The daily Alaskan., 1915-02-17
WHEAT OUTLOOK

In view Of the probably urgent wheat requirement. of Europe neAt spriuL. interest in the outcome Of the crop now being harvested in the southern hemisphere is unpre- cedeutvdly tense, says the Dawson News. As the Australian crop, which last year attained for the first time The 100000, ,OOO-bushel mark, is this year, in so far as exports are concerned, authorita4yely pronounc- ed a failure, worldwide attention is now concentrated upon The harvest in progress in Argentina. EX- ceptlug these two, the other wheat producing countries of the southern hemisphere yield quantities chiefly for native use and not of noteworthy commercial importance.
 AS he great wheat harvest of the northern hemisphere begins hear The equator in March, so the lesser one of the southern hemi- sphere commences near the same latitude In the first month of the rranseQuatortal spring, September. Late that month and early In Oc- tober, just when harvest in the northern hemisphere Is nearing it's close, Is garnered the small crop of Ecuador, practically the only wheat producing country on the globe bor- dering on the equator. Thence dur ing October and November the har- vest moves southward through Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and southern Bra gil In none of these countries, however, Is wheat growing extensive. Peru the most important as pro ducer, has an annual output of only from 3,VOO,O0O to 4,000,000, and Brazil of less than 3,000,000 bush els. What is popularly known as Ire wheat crop of the southern hemisphere" is grown in the vast producing regions of Argentina and Australia, and on the less extensive area of New Zealand, Chile, Uru- quay, and the Union of South Afric2 h thvse countries as a whole, cut ,.ug iu its southwaEd movement eX- tends over the period from late No- yembc- to mid-FebruaTy. The dura- ton of the southern hemisphere harvest, therefore, in its passage from the equator on the north 10 the extreme limits of wheat culture ou the south, Is about five months, whereas, in the northern hemisphere me movement from the equator to rae most northerly latitude of its cultivation occupies a period of al most eight months.
 Although the total quantity har- vested south of the equator ordin- arily constitutes less than s per cent yf the world crop, this wheat occup.es on the markets of Europe a position peculiarly its own. Grown for the greater part, in sparsely populated countries, whose demands for aome consumption are limited, a heavy proportion of the producers, Argentina and Australia, output, particularly of the two chief is annually available for export, and, as the harvest takes place dur ing the winter months, large part of the export surplus is enabled to be advantage2laly placed On the European market in spring and ear ly summer, when supplies from oth- CT sources are being reduced to low ebb.
 In Argentina whose exports of this cereal are annually almost double of all other states and col onies of the southern hemisphere combined, the wheat-growing in- duStry has been making remarkable progress for many years. Between 1890 and 1913 the area sown in- creased from 3,0O0,OOO to 17,O0O,- 900 acres, production, though with wide annual vaeillation, from 30,- CO0,OVO to 100000 bushels, and exports from 15,OOO,OOO to 1O8,oOO, 900. The only strikingly exception al year during the period was 1S0--S, when from an area of 14,- 230,000 acres were harvested 192,- 900, 900 bushels, resulting in an ex port surplus of 134,OO0,O00 bushels.
 Owing to meteorological and oth- CT causes the Argentina wheat acreage has, since 1913, undergone contraction. ThS surface sown for