Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1884-10-25


next twelve months will be 100000
600 bushels, or 16,25O,OOO quarters of
foreign wheat, that is to say 100000
bushels less than the average imports
during the last three years. In spite,
therefore, of stocks having run down to
a low ebb during the last six months,
the statistical position appears amply
secured.
We have dealt at considerable length
with the position Of the wheat trade,
but other vegetable foods are also very
cheap, barley, oats, and potatoes have
all done well in the current year, and
of the potato disease there is hardly a
sign. The result is that quotations are
low, and will probably be quite as
cheap as they have been in the past
twelve months, when indeed prices all
through we're exceptionally cheap.
Hay has not Jared so well, cold back
ward spring and deficiency of mois>
ture at the right time, having reduced
the weight considerably, especially in
Kent and some other counties, and the
fruit crop was greatly damaged at the
blossoming period. Roots too are now
wanting water. But there must be
some drawbacks in every year; in 1884
the gains maybe said to far outweigh
the losses upon the farmers balance
sheet.
But, shifting our ground from home
productions to those wherein we de-
pend wholly upon foreign and colonial
producers for our supplies, it is found
that here also, in what is termed colo
NAL produce, prices are exceptionally
low, Of all colonial products sugar is
the most important, judged by the
value of the import, and never in the
history of the trade has sugar been any.
thing like so cheap as during the past
few months. Whether it be cane or
beet sugar the result is equally the
same, and the quotations in the market
are really not more than half what
they were in 1SSO-S1.
Tea and coffee are also to be obtained
upon very low terms, the former in
spite of the difficulties between France
and China, and the latter in spite of
the leaf disease in Ceylon and, as res
CARDS the less important foreign and
colonial food products, with rice at
their head, it may generally be affirmed
that prices now are much below the
average off number of years past
In almost all cases it is found that pro.
duction and the greatly increased facil-
tiles for transport have combined to in.
crease the supplies upon the market
more rapidly than consumption has
warranted, and hence it is that the cost
of living in this country, if it depended
upon vegetable products, would proba-
bly, be found to be permanently lower
ed. With regard, however, to animal
foods, it is equally certain that the pro-
duction of foreign countries, North and
South America and Australasia more
particularly, has grown with equal
rapidity, but in these instances the
goods are much more perishable and
the problem of cheapening the cost of
conveyance has only in part been
solved. Still it is worthy of remark
that even meat has been tending down
ward of late, more especially inferior
meat, such as pork and the inferior
qualities of beef and mutton, and on a
comparison OF the past ten years, we
can not find that even the superior
qualities are higher in price, while inns
ported meat, imported butter, and
many other commodities, have cheap,
ened. Altogether there can be no
doubt that the working man is at the
prestent time in a far better position to
live cheaply than at any recent period,
while as regards vegetable produce the
markets have never before in modern
times been so cheap.