Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-01-11
The Grain Supply.

previous at the same date. Through the Fall
months and December wheat has remained
about twenty million bushels, and corn about
seven million bushels less than they were
at the same time the preceding year, and
upon that basis of visible supply, We enter
the present year.
The reader who followed carefully
through the compiled information when it
was coming In from the chief fields of pro-
duetion, as the weekly statements were
made, will not fail to remember the dis
couraging exhibit presented for restora-
ton of the comparative loss in supply be-
fore the close of the year, as we'll as the
more advanced views which discerned in
the insuficiency Of resources an available
surplus to regain the lost ground in the
first, during the closing half of the season.
The drought which prevailed mole or less
through parts of the Western and North
western States in 1886 and 1887, not only
iu its effects upon the wheat and grass
crops, but the immense shortage for two
seasons in corn, resulting from the same
cause, has changed the situation. The
land has not yielded its accustomed sur
plus, and many who were sellers OF grain
have become purchasers. The inconveni-
ence arising from the shortened crops of
corn in the seven great States that produce
more than all the other States of the Union,
has had a most depressing effect In the
check which has followed to other features
of their agricultural industries.
The prospective progress in rearing cat
tie, If the annual product has not been
shortened, and, the reduced exports of hay
are the results of the drought, which an
abundance of corn could partially alleviate,
but that is not the case, for it has not beer
produced.
As the surplus of the West and the
Northwest always has a controlling infu.
ence on the prices of similar products in
the Atlantic Coast States, it should follow
that when their exports are light, a benefl
would accrue to us in the enhancement Of
prices, and the reverse when their larger
abundance is sent to the Eastern markets
and it is SO, for the advance of wheat Ii
our own market is caused by the state o.
things in the West, and not from the neces
sites of the foreign demand, which is ye
held back through the facility with which
it can manipulate the products of other coun
tries, from which it prefers to make thu
first drafts for consumption.
This article will be concluded by copying
from the New York Journal Of Commerce
the last crop-report made by its Chicago
correspondent, dated the 3rd Instant. Thi
source of information is well known to thu
readers of the SPECTATOR for accuracy an<
the large value attached to it because of thu
wide range of States which are embraced
in its scope. AS far as we can remembe
every instance in the past when this cores
pendent threw out advanced views, thu
future verified their correctness, and thu
degree Of interest manifested in marketing
the crops in farmers hands should be al
confidingly respected now, as they We're il
the past when they led to advancing prices
for our surplus grain
"The new year opens up with very un
, equal distribution Of the snowfall over the
entire winter-wheat belt. II is altogether
too early, and, in fact, 1t is something thai
20 one has any knowledge Of whether the
winter wheat has been damaged or not by
the severe trials which it has passed
through during the drouth of the fall Of
1887. But there are some things which we
do know. Among them are these That
the crop was put into the ground late; that
It made slow and small growth and that
the plants to day are generally weakly
On the other hand, reports from Tennessee.
Kentucky, southern Ohio and Indiana all
90 to show that the wheat, Notwithstanding
the adverse conditions, is looking fairly
we'll Southern Illinois shows more Of q
checkered situation, and the only State
which can be said to be thoroughly pro-
tected from the severity of winter by q
good blanket of snow is Michigan. So
much for the coming crop. rs to the re-
serves of winter wheat on baud there is a
surprising active interstate demand all over
the winter-wheat belt from milers, and it
seems at the present time almost an impOs-
sibility to get wheat enough to keep the
mills running on full time. One of the
largest shippers of winter wheat in Cincin-
natl sends me this morning as follows
"We have had almost wheat famine."-
| No. 2 red winter was quick of sale at SO to
so cents up to the close of the year. We
have supplied our Southern demand for
wheat from Kentucky, and we cannot buy
in Kentucky at prices which will pay to
ship. Our first shipments south were in
September, bought in Kentucky at &C and
| 60 ,olJ a1;x ~, as
So to SO cents. Now they offer US 81 to
81. OF and we cannot supply the demand
Central Kentucky mills will be forced to
draw their supplies from the northern por
ton of the winter wheat belt from the
present time until new crop comes in
Stocks are practically out of farmers
hands.
n This situation is quite remarkably con
firmed from another report which comes &c
us by the same mail from one of the most
important winter-wheat points in centra
Illinois. 1t states as follows 1--WE have
had two men in our service from Ohio the
last week, looking for wheat at two cents
more than the Chicago price of winter
wheat. From what we can now see VT
think all the grain from this part of the
: State will go directly into the consumers
hands, in the place of Chicago or any othe
Market On spring wheat, probably the
largest shipper on the Mississippi River
and who has elevators all through Wiscon
sin, Minnesota and Dakota, says that th'
authority that says there is SO much mor'
wheat in the Northwest than last year, o.
that there was more raised in 1887 than il
1886, is misleading. We think the whea
is we'll in. A great deal larger percentage
is in at this time of the year than last yea
at the same time. We have bought a.
much in the same territory as we did las
year. Just now our receipts are very light
as light as they car be, but we account fol
|, this fact to certain extent by the block
AIDED roads and the recent storm Throughout
the northwest. Another correspondent 10
Gated In southern Minnesota says that
owing to the drouth and chinchbugs, all OF
southeastern Minnesota is dependent or
outside territory for bread and seed and my
correspondents have big line of elevators
in western Minnesota and eastern Dakota
and they report to me that there yet re-
mains in farmers hands of the crop of 1887
about % per cent; stored in the elevators
along the line about per cent, making 81
per cent. yet to come forward.
The corn movement for January shows
NO indications of being large one, in fact
the prices for corn in tie interior are