Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-10-11

New York World on the subject of the
scarcity and high prices of the leading ar
ticles of food. The subject is worthy ofat-
tention. We have just got through a year
of scarcity and high prices, and people
were indulging the hope that there would
be a great reduction in prices for the
coming year. This they had a right to
expect, considering the heavy crop of
wheat harvested. But they are destined to
disappointment. From present appear
ances -four will be as high if not higher the
coming year than it has been the past
Some of the causes of this state of things
are set forth in the article to which we
have referred. But there are others.
Throughout the great agricultural State of
the West-espeoially Ohio, Indiana, Hi
nois and Kentucky-an unprecedented
drouth has prevailed, cutting short the
corn crop, greatly diminishing the potato
crop, and almost entirely cutting off late
cabbages and turnips, which enter largely
into the consumption of almost every
family The World says:
During the past twenty years there has
been constant effort to stimulate all sorts
of industry except the growth Of substan-
tial vegetable food. There has been con-
slant call to develop mineral resources (; to
extend and improve means of internal
communication; to grow wool, and other
wise develop pasturage; TO grow cotton
and tobacco to improve horticulture; to
increase manufacturers and commerce
until these pursuits have employed the
best energies and most fertile climes to
the neglect of the growth of those cereals
which must ever form the bulk of human
food. From this cause the prospects now
before the people of the great cities of Eu-
rope and America are not all agreeable,
The purely agricultural food-growing re-
gions of Europe and America have either
stood still or suffered contraction, while
the calls upon them have increased steadi-
ly and rapidly, until a series of uniform
good crops are necessary to prevent food
rising to famine prices, while one or two
short crops here and there create disorder
in business, and produce distress in many
ways. We do not propose to stimulate
speculation; but with the food of wheat
/ ow being poured into Chicago and Mil
wagkee, we feel it important 10 collate a
few facts bearing upon future supplies and
prices Of bread that should not be lost
sight of, because there is reason to fear
that, with the utmost precaution, ourselves
and Western Europe will encounter, before
another harvest shall be garnered, an un-
comfortable scarcity and extreme price OF
this staple article.
Two nearly complete failures of the crop
of winter wheat in this country 30 reduced
our supplies that but for unexpected ship
ments to us fRm California many people
would have been compelled last spring to
dispense with wheat hour altogether. We
have had crops this year unsurpassed in
quality and quantity but We were so
destitute at the period of its ripening
that we have already made great inroads
upon it.
Turn to Europe, the aspect of affairs is
still more unsatisfactory. Two insufficient
crops in England have bsen followed, not
as with us, but by one that is more con-
spicuously deficient. France, usually an
exporting country, has had two defective
crops and from Belgium, Spain, Portu-
gal, and other populous countries, the re-
ports of deficiencies in the crops are uni
form and appalling. The population
which is thus deficient numbers about one
hundred and twenty millions. What their
wants are likely to be may be estimated by
recalling the strain upon the North to feed
the South last winter, after the partial
failure of her crops. This deficiencies in
the supplies Of sparse population of eight
or ten millions then exhausted our Grip
pied resources. Whence, then. are the
wants of ten times their number 10 be sup
piled? From San Francisco we learn that
heavy English orders have been executed,
but the whole crop of California would be
but drop in the bucket France and
England are contending in this market for
such supplies as have reached us. Not
content with this, they engage supplies
several days ahead of their arrival. Our
local millers cannot compete with them,
and we are threatened with an entire alb
sorption of that surplus which We have
hoped to see In store at the close OF navis
CATION.
The drift Of these facts it is impossible to
misunderstood; and it will be fortunate If,
BIZ great increase in this branch Of agri-
cultural industry, and better proportion
ate Weld, the close of the next harvest
shall find us and Europe in better posi-
ton. For high prices Of bread mean dull
trade in nearly all other branches Of bust
ness. Those who have large crops to sell
at high prices will Of course profit by them,
but their proft cripples all the centres Of
trade. producing discomfort want and dis
content among those classes with whose
prosperity active and remuneTative trade
is more nearly allied.
There are too man, traders and mand-
fscturers and miners and speculators-the
outgrowtf- of protection, by which the laws
Of trade have been impeded in their opera
ton, and of imitation, by which industry
has been oppressed. These evils must he
reformed altogether, and We can hold out
no hope Of relief from the enormous cost OF
living which now prevails, and threatens
to increase, except through more enlight-
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