The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-06

| starving ryots of India is seen in the fac
that whereas during the FIVE years end
ing with 1919 the average price, Gin gold
of English wheat, in the markets o
Great Britain, was $l.64 per bushel, i
was but 80 cents per bushel during tbs
five years ending with 1889 In othel
words, wheat-which is the kew to thu
agricultural Misunderstanding this fif
teen years shrank in selling price, in con
| sequence of the opening of too many
American farms and the development Of
Indian exports. no less than SO cent:
per bushel, or 40 per cent; and all the
other products of the farm have
shrunken In the same proportion. 1t i:
| no wonder that times should be hard.
| money scarce and stagnation everywhere
when the fountain has been dried at it;
source. Add AZ per cent TO the purchas-
ing power of the farmer, and every
artisan, laborer, miner. manufacturer,
merchant, transporter, builder and pro-
fessional man will be fully employed
wages good and the whole industrial life
quickened in an astonishing manner. II
Is next to impossible to conceive the inn
mense ane saiutary effect that the addi-
ton OF even 20 per cent TO the purchasing
power of the great agricultural
body would have upon the in
dustrial and commercial interests
OF the nation, and it is about as
impossible to conceive such change as
is impending after the gloomy years
which have passed so recently and where
the farmer has seen, notwithstanding all
his industry and privation. the debt with
its annual interest charge increasing.
hot oh ,c
as easily susceptible of proof as Is the
cause of the present depression when we
divest our minds of the fallacies which
the political editor has forced upon Us in
and out Of season.
Data exists, and but requires the labor
and patience necessary to its gathering
and tabulation to show that there is a
most direct relationship between popula-
ton, acreage in staple food products,
prices for such products and the prosper
ity of the cultivator, as well as the pros
perity of all other classes, as there can
be no doubt that all the industrial forces
are just as dependent upon, and Just as
intimately connected with, the prosperi-
ty of the basic industry as in that remote
past when the founder of the second
great Persian monarchy said: "There
can be no power without an army; no
army without money, and no money
without prosperous agriculture. In
the view of this most successful states
man the farmer was the ultimate source
of all wealth as well as power.
Many things have changed since the
DAYS of Artaxerxes, and industrial pro-
cesses differ wonderfully, but the great
principles have not changed,
and when the basic industry is in an I'M
condition there will be little
money woving quickly through the great
arteries of industrial and commercial
life, and the body polite will be in just
the state that we have seen since the
opening of two and half farms where
one. Now, however, change is i'm
pending; or, rather, it is already here.
and the condition of the farmer will
change for the better even more rapidly
than his affairs changed for the worse
Turing the eighth and ninth decades.
AS has been stated. wheat is the key
@ the agricultural situation, and this
arises from the fact that it is the one
great food staple that the nations of
western and southern Europe import in
arge quantity, as it is the one
which the nations producing
more food than is required |
or domestic consumption have always
)een able to find market for at some
,rice, while it bears transportation and |
forage with less deterioration than most |
,ther food products; hence a very great
of the surplus acreage of the |
God exporting nations is, when suited to |
wheat growing, devoted to the produc- |
ion of that grain.
This is no less true of Russia than of /
Australasia; no less true of the United |
states than of India, and the result is
hat of the 13,500.0OO acres now en-
loyed by our people in the production
f food for expectation between s,OOO,-
90 and 100000 thereof is devoted to
Wheat growing.
During the eighth decade the wheat
creage of the world increased 81, 800 600
ores, and, treating the compulsory ex-
orts of India as being equivalent to an
EDITION of acreage, the addition to the
upplies of the bread-eating populations
f European blood was, during that de-
ade, equal to the product of $4,000, 900
cres, and at the ascertained average
ield per acre would give a yearly
ut-turn of 100000 bushels, which,
40 bushels per capita, was
quail to the requirements of
3, 600, 900, while such bread-eating pop
lations increased not more than IS, 000,-
DO; so that had rye kept pace with the
lcrease of the rye-consuming part of
lie bread-eating world there would have
cen. at the end of the eighth decade, q
lrplus wheat acreage equal to the sup
ort of some 24,000,000 people, and this :
ill be found TO have been the situation
hen we analyze the relative increase of
le wheat fields and population during
le ninth decade.
Assuming that the wheat acreage ,
venty years since, when prices were {
BOD, was sufficient to meet the require j
tents of the existing population, then ,
!, the close of the eighth decade the s
,reage was some 5000, 900 acres in ex- $
.ss of requirements, and during the c
nth decade there was added not to
lceed 5000, 600 acres, or an area equal c
the requirements of 1900, 900 people. /
hich added to the 81, 900, 600 which the $
rplus at the beginning of the ninth t
ecade would supply, and we have, at T
e end of the ninth decade, supply
Efficient for but $4,000, 900 out of he d
900, 900 that have been added TO the v
'ead-eating populations of European I
God during the ninth decade, d
g residue being supplied from I
e enormous reserves that were stored I
mill, warehouse and farm granary g
lring the existence of surplus acre i,
e, but which are now quite exhausted n
From the best data obtainable it would Is
pear that, with an average yield, the 5.
orld's crop of wheat and rye is now d
0lEl 0Al h1,s h.l- Los Than the raarI1-