Omaha daily bee., 1897-09-22
THE PRICE OF CORN.
Condition of the Market and the
Prospects of an Advance.

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People who have been looking for the
price of corn to go to higher level. fol-
lowing the great advance in the wheat mar
ket, were disappointed by the drop of sew
eral cents that occurred last week. Corn in
Chicago is now selling only few cents above
tha extreme low prices on record. 1t seems
anomalous to see corn selling for less than
80 cents a bushel while wheat is worth nearly
dollar vigorous speculative movement
set in few weeks ago which carried prices
up about cents a bushel, but it so hap
pened that this wave swept into the mar
ket just at time of extraordinarily large
receipts in Chicago, which piled up such
enormous stocks of corn at that center that
many buyers got discouraged and sold out,
putting the price down again
There Is no satisfactory way of account
ing for this big movement Of corn to mar
ket. 1t Is more than twice as large as the
movement at this time last year. whereas
there are good reasons why it should be
much smaller now than then. The crop
this year is not as large as that OF last year.
There are fewer farmers who are forced to
sell by their financial necessities. There is
so much more profit in wheat and in live
stock now than at that time that the farmer
might naturally be expected to hold the
cheaper product, corn and supply his needs
by selling those commodities which yield
him greater profit. 1t Is true that many big
corn producers have nothing but corn to sell
But there are so many thousands OF farm
ers who raise both wheat and corn and who
feed much of their own corn to live stock
that the higher prices OF wheat and live
stock ought to have pronounced effect in
keeping corn off the market.
II will probably tun out that the recent
great receipts of corn were due to special
temporary causes, and that before long there
will be such a falling off in receipts as to
mako the sentiment in favor of higher prices
more effective than it has been in the past
month. The more prosperous times all over
the country, the Temuneratiye prices for
other staple farm products and the dispro-
portion between the price of wheat and the
price of corn certainly ought td add a good
deal TO the value of corn before long, re-
gardless of the supply in the country.
1t is rather remarkable that the foreigners
not buying great quantities of cheap
American corn Their feeding crops are
smaller than usual and the high price of
wheat should result in the use of an in
creased quantity OF coarser grains as sub
sttute for wheat More than that, Argen-
tine has shipped no corn to Europe in the
past three weeks, whereas in the same time
last year that country's exports amounted
to over 5000, 900 bushels. But Europe is not
taking extraordinary quantities OF corn. No
satisfactory reason for this can be given. 1t
is reasonable to expect that before long the
corn exports will greatly increase If the
European crops of all kinds are as small as
they are represented to be,
All things considered there Is a substan-
tal basis for the belief that the price Of
corn will advance materially before many
months, and thus add greatly to the pros
perity which the farmer is enjoying