The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-16
c. WOOD DAVIS M1sREPREsENTED.
The Many Misrepresentation of the
Newspapers Call Out Personal
Protest
To the Editor of the Eagle.

To the Editor of the Eagle.
1t is of little consequence to the public
what opinion any citizen may hold, bu
to that citizen it is usually of more O
less consequence what opinions he L
believed to entertain, and this is just the
case with me at this time so far as re
Iates to the price which is likely to be OBJ
taiEed for wheat, many of the Kansas
papers attributing to me the prediction
that wheat would, during the comine
autumn, sell for 50 bushel, while have
taken especial pains to say the very con
trary.
What have said, and have the very
best of reasons for believing, is that wher
the new crap has been harvested the
necessities of the great mass OF the
farmers are such that they will market a
least three-fourths of the crop during the
six months ending with January, 1892
and that this will be as true of Europe
and India as of the United States, and
that this will result in an apparent but
fictitious abundance and that the result
will be low prices, which will be render
ed still lower by the cry of the market
wrecker, Il told you SO, there is more
wheat than market can be found for;'
but when the pinch comes, next Febru-
airy, prices will go up with rush, and
firmly believe that wheat will, before the
harvest of 1892, sell, on the streets of
every town in Kansas, from 81. so to 81
per bushel and not unlikely still higher.
The reasons for this belief are found
in the facts that the wheat acreage of
the world has increased but 4, 1853, 900
acres since 1880, or but 90 per cent,
while the bread-eating populations have
increased Is per cent, or seven times as
fast In other words, the mouths have
increased seven times as fast as the
stuffs with which they are to be filled,
and the reason why the pinch
Of scarcity has not sooner
been felt is found in the fact that at the
beginning of the last decade there ex-
listed in the world-upon the basis of the
per capita quota in the earlier part of the
eighth decade, when prices were high
a surplus wheat acreage of about $780,
600 acres which was absorbed by the in
crease in population about 1884 since
which there has been a growing deficit
which now amounts to no Lesson the
1870 basis of consumption-than 10, 000,-
900 acres and indicates shortage yearly
in production of much more than 100,-
900, 900 bushels and this shortage has
not been heretofore felt because of the
great accumulations of grain made
when the worlds wheat acreage was ex-
cessive and by the two great world crops
of 1887 and 1888 which has enabled the
bread-eaters to find abundant sup
been exhausted which there
is abundant evidence that they,,now are,
and all at once the world is to exper-
fence the effects of causes that have been
in operation for more than ten years, i.
e., the disproportionate increase be-
tween bread-eaters and the material
from which bread is made.
To intensity the conditions which
mrke for scarcity the crop now growing
in Europe has met with such disaster
that the out-turn is certain to be 200,
600, 900 bushels of wheat and 100, 10000
bushels of rye below an average which
added to the shortage caused by def
Gent acreage, makes the world short
some 100000, 900 bushels of the two
principal breadmaking grains and this
void can only be filled by calling upon
us for hundreds of millions of bushels of
corn and this should assure very high
price for corn, next spring, as well as
wheat.
These are a part of my reasons for be-
lieving in the coming of high prices at
an earlier day than | indicated a year
and more ago when l fixed the limit at
1895, but also said that one or two short
crops would bring them much sooner.
AT that time / did not know, nor did
anyone, that the deficient acreage ex-
tended to anything but wheat, but later
show that, in lesser de-
gree the same conditions surround the
production of all the great food staples
and that population has, owing to
peace and the cheapness of
food, increased faster than at any time
in the history of the race.
| do believe in two dollar wheat with
in a year, but not until the excessive
of the first six months of the
harvest year shall have disposed of most
Of the croD. II those who Criticise this
belief can devise any way to prevent
this excessive marketing. which recurs
annually, then the high prices will come
much sooner. c. WOOD DAVIS.