St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-05-25
RAIN ON GROWING WHEAT.
Che Outlook Good for Better Than an
Average Crop.
COL. ROGERS VIEWS ON IT.
General Acreage Is Larger and Vermin
acknowledgements Same
as Last Season.

"1ne Wneat crop VIII pe JdVe, saio
Col. Rogers, of Minnea polls. "When you
have said that you have said everything.
The present rainfall, as far as it has
gone, cuts no special figure. The grow
ing wheat will not now average over
three inches, and it grows better in cool
weather. The belt of this rainfall
might be included between middle Iowa
and middle Minnesota, and bounded on
the west by Watertown, Oak. Com
paratively little water has fallen in the
country above the Northern Pacific
road Early this week reports from the
Red river country and other sections to-
ward the Northern border of Minnesota
and Dakota were that more moisture
was needed to give the wheat and other
small grain good start. In the western
slope of the James river valley, for
long distance, from the north reaching
toward the south there was more or less
complaining of the ground being too
dry. But the rains of the last two or
three days have covered those extensive
regions, and the young plant is for the
immediate future safe from damage
from that cause With a few eXcep-
tons, covering smaller areas, the out
look is excellent for very heavy crop
through all Dakota and the greater part
of Minnesota.
"In the southern part of Minnesota
there has been too much rain, coupled
with the cool weather, for grain to get
good start. At the same time, fields
not too low or too fiat are doing fairly
and the plant is roofing well. With the
right sort of weather there is no reason
to believe good yield may not be Sc
cured. even where these conditions are
most noticeable.
ACREAGE SEEDED TO WHEAT
in the Northwest. it appears from care
full inquiry, is rather more than last
year. The drouth of year ago and the
chinch bugs caused loss of crop through
all Southeastern Minnesota, and in
patches through the central portions.
Some damage was suffered in Southern
Dakota also from one or other of such
causes. On that account the acre
age seeded with wheat was smaller
is a tendency to summer fallow
through the older of northern settle
ments in both Minnesota and Dakota,
which with the low prices of the last
crop prevented a great increase of
wheat acreage there. Barley and fax
were higher in value than wheat, cauS-
ing an increase in many places OF these
crops at the cost of wheat. 1t is un-
doubtedly true that all portions now
complaining of poor outlook might be
blotted out entirely and the prospective
yield in tn remaining of the North
west would equal the production OF last
year.
The seeding has been late all through,
and in the north the crop may be caught
with frost or in the south with blight,
but there has never yet been a general
small yield with the outlook at this
, stage of growth as fair as it is now. The
production for each of the last two
crops has been approximately 100000
600 bushels, and there is no visible rea-
son why that now planted may not at
least equal them.
THE WHEAT MOVEMENT
thus far this season is about the same as
last, as far as the terminal points are
concerned. The movement from farm
ers' granaries now falls one-half below
that of last year. The amount of wheat
arriving in this city is no index to the
degree of interior activity. Wheat
wanted here for milling can be as
cheaply held in the interior elevators as
In this city, and as the interior elevators
are controlled by rich elevator COM
panies, money can be as easily secured
to handle it there as here. 1t follows
that the true basis of estimating sup
plies in the Northwest is not the rate at
which they are coming here. But, it is
the city stocks and the activity of city
arrivals that make the data of official
estimates. These latter are subject to
the control of interested parties, and
may be made small or large as the in
terest of such parties may deem best:
One reason of the SmallneSS of the
present interior movement, as compared
with former years, is that there is
less to move. Another is that farmers
are later with their spring work, and
have but just started to move out the
surplus grain. There appears to be a
few sections that will bring out cOnsid-
cradle grain, as much as last year, per-
haps. Such places are the exceptions. 1t
is questionable whether there are half
as many bushels, i'll the aggregate, to
come from farmers bins i'll this state
and Dakota, as came nom them after
seeding last year. 1t has been the full
assurance of that fact that has stimulated
the buying of local millers, short of sup
plies to carry them through the crop
year. That active buying has held up
the prices of cash wheat here for sew
eral months. 1t is that buying and con-
sequent high value of cash property, as
compared with values of futures, that
has made it so hard for commission men
buying for Eastern millers, to fill their
orders at prices satisfactory to their Gus
toners. The total now in the North
west is: In Minneapolis, Duluth and
st. Paul, 14,711,723 bushels; in country
elevators and surplus in farmers hands,
about 100000 bushels, making total
of p, 100000 bushels. a year ago the
stocks were: In Minneapolis, Duluth
and st. Paul, 17,646,555 bushels: in
country elevators and surplus in farm
ers' hands, 100000, making total of
29.G0O,000 bushels, or some 100000
bushels more than now.