THE LOW PRICES OF PRODUCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1194, 18 January 1895, Page 6

THE LOW PRICES OF PRODUCE.

Farmers in the United States appear ti) be suffering from the low prices of produce in about the same degree as New Zealand farmers. Mr J. M. Sinclair, under a commission from the Victorian Government, is now on a visit to the United States to pursue inquiry into the methods of handling and carrying wheat by rail, and into freights and other charges. In a report which he has furnished to the Agricultural Department, he says (we learn from the Argus) that Californian wheat-growers, with the exception of a few who possess large tracts of country and became affluent in the good times, are in anything but a happy condition. In fact, farmers generally expressed their inability to continue production at present low prices. He ascertained from several farmers holding large areas, equipped with the latest machinery and implements, that 4s 6d per 1001 b, delivered at the seaboard, was the lowest paying price at which they could produce wheat. One of the most extensive grain-growers imformed him that the present prices would l simply clear the cost of production. I Good wheat land in, the Sacramento

Valley had been worth L 6 per acre, and he saw some wheat farms for which LlO an acre had been paid The fall in prices caused a depreciation in land values, which bank managers in different parts of agricultural districts informed him might be set down at 80 per cent, under what might be regarded as fair values eighteen months ago. Many farmers were seriously involved through having purchased their land at market prices three years ago. -Everywhere the rapid depreciation of ljfnd had destroyed the value of what were at one time consideiel first class securities. It was impossible to dispose of any but very favourably situated properties, and in many places farms could not be let at a rental to pay interest on the money borrowed Except in districts where fruit was grown, the depression was being felt severely. The interest charged by financial institutions ranged from 8 to 12 per cent., a rate altogether too high for the ruling prices of produce. Most of the American farmers attributed, the low price of wheat to its production in such large quantities by the Argentine Republic.