COMPETITION IN WHEAT GROWING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1425, 6 December 1886, Page 3

COMPETITION IN WHEAT GROWING.

One of the rece* ? numbers of the Moniteur Intcv&ts Mat evicts contains a 1 ,ng and iut resii :.g review of the European harvest. in lh? course of its observations on the set’- re strain which American and Indian competition has put upon European cereal growers, soma remarkable figures are given of the indebtedness of cultivators. The mortgages upon the cultivators and peasant owners in most parts of the old continent, are excessive, and mate'ialiy increase the difficulties which low pric-*s have broughr up >n them. Thus, for instance, the delta hypothieaire of Prussia was on an average oolv 65 pet cent of the value of the land in 1860, and la now between 80 and 90 per cent. In certain parte >4 the province of Brandenburgh it exceeds by 50 per cent the present value of the land. In AuUria the mortgage? aggregated £112,000 OCO in 1858, and they are now in. re than £5 0 GOi',oo3 Those of France “ were already io 1876 at the fabulous figure < f 21 milliards 111 miHLns of francs," or say, in round figures £840,000,(00. Half the real estate of Hrance and two thirds of that of Belgium, are only nominally in the possession of the ostensible proprietors Huasia is no whit behind other countries io this respect, and her farmers are handicapped by the slowness and expensiveneas of their transport, A “ poud" of wheat costs from 18 to 25 copecks to transport from Cmcigo to Liverpool, and from the de| 6 n of the Volga to London the cost is 27 to 37 copecks.