WHY WHEAT IS CHEAP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 97, 26 April 1895, Page 4

WHY WHEAT IS CHEAP.

The cause of the fall in the price of wheat is difficult to get at. An American authority explains the matter, and perhaps there is something in bis line of reasoning. He sa y 8 : _'The method of handling our wheat crops has changed materially and practically during the last decade, and unless the producer changes bis tactics wheat will have no commercial value at all. The world at large belives that the production of wheat in the world has increased. The fact is that no country in the world has increased its production of wheat in the past year, with the exception of Argentina, and the increase in that country is no more than tho decrease in Great Britain alone. If wo take wheat and rye tugether wo find that the production per capita is less between 1884 and 180-1, than between 1874 and 1884. Why ate prices so low then?. Let me toll you that it is mainly due to the fact that the lamer sells his wheat in 120 days, while the consumer buys from hand to mouth and takes 865 days to do it in. The result is immense stocks of wheat in public warehouses, on which there is storage, interest, and insurance to pay every day, and there is no one to pay itlexcept the speculators, and they have lost so much money doing it that they are tired. TLe warehousemen take no risk. The only grain merchants are the wheat gamblers, whom the producer would like to extarminate. It is the wheat gambler who buys the wheat that the farmer does not dare to keep ; that the elevator or miller does not daro to keep. The wheat gambler baa all the storage all the insurance, all the interest and all the decline in prices, but the deal is getting too big for him. There is too much wheat in public warehouses, and unless the farmers havo sense enough to sell their wheat gradually, as it is wanted, prices must go down to a point where farmers will be compelled to keep it or it will go to a price where railroads will not take the stuff unless the freight is prepaid. The farmers are to blame largely for low prices. They alone Jean cure it. I have been buying "cheap" wheat until I am worn out.'