OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12867, 27 July 1907, Page 4

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

(from our special correspondent.) NEW YORK, June 15. THE WHEAT MARKET. I fear that in my letter of May 18th an error occurred, making mc say that wheat had gone to a price of 2 dollars. What was intended to be said was that the quotation had reached 1.0175 dollars (1 dollar 76 milk), end that it would probably reach 1.02 dollars. The ordinary method of referring to prices on 'change is by the fractions of a cent, the principal being understood, so that the expression "one cevonty-five" means one and threequerter cents. The quotation still hovore around the dollar mark, with news as to crops constantly affecting the rate. What attracts epeoiaj attention to the crops on the Neir York exchangee is not, however, so much because of their furnishing cargoes for shipment from this port as the fact r that, be they large or small, through whatever port exported, New York will have to bear the brunt of their financing. This affects the money market and reacts upon stocks and securities of all varieties. The bank note circulation of the United States has now reached the highest point in national bank history, and critics of the situation predict a money stringency at an early date. NEW YORK SKY-SCRAPERS. A peculiar result of the construction of sky-scraper buildings in New York is that persons with offices on the upper stories become accustomed to such a different atmosphere from that near the street, that they acquire an abhorrence of the lower strata. Some of these high-minded people saw snow in the air on June 2nd, but it had melted before it reached the street level. It is announced that in order to make a seven-teen-storey building compare more favourably with a now one of forty-one storeys now under construction on Lower Broadway, four of the upper storeys of the smallor structure are to be removed, three additional storeys built in, and the old four replaced on top. THE PRESIDENCY. President Roosevelt has gone to his summer home at Oyster Bay, Long Island, and Washington is dead for the season. The President ie within threo hours' rail of New York, however, and always accessible. That his house will be made the headquarters for Republicans who «re calculating their autumn plane of campaign goes without saying, but until September, at least, there will be little more than talk. No one really knows as yet whether the President will consent to run for a third presidential term, even although his first term wae merely the unfulfilled portion of'that for which President McKinley had been elected. Speculations ac to anything political are «c yet, in fart, a* idle as the problem of the unusually cool weather which, by the way, Professor Wiggins, the Canadian weather prophet, blames upon the increasing proximity to the e-aith of a dark moon; he says there are two moons to this planet, but the tocond is not visible because it never gets in the sunlight for our inspection. • Canadian politics ere not co active as to prevent the newepapere from serious discussion of such matters.

the mariner is being mad© by the Canadian Government. In order that ships at eea which are equipped with wireless apparatus may obtain the exact time for comparison with chronometers, and thus determine accurately their longitude, the Dominion Gorernment has installed a device at Cimperdown, the Government station at the entrance to Halifax harbour, to transmit automatically by wireless telegraphy the exact time furnished by the Government Obeervatory. The time signals will bo sent each week diy morning. Beginning at two minutes to nine a.m., dots are made each second up to and including 9hr 58min 57sec, thon a jxuise of two seconds, followed by a dot at one minute to ten. Then another pause of two seconds follows, after which the automatic apparatus makee dote each second up to and including 9hr 59min oOsec. A pause is then made, followed by a dot at 10 a.m.. time of- the GOth meridian, west longitude, equivalent to 2 p.m. Greenwich meun time. AMERICAN CHAMPAGNE. The falling off in importation of champagne into the United States, recently noted by tho Bureau of Statistics, of tho Department of Commerce and Labour, appears to he due, in part at least, to the fact that more than 2,000,000 bottles of genuine -champagne' - wine is now annually produced in tho United Suites. Tho importations of champagne in the calendar year 190G fell 81,444 quarts below the imports of 190j, while tor the nine months ending with March, 1907, the failing off was 105,612 quarts, compared with the cor responding months of the preceding yenr. "While comparison of these figures of the recent imports of champagne with those of 1905 only i» of itself somewhat misleading, owing to the fact that lD4)j showed an abnormally largo inijwrtation of champagne, v study of tho general figures of importation shows clearly that the importations of champagne aro not keeping puce with tho imports of other classes of merchandise, nor aro they in proportion to the growth in population or other conditions which might be expected to lend to large importations of this article, usually classed with luxuries. A conseneus of estimates )>y the producers and dealers indicates that probably two-thirds of the Aniericiui champagno of tKe genuine, or fermented in the- bottle variety, is produced in New York State, the other one-third being produced chiefly in northern Ohio, Missouri, and California. The area in which conditions are suited to the production of champagne is estimated as sufficiently large to effect possibly an enormous increase in production, the growth being at present limited by the fact that largo sums <>£ capital are required for successful and profitable production. BIG DEAL IN CABBAGE. Ten thousand dollars for a forty acre tract of cabbage, tho purchaser to remove the crop, was the deal made near Hajselhuret, Mississippi, the other day, between a truck fanner and the agent of a northern commission firm. Truck farmers in that section state they have never before seen such stiff prices for cabbage. The market quotation at no time during tlve season has been below 2 dollars a crate, ami the prevailing price is 2 dollars 65 cents per crate. Last year the crop went Legging at nitiety cents a crate, because other truck growing communities were getting their cabbage to market at the same time. This year Mississippi has boen especially favoured, and whilo the truck growing eeason as a whole l\as not been satisfactory, the farmers who planted cabbago will almost make up for this deficit in other crops. NEW ZEALAND NEWS IN AMERICA. That Americans are kept officially informed of affaire in New Zealand, although the newspapers here may not devote, much space to such matters, is evidenced by the consular report® published daily at Washington. Among recent articles in these reports "was an extensive one from Mr Harry R. Burrill, special agent at Christchurch, in regard to the Exhibition and bemoaning the lack of American exhibitors; also a lengthy one from the same gentleman dated from Wellington and 1 diescribing in detail the operation of the Industrial and Conciliation Act in New Zealand, while Consul-General W. A. Prickett sent from Auckland an interesting statement of New Zealand's imports of musical instruments and the conditions of trade in that . line. UNITED STATES LIQUOR BILL. Latest statistics of the Liquor Bill of the United States show a total expenditure of 1,450,000,000 dollars, twice the value •of the wheat orop, paid by the people of this republic in 1906. The average amounted to 17 dollars 94 cents per head of the population. The total expenditure for liquids was 1,607,083,610 dollars, of which, however, 18 per cent, went for coffee, tea, cocoa, etc. Consumption of beer and mild beverages is on tho increase.