A HUNDRED YEARS OF CEREAL PRICES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2452, 29 March 1888, Page 2

A HUNDRED YEARS OF CEREAL PRICES.

In' a leading article on this subject, the Dundee Advertiser says :— It is exactly a hundred years since the average price of oats has been so low in Great Britain as it has been in the present year. It is quite probable that the means of striking an average price of any kind of grain were not so perfect then as now ; still the fact stands upon record that in 178S the average price of oats was 10s Id, or 2d less than in the present year, 'fliat must have been indeed q, year of plenty, for in it the average price of barley was also absolutely the lowest on reoord —22s Sd, as against 23s Bd, the average price of ISB7. Wheat alone gave any compensation to the distressed agriculturists of a century ago, for it was 4Gs 4d in that year, or one half more than in ISS7. The price continued to he what, would be called moderate in the old times, till in ISOO wheat suddenly reached an average of 113s lOd, barley of 59s 10d, and oats of 30a -Id. These were the days when farmers could make fortunes where there were (|xed rents. Sinep 1788 the average price of oats has been below 17s on four years only. In 1781), it was lGs (id ; in 1792, 10s Ud ; in ISSO, Ills 5d ; and in 1887, lbs 3d. Barley has been lower than the figures of the present year only in 1830 and IS3I, in 1822, and then not till 1788. Wheat is, with the exception of 188(5, absolutely the lowest on record. The only years in which wheat averaged below 40s a quarter previous to 18SG were 1331, when the price was 3Ss (id ; and 1835, when it was 3!)s 4d. The figures which represent the average of ISSIi aud 1887, .'lis ami ;;.2s Ijd, are therefore absolutely lower than anything in the past j and as the lowest prices for wheat have occurred wlrai barley and oats were nearly, thou«h not altogether, at their very lowestlimit, the pressure of the continued low prices was all the more severe. The four months of the new cereal year whioh have already run show again the lowest average for wheat on record, lo\j'er even than in 1886 up to date. j