The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-11-01
LONDON LETTER.

| LONDON Oct 10, 1879.
The Duke of Beaufort has written the fol
lowing letter to Mr.. Daniel Owen, who recent
ly published pamphlet IN which he sough,
to show that the English farmer would be able
to compete in the English market with the
American wheat producer, providing the soil
in this country were properly titled In &C
knowledging the receipt of copy Of this pam
phlet, the duke says:
~ have to thank you for the reprint of your
paper read at a meeting in June of the Cow.
bridge Farmers Club. There are some
parts of the paper, partly opinions Of your
own, partly those Of others, with which | do
not agree, and which to my mind are not in
accordance with the present state of things In
America, and far as can see, are still further
from the probable future OF the wheatgrowlng
zone or district of the continent, both IN Cana.
da and in the United States.
"On page 12, in commenting upon the un-
prccedented crop of wheat grown there last
year. you state that it is exceptional, and may
not happen again for years to come. As a
matter of fact the crops much larger this year
than it was last, and though the weather was
unusually bad and changeable for America
the harvest was well got AS there are now
railroads working, others making and again
more contemplated, | believe the surplus of
wheat produced beyond the quantity wanted
for home consumption in Canada and Ameri-
ca will increase every year for some time to
come. Also, as they get money from selling
their wheat, they will invest some of it in ma
nures, and, instead Of having eleven bushels
per acre to sell, grown on their now unma-
nured land they will raise the productive pow
ers of their land. Besides this the wheat zone
is enormous and as the flood of emigration
has again set westward more acres will be
cleared and cultivated. AS to the expense,
think that the gentlemen quoted In your paper
are in error, for | have no doubt that, though
from the very farthest part of the wheat pro-
ducing districts it may be more, yet wheat can
be landed at Liverpool from the average of the
distance from the coast at q cost of As. per
bushel, or 32s. per quarter Can you compete
with this in England? | say certainy not.
you have had great experience and have
grown crops that sound almost fabulous in
quantity, but see that, with all that science
and capital could do for three years, you had
crops far less to the acre than for the seven
previous years. The fact is that in America
the sun never fails them as 1t does in this eli
mate. Their crops rlpen quickly, and it is
almost a certainty that they have fine weather
for harvesting. Bad weather beats even ener-
gy and good judgment. Mr.. Osborne, think,
greatly overrates the average wheat produced
per acre in the United Kingdom even in the
favorable seasons, when he puts 1t at thirty
bushels. / believe twenty bushels to be much
nearer the mark. He is wrong also IN saying
that 1t costs Cd. per bushel railway freight TO
the coast, which would be 1e los. per ton. /
believe 1t to be an error also to say that the
railways are carrying wheat at Il loss, There
is not sufficient competition to cause them to
do that
THE result of my consideration of the sub
ject is thIs-that climate, steam transport by
sea or land, together with the labor question
on both sidCs of the ocean, has made 1t out OF
the power of our agrlculturists to compete with
the growers of wheat on the American CONT
nent and that they must turn their attention
to cheaper and better modes of growing beer
and mutton, so as not to be driven out of the
market also by the Americans. The distance,
difficulty and expense of transport of live and
dead meat give us an advantage we shall be
wise to improve, instead of wasting time and
capital in trying the impossible task of COM
peting with them in growing wheat"