Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1894-03-16

A Chicago View of tho Cereal and ths
Market for IL.

- - OnNo
A Chicago View of the Cereal and ths
Market for IL.
The Chicago Herald has recently laAb-
lished three-column article, under Tho
caption, Wheat Is Drug" tending to
show that the present low price of wheat
is the natural result Of the prevailing
financial depression, assisted by over
production and the holding back Of mar
ketable supplies Of the cereals by the
farmers. Interviews with bankers and
merchants are also cited, the trend of
their views seeming to indicate that the
effects Of existing conditions ON finance
are not great, but are directly attribute
BILE to the law Of supply and demand.
The position taken by the Herald is ex-
tremely bearieh, as will be seen by the
subjoined excerpts:
Wheat is dull in all the markets Of
the world. For weeks it has been drug
at prices unprecedented since apecula-
ton in farm products began. 1t has
sunk below all low marks, refused to re-
spond to bullish influences, and gone
begging at quotations known to be I'M
der the actual cost OF production. The
cries that crop products, like articles OF
manufacture. had al intrinsic value I'M
der which they could not long be sold
have been exploded and wheat has con.
tinued to fall. How long this condition
OF depressed prices will last is q question
that interests American farmers, who
devote 5000, 600 acres every year to
cultivatiuR the cereal. to merchants in
the land, and, incidentally, to spectators
the world over.
AFTER analysing all the influences
that have contributed to the tumble,
and there are any number of them, it
would appear that Q new level is about
to be established for wheat, beyond
which it ia not likely to rise except by
the boldest manipulation, aud then only
for brief periods. There are specul ators
who believe that those good old days
when 81 a bushel was the rule, will never
come again, and that 70 cents may be
looked to as the future top notch quota
ton. These men are by no means bears,
for they concede that wheat cannot hover
long around the depressing figures Of
today. They have ransacked the statis-
tics OF the world, and claim to have dis
covered that thu cheap product OF Rus
sia, India and the Southern hemisphere
which has lately turned an almost mex
haustible supply into the markets oil
crop out. Exposed TO that fatal compe-
tition, they argue that wheat raising will
some day become an American question
TO be treated without reference to the az.
port market and on the theory that
Europe will be supplied from the fields
that start from the Baltic, from the rich
plains from India and from South Amer.
lea. 1t may be said that this gloomy
view is not shared by the professional
bull, who, with all his buoy ancy, Of
fers no promise Of an early return to
prosperous prices.
"The acreage and the yield OF whea,
in the United States were less in lS9;
than for any year since 1885, and yet the
farm price, SO cents, was far below tina,
} of previous years. 1t is undeniably 6
fact the tremendous over production Of
1892 and 1891, which left larger visible
, supply than the country had ever knowr
, before, is responsible in a measure fol
the present low quotations.
STATISTICS of visible supplies, acreage
yield and farm price from 1856 to 1879;
/ inclusive are then quoted, an analysis o
{ which Is as follows
| In 1885 the acreage fell to "a, 1879 ,24t
and the yield to 1897 liz, 900 bushels, bu
the farm price increased 10 ~ 3 cents
| From that time back to 1880 the acreag,
never fell below SO, 1893 ,3l9, and the low
cat yield was $50, 2S0 900 bushels. TIL,
farm price ranged from IA 8 cents in lSs
to l10.8 in 1881.
Only twice since 1880 has the Unite,
, States crop fallen below the crop of 1893
and that was in 1885, when the farm
price was II cents, and in 1881. whel
the yield WAS $50 200, 900, and the pric
at the farm 1903.
J. In 1887, with visible supply of 81,
! 1856 900, the high and low price record wa
l 84sh, 1881, and the Herald reasons tina
: the present phenomenally low prices ar
not unreasonable in view OF the gluttet
I ing sections, and that the fact of tn
cereal being worth less than the actua
3 cost of production will but tend to diver
8 the present acreage to the production @
: some more profitable crop.
:. 1t is said, as an instance, that of tn
20, 900, 900 bushels raised in Michigan
only 100000 have been brought t.
r market. These figures may not be cor
3 rect, but the impression Is general tina
farmers are housing greater reserv
now, In anticipation OF higher quotations
than they have ever held back. Mystic
rious arrivals in Duluth, Minneapolis an
i other trading points to the north seem t
. add weight to these suspicious.
Board OF trade men are agreed ths
better tines are ahead and that the ell
feet of these low prices is by no mean
, as disastrous as may be supposed. The
say the willy farmer has not lost nearl
80 heavily as the spectators on who's
hands the stock declined; that a larg
a proportion OF the crop was marketed b.
fore the tumble, and the big speculation
therefore stood the heaviest losses.