WHEAT MARKET.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 585, 13 August 1909, Page 5

WHEAT MARKET.

A BIGGER CROP IN CANADIAN WEST. (By an(!oclaUon.-06Drrleht;i Ottawa, August 11. \Tho Canadian Department of Agriculture estimates that at_ the endof July the wheat yield in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta was, 167,464,000. bushels, as compared : with 110,524,000 bushels in July, 1908. AMERICAN VISIBLE SUPPLY. '(Rec: August 12, 1 ,11.50 p.m.) . ■ London, August 12. The American visible supply of wheat jB 15,605,000 bushels. '. BRITISH 'WHEAT-FARMING OUTLOOK. ' .It may- safely be . prophesied that.-if : wheat were to remain as high as 385.-. to 40s. a quarter. till after harvest, says the "Daily Mail," some thousands df aflres in Great Britain, would be ploughed up and some; hundreds of extra labourers required. , In the course of an article on the subject the same paper remarks:— . . The; Continued rise in tho price of wheat has set afoot; a host of questions among all who are . concerned with tho land. Will. farmers' rents riseP Can England grow her own 6upply? Will it, bo safe to plough tip pastures? What wilt be the'effect on bread?

Two years ago we had. only. 1,799,484"acres undor.'whSat. If Wo wish to 'supply 'ourselves, we should have to put down ' between seven and eight million acres Under wheat. As was pointed out by Sir William Cooper, we have now, "80 percent, of land under 6heep feed and •less than 4 per cent,. Under man food." At the end of harvest, wo have only: fourteen weeks' supply in the country, and are always more or less at the moicy of a foreign "corner." Whim we oonsider that the enohnous area of 34,000,000. acres is .under grass or pasture— Whioh is tile least intensive'of all forms of cultivation and emplovs fqwest hands—it is clear ■that wq could easily become, self-sufficing. If wheat were to keop at the present price some millions of this acroago would be put under wheat, thousands more labourers would .be Wanted, wages would riso, and a good part of tho sixty-seven million pounds we now spend on foreign wheat would, be spent in English cftimtry places. Everyone would : benefit—' landlords, clergymen, farmers, labourers, and tradesmen. . , •