Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1894-04-27
Does Wheat Pay!

1t seems scarcely necessary for the Pa
cifc Northwest to look elsewhere for
evidence that exclusive wheat farming
does not Afford under present conditions,
the means Of acquiring wealth. We
know enough about what 1t costs to grow
wheat, and what prices we are able to
pay for it, to see that, unless new ele
ments are brought into the market, no
body can get rich on wheat alone. Yet,
if we are disposed to look elsewhere for
parallels, there is one in Kansas. j. f.
Todd, the populist commissioner of labor
for that state, says that in the last ten
wears the farmers of Kansas have lost
S255. 100000 by the decline in prices Of
their produce, and that with few eX.
captions wheat has been produced at Il
loss during the whole of the decade. He
writes that the average cost of produc.
ing a bushel of wheat in Kansas is G33
cents, while the average local shipping
price of the five years ending with 1892
was $50 cents. There thus has been a
loss of Al cents per bushel On all the
wheat sold by Kansas farmees from the
close of 1887 down to the latest date for
which these alleged statistics are made
up. The commissioner is also informed
by 1851 correspondents that farming in
Kansas does not pay and by only Al that
it does pay.
or course the commissioners deduc-
tion from this state of facts is precisely
the one which should not be drawn, viz,
that the remedy lies in legislation look
ing to a debasement of the currency.
There is always Il suspicion Of over
zealouspess IN contentious that wheat IS
not paying, even when grown in due
proportion in a diversified production,
and certainly if Mr., Todd's figures are
correct, covering, as they 10, the whole
OF the past ten years, some other expla-
nation must be offered than the financial
stringeney of the past year, 1t seems
necessary to remind this populist labor
commissioner and the thousands who
will be tempted to look upon his dag
nosis and prescription as a desirable es-
cape from the cold and cruel facts of
economic law, that we stand in the shad-
ow of an enormous over reproduction of
wheat. The boards of trade, merchants
exchanges, crop bureaus, telegraphs,
railroads, etc, have brought the world
into such close touch that it seems as
though every pound of wheat in exls-
tencO is pressing down the market with
a weight unaffected by any proportion
Of distance. Great tracts OF land have
b0en brought under the seeder and har
yester the past few years in South Am
erica, Europe and Asia, as we'll as in the
Missouri's valleys and plains. England
has built 10000 miles of railroad to make
Indias product close at hand, and gov
ernmental and commercial agencies have
experts at work everywhere watching the
rainfall, the growing blades, the shocks
afeld, the wagon at the elevator, and
every spot where wheat or flour is piled
up or consumed.
The wheat crop Of tue United States
in 1891 was estimated by the Washing
ton crop bureau at Gl2,000,00O bushels
and that OF 1892 at 516,O00,000 bushels,
while the official statement made at
Washington month ago leaves it to be
inferred that each OF these estimates was
about 10000 900 short Of the truth. All
this over production has gone into the