Arizona republican., 1908-04-05

Elets il is approximately twenty. Vor- oneZh the same. and at odessa and
 Reval less.
 In Moscow. when the spring price was thirty-hv" cents. the impact of the crop drove the fall price down tO thirty three cents. as was shown in
 the table. As the great bulk of the wheat is sold at >Dnce. it follows that the reserve holdings are slight. only few landlords and practically none of the peasants can afford to keep any more grain on hand than is necessary for their needs. During the two fam inc years-1906 and 1907-they were not able to do even this Wheat which has been sold at the ports is exported largely and cannot be called back for consumption in the time Of food scare ity. The natural development of this is the extremely high spring price. There is then practically no grain to be sold. Those who give money often find themselves unable to secure grain at home and must obtain American or other wheat in Liverpool
 These price conditions are directly the result of the present lack of sys- tenn of grain handling In Russia. Most of the Russian agriculturists are eith- CT of the landlord class, controlling hundreds of acres. or poor muZhiks set down Upon d small piece of ground covering at the most q few Scanty acres. The landlord is always land poor and his crop. the moment it is harvested. must be sold for cash in or der that he may meet obligations which have been bearing down upon him since the last harvest. The serf has no facilities for storing his grain. There are few granaries to correspond to the American elevator system and what he does not need to eat. he sells immediately. The crops. as the farms are small. are harvested rapidly. Con- se1uently. the crop from all sources bears down on the market in a great and sudden stream. There is nothing to hold up prices, and down they go. There is no SSstem such as has grown up in the United States out of the needs of the farmer for future" sell ing, which supplies cash or credit to the producer.
 There has been no more careful stu dent of this phase of the Russian wheat situation than Hon. John Mar tin Crawford of Cincinnati. who from 1889 to 1894 was United States consul general to Russia, with headquarters at St Petersburg. No American has gone more to the bottom of Russian trade. industry and agriculture than he. He learned the language, and un- der his direction. translations were made into English of Russia's exhaust i've reports made for the worlds Columbian exposition. On this sub iect he has written
 Tn the second half of the year. after the appearance Of the new grain har- vest. prices are mulch influenced by the numerous offers to sell This gen. erally results in considerable decline in prices during the fall months, espe- cially in october. The market is made so uncertain by the quantity and de- m&nd. which varies from year to year. that the annual average price shows fluctuations. from one season to another showing changes of as much as or 10 per cent. In the spring, grain is very scarce and prices run up rapidly. It has been observed. however, from season to season, that the autumn decrease is corresponding ly greater than the spring increase"
 Other writers have called attention to the fact that Russia's export trade has fallen off from year to year-as has her grain production-owing to the poor condition of the national market.
 Russia has been producing about one-fifth of the European wheat. but there has been falling off in its grain growing for three years. due in part to lack of Americas distribution methods. During this time the total European production has been show ing an increase. From 1904 to 1905 the Russian wheat crop in Europe fell