WHEAT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12657, 10 January 1912, Page 8

WHEAT.

•SHOULD FARMERS HOLD? The agricultural editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph deals with the above question as follows : — To thousands of our people the momentarily all-important question is to decide whether a farmer should hold or sell his wheat at the preseut juncture. It is, of course, a speculation. He must decide for himself. So much depends upon the immediate circumstances attendant on individual cases. But he can leave wisdom on broad lines, outside the dear school kept by Experience. His first duty is to ignore the quantity of the Australian surplus, once amply satisfied that a surplus exists. Where the shippers have wheat at their disposal the farmers' supplies are merely worth what price they can bring m th© world's markets, less the cost of transport thither plus a reasonable profit. Hence the' necessity for an intelligent man, desir- j ous of knowing whether he should sell or hold, turning his attention to the ques- 1 tion of the world-wide supplies. Whe- ] ther the Australian surplus lias drop- ! pod 2,000,000 bushels or 20,000,000 is of |no importance to the individual Australian holder m such case, if the world supply has, say, risen 20,000,000 bushels, J and the population demand is practic- , ally no greater. Similarly, . if the world supply has dropped 100,000,000 bushels, wheat prices will rise, even though the Australian export surplus were double the best on record. ' A correspondent, Wagga Farmer, has addressed us at considerable length on this subject. The following is taken from his contribution : — - Recent American papers to hand refer to farmers preparing their land by means of steam ploughs, these being worked also at night by electric light. All this demonstrates that no cereal m the world pays so well as wheat, so, so far from laboring under the belief tliat prices will 'get even higher, thoughtful men should consider how much wheat values can fall .and still leave a substantial profit to the j producer. As I do not speculate m wheat it is immaterial to me whether values go up or down, but at the same time I consider it is wrong to encourage Australian wheatgrowers m the belief that, local conditions will govern wheat prices. Anyone conversant with the world's statistics will know that at the present time the world's supplies are as great, if not greater, than they ever were — i.e., about 460,000,000 quarters. A fair Australian shrinkage is 2,000,000 quarteis as against last year. If our shortage were 6,000,000 quarters, Europe would not be concerned, and as Australia would still have more wheat than was required for local consumption and seed, prices would settle down to London parity. Even though the quality of the Argentine grain may not be of the primest because of recent rains, there is nothing to suggest that the wheat grown there is not millable. Therefore m January the Argentine will compete with Australia for over-sea orders, and m February Upper Egypt and India will also be competitors, while m March the bulk of the Indian wheat will be available. In April and May all the countries named, as well as others, including Russia, will have surplus supplies, whilst m June and July tho weight of European and American crops will also be felt. From the very outset the Indian crop has been particularly favored with weather conditions, and tho increased area under wheat m America and Canada is something abnormal.