Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-07-31
The Outlook.

The farmer, more than any other party
interested, considers the conditions OF
weather in its effects upon the crops he (!
produces. Results, and very serious re-
suits not anticipated when apparent full
ness invites the indulgence Of the highest
expectation, often occur during the seasons
for maturing and gathering the products of
the field. The most striking illustration OF
this remark occurred in some of the seven
great winter-wheat and corn-producing
States of the West, when the corn-orop IN
most of that wide territory was cut short
in 1887. The effect from that cause made
corn sell higher in Chicsgo and in all the
interior of that country than it sold for in
the Staunton market. This cause quickly
and directly operated upon wheat, running
it up on a standard scale of demand and
supply to figures something like COM
pensating return proportionats to the cost
of production. Unwarranted speculation
then commenced, which, in the fall of 1883,
carried it beyond legitimate bounds.
The cornering process carried prices
beyond the bounds of the Atlantic-Coast
export values, and of course the drop which
was inevitable stranded legitimate trading
as consequence, and with it came falling
prices, which went down in our own
market below the values which would have
continued to rule had not Hutchinson and
his associates undertaken to turn their eff
feet to larger profits than the demand
warranted. From 81 to $1.05 at Staunton,
which the short corn-crop of 1887 in the
West brought about, would have been
better for us throughout the first half OF
the export season of 1888 than s1.15 for
few producers whilst the disappointing
prices of IS and 90 cents had to be accepted
by the larger number Of our producers
If the Western deal had not come upon the
arena, driving the European demand to
every other wheat producing country in the
world for supply, our home market would
have been stable throughout the season at
about 81.
These facts of the past are adduced to
show how rising and falling market in
the great grain-growing sections OF our
country affect the lesser, and the disasters
to call them by the right name-which
befall us in consequence of uuwarranted
speculation. Less than two years ago it
was stated in these columns that the short
corn crop of the West had so unsettled the
interior milling interests of those States
that the effect would last two years and
perhaps longer. And how has it been?
During the winter and spring and part of
the summer months of 1888 and 1889, the
millers of all the interior West have been
sending to Chicago, st. Louis, Cincinnati,
and to the emporiums on the Lakes and
elsewhere for wheat to keep up limited
quantity, that all the mills might not shut
down, for many Of them were compelled to
close for the want of it.
1t was not the actual scarcity of wheat
originally, but the demand for it, especially
1888, to supply the deficiency in the
usual surplus of corn. The unnatural and
hazardous, and, to some, disastrous conse-
quences resulting from draining the interior
of wheat through speculation which finally
collapsed and caused trouble in the West,
took from many of our Augusta and Valley
farmers the difference of from 10 to Is
cents bushel for their wheat, as they had
to sell after the deal was exhausted. 1t
failed in its designs at home, and more
signally in the supposition that the
European markets could be brought to
terms upon an ascending scale. Our own
producers could have shared in the effects
of a sound export trade which the Western
deal cut off.
We have thus observed the effects of a
summer and fall drought in 1887 in the
West. For two months excessive rains
have fallen throughout the entire winter
wheat belt from the Atlantic Coast to the
Rocky mountains, aud every farmer knows
that damaging rains are often as fatal in
their effects as the rays of a parching sun,
and heated, whitening winds. Michigan is
the last of the winter-wheat States to fin
ish the harvest, and there it is now about
ovar. The heavy, continuous rains of two
months past have not been, as the drought
of 1887, confined to sections of the Missis-
sippi and Ohio valleys, nor as then was
the damage inflicted upon the corn crop
alone as it was maturing, but they have
fallen as stated over the entire belt from
the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky noun.
tains.
Eight weeks ago, when the wheat
harvest commenced, the prospect indicated
the largest yield that the country ever
produced. Some who are examining into
the matter closely, as the rains have af
fected the result, begin to think that the
damage will prove to be heavy. The mill
ers in all the winter-wheat States are
urgent in their demands for the new crop,
as the old has been exhausted. They are
pressing in their demands, notwithstanding
it is known that very little can be procured
in real, good merchantable condition
all being more or less damp. But this il
not all-more than fourth is yet in thu
shocks in the field, upon an average O
three weeks behind the time of housing
and stocking, and from the same cause
threshing is delayed. The crop as whole
is, therefore, in its present condition, not
fit to thresh or grind, and, if threshed
could not be bulked or moved in large
quantities.
Looking forward to the interests of ou
Valley producers, we think one of the best
indications for an improved market upon
the general supposition at the commence
ment of harvest, is the situation in the
West, where all the interior millers a1e
clamoring for wheat, not only to put idle
capital in motion and to move the mill:
which have been for some time almos
still, but to supply the somewhat urgen