St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-07-05
What Does it Cost to Handle it from the
Breaking of Ground to the
Bakers 0ven2
Some Valuable Figures on the Subject
Given by Mr.. Oliver Dalrymple, the
Bonanza Farmer.
The Cost of Transportation. of Stor-
ing, Inspection, Buying, Selling
and Milling.
The Difficulty of Learning the Cost of
Each Movement and Why
it Exists.


WHEAT from the sowing until it gets into the
bakery? How many cents worth of work
have been expended in moving it and the
implements of its cultivation from SEED
line TO inspection? How many processes
iOeS undergo in being transformed from
No. hard seed wheat to a bakers LOAF OF
ihe thew crop?" The experience
f GLOBE reporter who put
these questions to men, who were supposed
70 know. led him to the belief that few nave
wen a well-formulated guess on me SUP
Get. The farmers all raise wheat; the ran,
:oads all haul it: the elevator men unload
and load it, millions OF bushels every
month: the commission men buy and sell 1t;
.he millers grind it: the bakers dough IL up
md bake it; everybody eats it; it Is talked
IF more than any one subject in the North
vest;
FORTUNES ARE MADE
and lost on it; legislatures spend whole ses-
Sions discussing it; the market reports are
fun of it, and if wheat fails panic is pre-
dicted and all kinds of business slow up I'M
Ill wheat is again on the boom. If corn is
king wheat is certainly queen, and she is
gradually getting to occupy more than her
half of the throne. And yet nobody could
tell what bushel of it costs. The railway
commissioners said:"Y on can't get any cor
rect figures" The commissioner of statis-
tics figured out the cost Of each handling
and said: Don't use them for they
are not reliable" Commission
men said: cit depends on the
season and the size of the farm. Millers
said: ave don't care anything about it I'M
til it gets to the country elevator, or is
brought TO the mills" Farmers said: lit
costs more than we can get for it under the
present large supply" About all that any
body could tell was that it was First the
blade, then the ear, and after that the fuil
CORN IN THE EAR,
with little off for dOckage, a little more
for elevator charges. a little more for haul
ing, a little more for commits
sions. and what was left pocketed
by the farmers 10 pay for the machinery
that he had bought with which to cultivate
and harvest it" Everybody knew some
thing about it. The commission men could
tell to the eighth of a cent what bushel of
it was worth in Chicago at 10 o'clock the
day before The milleTs could tell how
many bushels were in the elevators. The
railroad commissioners knew approximately
how much was hauled each month. The
} commissioner of statistics had pretty cor
rect estimate Of how much was
RAISED LAST YEAR
and how many acres were under cultiya-
ton this year. The railroad authorities
could show reports from a hundred towns
on the condition of the crop. The chamber
of commerce men could draw diagram
showing how prices this year compared
with those on the corresponding day for the
past nine years. The old settlers
could make long-winded predictions
.aS to the price next September.
I'M H..
taller the blades We're than year ago, but
nobody could give anything like a cor
rect figure of the actual average cost of rails
ing and handling bushel of wheat. The
difficulty of obtaining this information made
it all the more eagerly sought, though
nearly everybody said that no figures could
be arrived at that would represent the ac-
tual cost Of getting the product.
The farmers, that is the average farmers,
who have under cultivation not more than a
section of land could not tell the cost of
cultivating an acre because they kept no
accounts of
THEIR OWN LABOR,
the days when they did not work, and the
days when the men they had hired
were doing something else than rails
ing wheat. Although they know
how many bushels of wheat they raise
and how much they get for it at the market
price per bushel, counting the time en-
ployed, the work hired and the wear and
tear of the machinery, not one ont of
dozen or more who have been in st. Paul
and of whom these questions were asked
could give an approximation of how much
actual profit there was in the crop, or what
the market price should be to enable them
ITO make living profit They knew that
they had their farms, and they could
RAISE MORE WHEAT
than anything else, and so they raise wheat,
put none could tell how much richer he was
at the end of the harvest than at seed time.
or how much poorer, reckoning the value of
their labor and that of their hired man. 1t
was largely a question of raise wheat or
StarVe, and the former was accepted as on
some accounts preferable. There
must be profit on it, for they lived and
paid their bills, but the cost of this they
could not give.
But Mr. Oliver Dalrymple the bonanza
farmer of the world. who seeds 30, 600 acres
every year. said differently, and when asked
if any figures could be had that were re-
{ liable as to the actual cost of wheat, he
said: Certainly. l have my books that
are kept as accurately as any that the gov
eminent keeps, and | know exactly what it
icOStS to get an acre of wheat from seeding
I to shipping, and if 1 know what an acre
costs know what a bushel COSTS for it
isn't hard to get at the average yield per
acre"
''And in the first place." said Mr.. Dial
rymple, ''if you want to get the whole
story of the wheat from start to finish, you
must begin with the purchase of the lands
in which it is to be raised
THE MINIMUM PRICE
of wild land situated in the unsettled dis
tricts, remote from railroads, is S1.25 per
acre, while the best uncultivated prairie in
the older counties of Minnesota and Da-
kota is held at SO per acre. Added TO this
cost of the land, quantity of machinery
must be purchased, buildings erected and
horses bought. Il costs to put up the nee
essary buildings and equip cultivated
wheat farm, with necessary machinery and
household goods, SO an acre. This all
comes in as an item of expense
before any more is made to put in wheat
crop or even to get the ground ready for
sowing"
''That is before the ground is broken?"
Eyes. and of course it costs more to get
the first crop than the others, for it is more
work to break the ground. 1t costs in the
first instance to break and baclset an acre
of wild prairie, at the present time, and
prepare it for crop, 81 an acre. Now we
are ready for some figures, and can easily
tell you what it costs from now out, after
the farm is opened and equipped with
buildings, seed, teams, machinery, etc,
and the figures l shall give you will indi-
cate for how much per acre farm can be
run for one year and left in the same con-
ton as found"
Mr. Dalrymple then proceeded at consid-
cradle length to give the cost of each item