APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1898. 



THE WHEAT-GROWING CAPACITY OF THE UNITED 



STATES. 



By EDWAKD ATKINSON. 



IN 1880 it happened to fall to me to make a forecast of the very 

 great reduction in the price of wheat in Great Britain, which 

 could then be predicated on the lessening cost of transportation from 

 Chicago to the seaboard, thence to British ports, which was then sure 

 to be soon followed by a large reduction in the railway charges for 

 bringing the wheat to Chicago from the other Western centers of 

 distribution. I then alleged that the time was not far off when, 

 even if the price of wheat in Mark Lane were reduced from the 

 then existing rate of fifty-two shillings per quarter to thirty-four 

 shillings, it would still yield as full a return to the Western farmer 

 as it had yielded in previous years at fifty shillings and upward. 

 This forecast attracted great attention, and has since been made the 

 subject of very much bitter controversy, especially since the fall in 

 prices was much more rapid than I then thought it could be, and 

 was carried to a much lower point than any one could have then 

 anticipated. It will be remarked that thirty-four shillings in Mark 

 Lane is at the rate of one dollar and three cents per bushel of sixty 

 pounds. 



From time to time I have almost been forced to defend the 

 position then taken, notably when asked to appear before the Royal 

 Commission on Depression in Agriculture at one of their sessions, 

 where I was kept upon the stand for two full days in the effort of 

 the excellent English farmers and landowners to prove that the 

 American farmer had been ruined by the reduction in the price of 

 wheat, which the majority of that commission attributed to the 



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