price Of wheat Seriously Ne
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This is question of vast moment. Up
on its solution hang heavy pecuniary inter
ests, and in some measure the comfort and
happiness of large portion of the human
family, to whom cheap bread is the greatest
Of earthly boons.
n understanding the long and severe
winter, which fingered in the lap of May,
causing the prospects of the farmer to APP
pear most unpromising, the genial sun and
refreshing rains which followed produced a
wonderful change. Instead of short crops,
the farmer boasts of abundance. Wheat,
rye, oats, corn, and indeed all the products
of the field, used for the food of man or
beast, have been most prolific, in the Unit
ed States; and the intelligence from Eu-
rope acquaints us with the fact that it has
been similarly blessed.
In the language of our contemporary of
the Richmond Examiner it has become a
matter of great Importance to the country,
as well as one Of very interesting specula-
ton to know what will be the effect of
these universally abundant crops upon the
prices of grain. These will be determined
absolutely by, LIST, the relations of supply
and demand at home, and I'd, the relations
of supply and demand abroad. Specula-
ton usually affects prices materially at the
opening of the market season; but its fac
titiouS influence never controls them very
long. The main points of inquiry, there
| fore, are, what will be the extent of the
foreign demand for our grain; and what of
the home demand, or rather of the surplus
we shall be able to send abroad over and
above home wants.
In the determination of these points we
will here give the readers of the PATRIOT
the advantage of the Investigations of the
Examiner. 1t says:
To begin at home, it would be wrong to infer
that we shall have an unprecedcntedy stupendous
supply of grain to spare, from the single fact OF
abundant crops. 1t must be remembered that our
home stocks of every kind of provision stuffs had
| been exhausted every where iu the Union except
in a very few districts of country. The present
years crops will have only to supply the tenn
| porary wants of the country, but fill the vacu
um Of exhausted stocks, up to the proper and safe
mark of "enough for rainy day" We suppose
the country was never before so completely empt-
ed of grain and provender in time of peace as it
has been within the last six mouths. Our farm
ers have felt the evil of such condition of things
too severely to be caught in the like predicament
again. and will be very chary hereafter Of selling
out too clean.
The attempt to estimate the crops and grain Of
our country with rigid accuracy, in figures Of
arith metic, has always struck US as absurd. But,
commercial writers persist in this of specu
lation, shall follow suit, and lay the best data
we can find before our readers. Taken together,
the States of the Atlantic sea-board from Maine
Georgia do not raise as much wheat they con-
sumo. Georgia. North and South Carolina, Mary
land and Virginia, produce, some of them as
much as they consume; others of them, Virginia
especially, surplus for expectation. But Penn
sylvania, New York and New England, consume
largely more than they produce and afford very
large market for Western and Virginia wheat
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and
! Arkansas also consume much more than they pro
duce and afford market for Western wheat.
| AeAasi VIC supposeS SApOTts uO HHedt: aituouSH
capable of producing a very large supply. South
and Central America aud California also procure
their supplies from wheat exporting States.
The great question of enquiry, to the surplus
which the United States will have for the supply of
their own wheat buying States and for the South
and Central American the Pacific and the Euro
pean demand, is limited almost exclusively, there
fore, to the crops OF the grain exporting States of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mich
| igan Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, which consti-
! tute the Great West.
! The Cincinnati Gazette has the following esti-
mates of the crop of 1857, compared with the
production of lS49 in these nine great grain-grow
ing States of the West. The Gozette thinks the
estimates based sound data in relation to iu-
crease of population and ratios of production and
on the assumption that the crop of this year will
be a full average. of course, providential cir
cumstances may mar this Aattering prospec; but
with continuance of weather favorable for rpeuing
the wheat in the higher ATTITUDES, and with late
fall in which will have time to mature, these
figures seem to be as nearly right as any that can