AMERICAN WHEAT COMPETITION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1724, 24 December 1887, Page 3

AMERICAN WHEAT COMPETITION

We take tho following from a recent number of a Bristol newspaper : — lt ia rather late In the dny to refer to a paper that was read last week at the British ApscoiatioD." Bat it is only jaat now that a neatleman has discovered Id an essay on bimetallism, which nobody will read if he can help It, a moat important statement upon the competition of American wheat with the English, The author is a Mr Atkinson, who is director of the Bortoa Institute of Technology ; and he may be assumed, therefore, to speak with some authority. He states that since 1873, when the cost of American wheat m England was abont 50a per quarter, the coat of conveying it from the Western States to the port of shipment haa been reduced no lesa than lla par quarter by the extension of railways, the reduotion of rates, and the use all over the country of improved machinery. In the same period the freight by sea to England has been redaced another 23, while the coat of growing the wheat haa beeu simultaneously lessened by Improved methods of agrioaltare and a great reduction m the rate of interest on borrowed money. The result of all these changes is that 34s per quarter m England now pays the American farmer aa well an 50a paid him fonrteen yeara ago ; and Me Atkinson assures as that 34i m Mark Lane will maintain the American supply m increasing volume with certainty la the fature. English farmers cannot grow wheat at a profit for such a figure, and if, this hope being gone, they look forward to a decrease m American production, they are met by the faot that only onetenth of the area of the United State 1 ia at present cultivated, that every thouaand miles of new railway brings six million aoroa of fresh land within five miles of the line, and that the new railways constructed m the present year will extend 10,000 miles m length. Thla ia oo!d oomfort, we admit, for our Bgticultuial friends, sorely tried as they have been already. But if those statements are true it is better th&y should know them at once than continue to live m a fool's paradise."