The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1930-09-04
Cheaper Production Costs
Increases Wheat Acreage
Shift In rain Production Area
Seen AS Reason For Low
Grain Prices


new and cheaper methods of pro-
duction account in large measure
for the wheat flood that is vexing
the agricultural world, says L. R.
Roberts, in one of three statements
recently issued by Minnesota
Wheat Growers covering the world
wheat demand and supply situa-
ton.
Treasurer Roberts says in a
statement today: 'The wartime
demand for wheat set in motion
productive forces that have kept
in motion long after the need of
them ceased. The Argentine speed
ed up it's production and has i'm
proved it's equipment for bringing
grain to seaboard; Australia, faced
by an after-the-war repression turn
ed to increased grain production as
a way to bring ready cash into that
country, and one of the effective
and lasting results of such action
has been that of bringing forward
a drouth-resistant variety of wheat
that will increase by some fifteen
million areas the protention wheat
area of that continent. Wheat har-
vesting has for many years been
on a low-cost basis in that contin-
ent, due to the invention, half a
century ago, of the "stripper", a
machine that harvests and thresh-
es the grain in one operation, as
our more unwieldy combine-har-
vester is now doing here in the
Northwest. Ocean freights, and
the uncertainty of the seasons,
have been the big retarding factors
to increased Australian wheat acre
age. Over-supply of shipping has
lowered ocean rates to Europe, and
the new drouth-resistent variety
lessons the danger of crop failure.
Both factors stimulate production.
China, looked upon by many as
a NATURAL outlet for our wheat sur
plus, has a demand strictly limited
by both the eating habits of her
people and by the practically i'm
passable condition of the roads
that lead to the interior, where the
need and possible market demands
exists. India, always a variable ex-
ports which are principally to the
Continent through Amsterdam or
London. Indian wheat is of low
quality, and does not compete di-
rectly with North America. North
Africa is another region where pro-
duction is expanding under the
stimulus of the feed ourselves"
programs of Italy and France.
Garnet, the new Canadian wheat,
shortens the growing season by
some ten days, and lessons the
dangers of drouth, frost and hail.
This tends to widen the Canadian
wheat area to the northward, as
we'll as increased acreage in pre-
sent areas of production.
"But it is here at home that the
most significant changes have
come in the wheat acreage and
methods. The combine
harvester is rapidly displacing the
self-binder throughout the South
west, and is we'll on its way to do
ing the same in, the Northwest.
There is no disputing the fact that
it shortens the time of harvest,
lessons the labor costs Of harvest
ing, and throws into the market
swifter moving flood of wheat de-
livered from the field. This has the
direct effect of causing a home
over-supply and depressed
prices at delivery time. A more
serious effect is that something
like fifteen million new acres have
been plowed up and put into wheat
since the war, almost wholly in
territory that fifteen years ago was
considered too dry for wheat. This
new wheat acreage is crowding old
wheat lands out of use. 1t has al
ready displaced more than ten
million acres of such lands, and it
is to this shift in acreage that
much of the present difficulty
over wheat prices and the prices OF
other farm products is due. Until
we find a way to absorb the in
creased production of these added
millions of acres, whether in wheat
or in other crops, we will continue
to have a farm problem" - and
a most difficult one"