WHEAT GROWING IN MANITOBA. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1752, 20 June 1885, Page 7

WHEAT GROWING IN MANITOBA. TO THE EDITOR.

Slß,— Some weeks agr> I sent you a letter on " Wheat Growing," in which, after treating of the" general decrease of cultivation in this island owing to low prices and unfavourable harvest seasons, I quoted extracts from a letter written by a Dr Edmunds, who last year fisited Canada as a member of tho British Convention. After the session he spent several . ibontUß travelling through Manitdba and the Western States, taking notes of what he saw 6i agricultural affairl The letter containing an account of what he saw. and he&rd appeared in the London Times. Your readers will remember that I quoted his account of how wheat Was produced at the groat Bell Farm at a total cost per byiahel. including a charge bf 8 per cent, on capital invested, of 34 cents, ttr about 11s Bd pee quarter ; aud allowing a like amount for transport, the wheat, grown 1300 miles from the coast, could be put in the English markets at 23a per quarter. The Doctor cancluded his letter by advising English farmers with small capital to emigrate ta . Manitoba^ where he was sure they oould. found happy and prosperous homes, and lead free and independent liven. In hiy letter I stated that if Manitoba wheat could be placed in London at a total cost of 23s per quarter, it was little use for other countries to compete, and I said I was sure New Zealand farmers could not produce wheat at a cost which would leave them a clear profit of all that their wheat . fetched in London above 23 3 per quarter, But besides giving this- very bright side of the picture, as shown by Dr Edmunds, I also quoted extracts from the letters of a farmer in the Western States, who gave a very. gloomy account of his and his neighbours' prospects, saying they bad to mortgage the crops in order to procure seed corn. The last received copy of the Mark Lane Express contains a letter In answer to that of Dr Edmunds, written by a Mr Williamson, who has bad experience in wheat growing" in .<the Red River Valley. He says he has no f .reason to doubt that Dr Edmunds published " his account in perfect good faith, as he was not interested in the great Bell Farm Company, or bad any axe of his own to grind in connection with his report ; but Mr Williamson said he thought great caution should be exeroised in circulating information which may lead decent men to leave happy homes in England for what might prove to be the re verae of what they had been led to expect, and find, instead of comfort and prosperity, bitter trials and disappointments. Mr Williamson says that the land in the Bed River Valley is quite as good as that in Manitoba, and though not very distant from Minneapolis, the great flour-milling centre, he says he found the prices realised were ruinously low. He could not grow wheat profitably while getting 45 cents per bushel at the elevators not very distant from the farm — how then, he Bays, can Major Bell pretend that be can raise it for 34 cents 300 miles west of Winnipeg? Curiously enough, be says, the 34 cents' calculation is exactly that given to him by Mr Oliver \Dalrymple, of the great Fargo Farm, in tho Red River Valley, in 1879, and expe rience has proved it to have been utterly ' deceptive. With a splendid season and a heavy crop of 30 bushels per acre, the calculation may stand ; "but," he says, "with all ' the contingencies of bad weather, deteriorated quality, extra labour, crops running from, say, 13 bushels one year to 17 another, 20 a third, and 15 bushels a fourth year, and allowing for summer fallowing «very fifth or sixth year, it is in my opinion impossible in Manitoba or Minnesota to grow wheat under a cost of from 16b to 18s per quarter, taking one year with another. " Mr Williamson then goes on to question the statement made by Dr.Edmuuds that the wheat could ba carried to Liverpool for 11s per quarter. He says, from a quotation given him by a freight agent at Winnipeg, 1 that the cost from Ball Farm to Liverpool-^-all charges — would be 25a per quarter, which, added to the cost of production as he found it— l7s— would bring. the wheat up to 423 a quarter, while the actual selling price was about 35i or 36s per quarter of 4801b. Mr Williamson, in order to corroborate his remarks, quotes from a letter written by a farmer in . Manitoba in December of 1884 The writer Baya:— "The times have indeed baen hard with me, and seem to grow harder with a steady progression. Owing to a variety of causes this country ih in a state of the most abject depression, ao that what I say of myself is only a picture of uineteen-twentieths of all around mo. One cause ief the destructive character of the last two seasons— early frosts in summer and autumn, which have ruined the crops so extensively, rendering the wheat.inconvertible into flour,' and consequently unmarketable. 1 have a field now standing uncut which would not pay for the reaping, while the oat crop had to be cut bo green as to be only fit for fodder. Altogether the country is in a most deplorable state, and I do not think there are 5 per cent, of the farmers who are not utterly lueolvoat, with their farms mortgaged, and dropping into the bands of tho loan companies.". Mr Williamson's words of caution, backed up by the above gloomy statement, should certainly cause intending emigrants to hesitate before acting on Dr Edmunds' advice, or they may be in the same predicament as the fish that jumped out of the frying-pan because it was too warm, only to find themselves landed in the fire. As 1 stated in my firat letter, accounts from j, the North-Western States are very conflicting, and a great many are not to be believed at all. Major Bell has lately been lecturing in Britain on the splendid capabilities of his district in general and the Bell Farm in particular, with a view no doubt of encouraging men with capital to go oat there, and perhaps take ' shares or buy a portion of bis big farm. Another correspondent says that this farm is not a mine of wealth to its owners, as the Major with his "tall talk" would make people believe. Nearly all these " mammoth farms " come to grief. Mr Oliver Dalrymple's great farm in the Red River Valley collapsed some years ago, and it remains to ba seen whether the Bell Farm will long stand the low price of wheat in spite of the boasted low cost of production. At on 9 time it was supposed that if North America failed to grow wheat at a cost which would leave any profit, South America would step in and still keep the European markets full ; but the Buenoß Ayreß Standard, in an article showing the great progress of agriculture in the Argentine Republio, cautions the the people of that oountry against venturing to compete with North America and India in the production' of wheat for European markets, where, says the Standard, they oan never sell it at prices that will pay the grower. It Beems, after all said and demonstrated, that we in New Zealand have still as good a chance as American farmers hav9 of growing wheat profitably; and, if Mr Williamson is oorreot in Baying they cannot put wheat in Liverpool at a lees cost than 42s per quarter, why I fancy that we have eligUfcly the best of it, for what they call a heavy crop— 3o bushels — we consider only, a medium orop or a good average one. And in the matter of clime-ts, although the past few eeaßons have bsen very

bad for harvesting wheat in good order,- yet we do not have it frostbitten while, rjponinjy, and I trust we shall never see anything o? the kind come to pass. In a recent issue of th 3 Australasian there is a long article, contributed by their agricultural reporter, comparing the respective advantages possessed by Australia and America as to the cheap production of wheat, and reviewing his letters written at the titna of his visit; in 1883. The reporter, Mr Dow, while expressing favourable opinions as to tha resources of America and tue Jabour-s*v3t'g methods adopted in Vcrorking, stiid that tbd prevailing idea's as to tha cheapness o£ pro Jttcfcion were found to be exaggerated. In regard to 'the production of wheat, the only advan tages possessed over the Australian farmers were those of lower railway carriage aud cheaper methods ,of handling grain. The cheaper freights for the long distances in America were counterbalanced by the Australian wheat fields being much nearer the seaboard. If thia be true of Australia, how much more so of New Zealand, where no w.heat is grown at a greater distance than 50 or 60 miles from a seaport. Mr Dow says that though the linea between Chicago and New York (1000 miles) have reduced their rafcas to meet the times— in fact, some of the companies have become insolvent through running too cheaply yet newspaper articles in every wheat-grow-ing State show that the prices obtainable do not cover the coat of production. The article concludes by saying that in any case American competition of ifcaelf is not likely to keep wheat values too low to be remunerative to Australian farmers, and I may add, or New Zealand farmers. — I am, &c,

Agbicola.

Juno 6.