Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-05-30

For several weeks now the farmer mas
persisted in buying wheat. He has calcu-
lated the damage done to the crops by
the flies and chinch bugs at home, and,
migrating to Chicago, he has taken from
professional traders what they have been
winning from him during the last three
years. There were 500 Of these farmers
Thursday swarming about the Board OF
Trade. And they continued to buy wheat.
The paralyzing feature If the market
occurred at the opening. Wheat sold
Tuesday at 71h. 1t closed Wednesday
at TN. But Thursday morning the first
deals made were at so and 81 bushel, a
clear jump of 3%. When the gong sound
ed at $50 o'clock the wheat pit was filled
with 400 nervous brokers, who were wait
ing for the battle to begin. Before the
sound had died away every man had his
hands in the air. and was shouting like n
demon. The noise rose as a babel of
sound. Anticipating a lively session, the
galleries were packed. Five hundred
women were in one, and as many men in
another. They leaned over the railing in
their eagerness to watch the pandemo-
mum in the pit below. The excitement
was so intense that the other pits were
almost neglected. At least 1900 members
were on the floor, and their attention was
centered in the wheat pit. While the
struggle was on small army of messen-
ger boys was chasing in and out of the
building. The 125 telegraph operators on
the floor were crowded to death. Every
little town in the country wanted to get
into direct communication with the board.
The price went up to 80. That seemed
to cap the climax. About ten minutes
before the close every broker seemed to
think it was good time to take profits
and began selling. Within three minutes
the price dropped from S11a to 7Sh. 1t
rallied slightly, and closed for the day II
1884.
1t was a great day. All told conserva-
tive estimate of the business transacted
amounted to quarter of billion BUSH
els. This is the liveliest market the board
has experienced since 1891, when within
two months wheat rose from 81 to $1.15
bushel. The present rise has been I'M
der way since last April. In February
wheat sold at So cents, May IL it was at
GA cents. Thursday it was nearly 10
cents over that price.
Excitement in New York.
In New York the excitement at the op-
ening of the wheat market Thursday ex-
ceeded anything seen in the present ad-
vance. 1t was a wild tumult of buying
with almost total disregard of price, so
that July opened from SO to S31a cents at
the same moment. This represented a
rise of 3 to 31a cents from the official close
of Wednesday. After jumping up to
1875 cents, prices lost cent, and then
swung back again, advancing to S4A
cents. Transactions went far above any
day yet, amounting to 1SO0O,OOO bushels
before noon. Most of this great business
was done during the first hour. The ex-
element at the opening was intensified by
the reported covering of big Chicago
short. The bulls are killing the crop of
as fast as possible. In the districts west,
where wheat has escaped the ravages Of
chinch bugs, flies and army worms and
the blight of frost, the bulls are talking
drouth and the bears seem too far gone
to set up any opposition.