Business & Finance: Europe’s Wheat

The American farmers who planted wheat on a more or less war-time basis reckoned without the European farmer. Reports from abroad continually emphasize the greater ability this year of Continental nations to feed themselves without the former large grain imports from this country.

France has in prospect a record crop, and M. Chéron, her Minister of Agriculture, has predicted that imports of wheat will not be necessary this year at all, if wheat flour is mixed with that of other cereals. The French yearly ration of wheat is estimated at 85,000,000 quintals; production in Continental France is estimated at 79,000,000 quintals, with 20,000,000 more from the French North African harvest.

Of still greater effect upon Chicago wheat prices has been the reports of a much larger Russian wheat crop this year. It has not been forgotten that Russia was until 1914 the granary of Europe, and even Bolshevism has not availed to prevent a considerable recovery in wheat production from post-War conditions. There is, of course, an element of propaganda in many of the current stories of huge Russian stocks of wheat, but these have a substratum of truth.

The effect of the larger European wheat crops has been seen, not only in “dollar wheat” in Chicago, but also in a marked decrease in railroad grain shipments in this country. These declined during the first 31 weeks this year by 110,180 carloads from the shipments during the same period last year. Loadings for 1923 have been 1,246,520 carloads, against 1,356,700 for 1922.