New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-07-28
THE GRAIN CRoP-4BRoAD IND 1T HOME

| THE GRAIN CROP-ABROAD IND ii HUME
A correspondent of The London Times, writing
from Hungary on the Sth of July, says that
If this years production Of grain proves
smaller, it is more than made up by the
" stores remaining from last year, which
amounted to one-fifth of the crop" The Lon
don Telegraph of July 0, in an editorial, says
" the prospects of both wheat and barley upon
| " the principal corn growing areas of England
certainly indicate deficient production: our
merchants and spectators are operating in the
"northern continental ports and in the Leyant,
land inquiring also in the markets OF
France. Large importat!Ons will be wanted
The Mark Lane Gazette of the 18th says the
recent brilliant sunshine on that island comes
4" too late TO alter the character of this years
&" crop, which cannot by any possibility equal
" that of 1868, while the first gatherings IN
France show an inferior weight and greatly
deficient yield but oats promise great abun-
dance, and the quality will be excellent"
Alderman Mechi, in letter to The Times,
dated the 14th, remarks that "no doubt the
" four million acres of wheat crop will be in
quantity and quality much below that of last
year, and perhaps under average but the 22i
millions of acres of permanent pasture, and
"crops, will be very greatly in excess of 1863"
Advices from tho Northwestern States indi-
cate large wheat harvest, but in Northern
Illinois and some other sections the show for
corn was never worse.
The conclusion to which all this information
may lead the farmer seems to be that we are
to have q year of cheap and abundant food
everywhere. The California surplus was never
so large. 1t will be waited direct from the
wharyes of San Francisco to the Liverpool
docks. This, with what she can obtain from
tho ports of the Baltic and Black Seas, con-
sidering the largeness of her oat and root crops,
will Iprcvent England from calling loudly on
our North Western States The South, since
the days when Washington was wheat grower
has never come so near producing all her own
food and enjoying wholesome sense Of indie
pendence of the Northwest. The manufac-
turing States will of course require their bread
from the West, and the West will be only too
glad to furnish it Mt price little above the
cost of production.
1t seems to us that 1870 will require nicer
and wiser calculation from the farmers of the
North West. They have been running counter
to some of the first laws of political economy,
but their vast area of land, at once rich and
cheap, has enabled them, with the aid of the
cutter-bar and the automatic raker, to avoid
loss, and in some cases TO win handsome
profit. The wheat-growers of Missouri, Kansas,
Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
have been able to pay for farms and farm
buildings 10y rolling their crop fifteen hundred
miles to a shipping port whence much of it
was transported three thousand miles further.
1t is not in the nature of things for bread to
travel forty-fye hundred miles to q consumer.
The Western farmers and merchants see that
screws are missing in their system, and are
consulting about it, Some believe that re-
ducton of duties of tho canal navigation, and
Of the charges Of railways and elevators, would
cure the evil. Others propose st. Louis as the
great grain center, that city to be connected
through the waters of Illinois and a canal 90
feet wide with Chicago.
The true remedy lies beyond. The farmer
who lives so far from the consumer Of his sur
plus must put his food in some moro concen-
trated form. Instead of sending such quaint
ties of grain to the Atlantic seaboard, the
North West States should ship East more flesh
aud cheese, moro wool and butter. Al present,