The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-25
THE FARMER sPECULATEs.

A queer thing is happening at Chicago
on large scale and at New York on a
smaller-the farmer has entered the
wheat-pit to try issues with the shrewd
gamblers who have made this the study of
lifetime. In doing this he has been gov
erned by a cool understanding of two
facts. First, the wheat crop of the world
this year is uncommonly short; second,
there was bound to be reaction from the
low prices which have prevailed during
the great depression. 1t is the advent of
the farmer that has introduced so violent
this is new thing under the sun.
1t is lamentable, too. Under the condi-
| tions governing this special form of
gambling in Chicago, for the speculation
is all in futures, and therefore contains a
large element of gambling, pure and
| simple, any one may enter the lists, as
| small quantities of wheat may be repre-
sented in the deal. 1t is very different in
| San Francisco, where no transactions rep
| resenting quantities under hundred tons
may be considered, and where margin of
$500 must be deposited for the smallest
deal undertaken. If there is any wheat
gambling in San Francisco by farmers it
| could only be on a large scale by few
| wealthy men, but there is no discoyerable
evidence that even this state of affairs
exists
| Experience has shown that every habit
of a farmers life and business methods is
| antagonistic to any presumption of his
success as a speculator. The successful
Spectator is he who is bold, sharp, alert,
quick and full of courage. He will
promptly sell on the first advance in prices
and is rarely tempted by the hope of still
further rise. Not so the farmer. His
habitual mental processes are slow: The
events of his years are partitioned into
wide intervals, and the change from one to
another is gradual. In speculation his
tendency is to hold when prices are advanc-
ing in the hope that they will advance still
farther, and to hold when they are declin-
ing in the hope that they will take better
turn. In this delay lies his ruin.
It'was so during the great mining stock
excitement in San Francisco years ago.
The people who were ruined were those
who held on, and they were mostly the
classes of whom the farmer is a type. The
sharp, quick spectators made their for
tunes out of this circumstance, and the
amateurs became beggars.
The farmers who are now crowding the
wheat pit at Chicago will inevitably meet a
similar fate. They are now in the ascend
ency because wheat is bound to be higher
this year than for years past; but the very
strength which they are lending to the
market viii run prices above any legiti-
mate bounds, and then it will be that the
professional gamblers who are now SEEM
ingly at their mercy will strip them naked
and send them shivering into the world.
The farmer for so long has been regarded
as the bulwark of our National stability
that there is something painful and incon-
gruous in seeing him turn gambler. He
represents one Of the largest of all the
classes that toll honestly for their money.
The point in all this is that as the wheat
excitement is likely to lead yet to wilder
measures, the farmers of California may be
tempted to emulate the present successful
enterprise of their confreres in the North
west. Let them be satisfied with the as
suranee that even at the present prices the
LOCO, 900 tons of wheat that will be pro-
duced in California this year will yield
81 900, 900 more than last year, and that
the prices are likely to go even beyond
this. This will be the best year that Cali
fornia has had for many day if her peo-
pie keep their heads, remain satisfied with
generous profits and expend their energies
in the development of the State.