The Price of English Wheat.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5905, 29 March 1894, Page 1

The Price of English Wheat.

(Christchurch Press.) The Times iri a recent issue, gives a table of the average price of English wheat for each.year since 1852, as well as the highest and lowest weekly average. The figures are highly interesting to all who are concerned in the. production of wheat. The highest annual' average price was 74s 8d per quarter in 1855, and the lowest was 26s 4d in 1893. "Of the highest weekly averages the maximum was 67s 8d in 1855 and the minimum was 24s 8d in 1893. The year of widest fluctuations was 1843, when the difference between the highest and lowest weekly averages was as much as 28s 3d, which represents more than the highest weekly average price of native wheat in 1893. The minimum rapge is last year's 3s 2d." The-ten-years which closed with 1893 are termed the 30s decade, the mean average of the whole period being less than 325. The time was when 40s for a quarter of English wheat was regarded as the lowest possible paying price by the British farmer. - But during- the whole of the last decade 40s has only once been passed, and that was for a brief period about May of 1891, when the average weekly price was 41s Bd, the lowest weekly average for that year being 32s 3d, and the annual average 37. During the last ten years the annual, highest weekly and lowest weekly averages per quarter for English wheat were as follows :

Annual Average. Highest Lowest. Year. Weekly Weekly Average. Average. s. d. s. d. s d. 1884 35 8 * 39 0 30 5 1885 32 10 38 1 30 2 1886 31 0 35 0 29 0 1887 32 6 36 4 28 5 1888 31 10 38 1 30 1 1889 29 9 31 2 27 11 1890 31 11 36 6 29 8 1891 39 0 41 8 32 3 1892' 30 3 36 4 25 8 1893 26 4 27 10 24 8