THIRD DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 273 



State, are greatly interested in the transportation of wheat beyond 

 the State to the wheat markets of Europe. The present transporta- 

 tion route from San Francisco to Europe is equal to more than two 

 thirds the distance around the earth, and the time required for a 

 vessel to make the round trip is, on an average, about half a year. 

 This places California at a disadvantage as compared to every 

 other country supplying that market. We cannot take advantage of 

 any rise in the market, for the wheat from other countries comes in 

 ahead of ours and supplies the demand. Then, a large crop in Cali- 

 fornia is generally followed by a corresponding scarcity of available 

 tonnage, and high freights. The present situation is an illustration 

 in point. Ten dollars per ton on wheat to Liverpool is a paying busi- 

 ness to ship owners. The price demanded at this time is seventeen 

 dollars and a half. This over-price of freight reduces the value of 

 our wheat seven dollars and a half per ton in San Francisco. 

 Instead of one dollar and thirty cents per cental at San Francisco, 

 wheat should to-day be worth one dollar and sixty-seven and a half 

 cents per cental, and would be with freights at ten dollars per ton 

 instead of seventeen dollars and a half. This would be a paying and 

 satisfactory price to farmers, and would make a difference to the 

 wheat farmers of this district of more than three million dollars on 

 the present crop, and more than six million one hundred thousand 

 dollars on the whole crop of the State. 



No facts or figures could illustrate more forcibly the importance 

 of a competitive route for the transportation of our wheat to market. 

 The Southern Pacific Railroad Company has realized this great need, 

 and is rapidly pushing the work on that road to supply it. This road 

 completed and in running order, we have reason to hope that high 

 prices for freight will no longer be allowed, and that the profits 

 of producing wheat in California will become certain and satis- 

 factory. We will then be ten thousand miles nearer Liverpool, and 

 in a situation to compete with other wheat-supplying countries for 

 the best prices. 



We look also to this new route for a revolution in the mode of 

 handling wheat, that farmers will be relieved of the expense of sacks, 

 and that wheat will be handled in bulk and by machinery at a much 

 less cost than it is possible to handle it under the present system. 

 The effect of opening up this new route of commerce between the 

 Pacific and the continent of Europe will be equally advantageous to 

 all the other products of our soil. Many articles that have now but 

 a limited and fluctuating home market, will then find a constant 

 foreign demand at remunerative prices. A brighter day is in the 

 near future for the farmers of California. Let us be fully prepared 

 to reap the golden harvest that awaits us. 



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