THE PRICE OF WHEAT.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2646, 11 February 1908, Page 3

THE PRICE OF WHEAT.

A well-known South Canterbury farmer, in conversation with a Timaru Post reporter, expressed his 6rm conviction that the price of wheat next season must be high, in spite of anything that any trust may do. The farmer in question argued this way: u There are, according to the latest statistics, 190,000 acres under cultivation for wheat in the Dominion this year, or 18,000 acres less than last year. A fair average yield may be set down at 25 bushels per acre; thus the total yield will he approximately 4,750,000 bushels. The population of the Dominion is set down at 1,000,000 people, and it is calculated that it takes live bushels per head of the population to satisfy all requirements, this including the wheat that has to be saved for seed, and that which is use i for fowl feed. Last season's grain has all, or nearly all, been 'used, and the position is therefore that we shall have four and a half million bushels of wheat to satisfy a demand for 5,000,000 bushels, and this being so it means that the Dominion will have to import wheat from Australia and prices in the Dominion must rule high if farmers ure only firm in their demand for top value. The peculiar position in having two years, one following another, of high prices for wheat, has, in my opinion, blon brought about by the fact that in the early part of the season the ground was too dry and hard in many localities to allow of much wheat being got in." |