The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1879-11-01
TOPICS ron THE FIRM.



For the past three or four years our
farmers have been fortunate in finding
prof table markets for their wheat crops,
despite the vast additions annually made
to the area under this cereal. The last
report of the Department of Agriculture
put the condition of this crop through
out the whole country at seven per cent.
better this year than at the same date
last year, and "a moderate estimate of the
aggregate increase in yield, places it at
60, 600, 600 bushels Yet in the face of
this unparalleled crop, prices now leave
fair margin to the farmer, and there is
little or no doubt but that they will
continue to rise as moderate ex-
port trade succeeds the rush which
is now overlooking our foreign markets.
Stimulated by their past and pres
ent successes with this crop, there is
strong probability that our farmers will
devote to it the coming year even a
larger area than they have hitherto done,
in the expectation that next year they
will find for it an equally profitable
market. What is the prospect that this
expectation will be realizedf
Two circumstances have contributed
chiefly to the good fortune we have met
with in our wheat production during the
last few years : the crops here have been
excellent, while those abroad have been
more or less deficient, and the shortage
there, fortunately for us, has been in in
verse proportion to the increase here.
The latest trustworthy statistics of the
wheat harvest throughout Europe says,
that taking 100 as representing the aver
age harvest, that of the present year in
Austro-Hungary may be represented by
SO; in Germany by 85; in France by
IS; in Switzerland by 80; in Italy by
83; in England by II; in Russia by 70;
and in Roumania by 80. Of course, as
the harvest, as a rule, has not been
thrashed there yet, considerable modif-
cations may have to be made in these
figures; but it is hardly probable, that
these notifications will be for the better
Even with full average crop, Europe
would require large measure of foreign
assistance to feed her teeming popula-
ton, and of course, with these deficien-
cies everywhere in her supply, the
amount of foreign cereals needed to keep
her people from starvation must be pro-
portionately greater, than in years of
average harvests. Moreover, the wheat
crop is not the only failure across the
Atlantic this year; most Of the other
crops, also, have been more or less short,
and the deficit in these must be made up
from outside sources, chiefly in wheat
products, because these can be trans
ported more easily and cheaply than any
other equivalent form of food. tl't
Isit probable, however, that the pres,
ent ill-luck will attend European agri-
culture next year? Will the weather
then be equally disastrous to the farmers
efforts and hopes? for the present poor
haryests are on all hands attributed
chiefly or wholly to the execrable wealth
er, which during the last year, has
afflicted nearly the whole of Europe.
These are questions upon which our
readers are as we'll able to speculate as
ourselves. They can also see with equal
clearness, that an abundant wheat crop
across the Atlantic next year, is certain
to lessen the demand for our cereal
products, and as the supply here is likely
to be unusually great, the prices, in that
case, would necessarily be unusually low,
unless a poor crop here by diminishing
our surplus should increase the price
for it.