The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1879-08-29
PAcIrIC CoAsr WHAT.

The San Francisco Journal 81 Com
msrcs. which is regarded as one Of the
leading commercial papers on The coast,
says that Europe requires three hun
dred million bushels of wheat the pres
ent year, but she will not always re.
qnire them. Wet years aud tempest
uous win not always destroy the har,
vest. Three hundred million bushels
Is more than che equivalent of a bushel
for each individual of her immense
population. one-half of the people of
Europe, however, never use wheaton
bread-it is therefore the equivalent of
two bushels per head of those who use
wheat. The average per head is four
bushels, SO that this would indicate the
production Of not more than half enough
by Europe to supply its people. Eu-
rope, this year, therefore, if the three
hundred millions estimated be true, re
quires twice as much as she does in or
dinary years her ordinary need being
one hundred and fifty million bushels.
Part, however, of this sixty million
bushels is generally supplied as sur
plus by Russia which the statisticians
do not seem to take into account when
estimating the crop of Europe With
them Europe is Western Europe, The
normal needs of the world, therefore,
may be estimated at 100000 600 bush
els annually, of which California has
never supplied more than eighteen mil
California and Oregon never
more than twenty-five
But these two States have 43,000,-
600 acres of wheat lan6s-Ca California,
25.000,OOo; Oregon, 1s,0O0.o00-o -oi
which not more than one-seventeenth
has ever been under cultivation. We,
that is, California and Oregon, can
therefore supply Europe with l56, 6,00O,-
GOO bushels, and the people of China
and Central America, etc, with seven
tiines as much flour as has ever been
shipped there. That is to say, these
two States of the Pacific Coast can sup
ply all the usual needs of Western Eu-
rope. To do this, however, would re-
quire an agricultural population, or one
devoted to the raising of wheat, about
seven times as large as it now is. That
is. population of $4,000 workmen,
or over million of men, women and
children, and two million of general
population. AT a rate Of increase Of a
hundred thousand population a year it
would take us twenty years before we
reached that. But by that time the
wheat eating population Of the world
would nigh have doubled while a great
deal of what are now wheat lands on
this coast, one-third of them at least,
would have ceased to have been used
for that purpose. 1t does not, there
fore, seem as if we should have much
canse to fear that we shall ever be able
to raise too much wheat.
The price may, indeed, nay, must
come down-will in that interval prob
ably drop to a dollar a eental-that is,
two-thirds of what it now Is. But that
itself viii only increase the number OF
wheat eaters all over the world, and
the consumption per head among them,
and 50 prevent further depreciation 1t
viii also conduce to better farming, SO
that bushel and a half win be pro
dueed where only one is now And we
viii make more of our manufactured
goods at home as cheap food will con
duce to low wages and lessened cost
Of production SO that what the farmer
loses in one way he viii gain in snoth-
er. There need therefore be no fear as
to the future of wheat culture in Cali
fornia and Oregon.