STATE AGRICULTIKAL SOCIETY. 241 



WHEAT, BARLEY, FLOUR, ETC. 



WHEAT AND FLOUR. 



The chronicler of the wheat market of the year 1887, is compelled to 

 devote his attention principally to the manipulation that, during the 

 greater part of the period named, was the sole factor in establishing values 

 for the San Francisco market and the State at large. 



For the first seven months of the year, stocks of grain, crop prospects, 

 the law of supply and demand, and all circumstances that, in the natural 

 course of trade, affect values, were ignored, and all eyes were turned to, 

 and quotations based upon the operations of a few speculators, whose 

 downfall in the month of August, brought disaster to the grain trade, and 

 financial annihilation to the speculators themselves. A table showing the 

 monthly range of prices for spot wheat is appended, but only during the 

 last three months of the year can these quotations be said to be based upon 

 the actual value of the grain for milling purposes and for export to our 

 usual markets. The wildest speculation was rampant, advantage being 

 taken of the option market to force prices upward, until the third of August, 

 when the bubble burst. The price of seller 1887 wheat, which on the 

 second of August touched $2 17^ per cental, fell at once to $1 35, and on 

 the sixth of September touched $1 22^. After that a gradual improve- 

 ment set in, the last day of December seeing confidence very generally 

 restored, with number one white wheat spot selling at $1 37-2 P er cental. 



Our flour interests were disarranged in a startling degree, as can be 

 seen by reference to the table of exports. Only since the middle of Sep- 

 tember have our mills been able to run at their normal rate and turn out 

 their accustomed quota of flour. 



The crop of wheat of 1887 can be estimated at twenty-six million five 

 hundred thousand bushels, an outturn considerably below the average, 

 and occasioned by a deficient rainfall and greatly reduced acreage. 



BARLEY. 



The course of the barley market during the year 1887 covered a wide 

 range, and fluctuations were frequent and sharp. The year opened with 

 high prices, which were fairly well sustained for seven months, during 

 which period it was generally estimated that the crop of the State would 

 be less than it was in 1886. The result has demonstrated all early esti- 

 mates to be entirely at fault, the actual outturn of the crop of 1887 being 

 nearly 10 per cent more than that of the previous year. Prices broke 

 towards the end of July, about which time barley began to come forward 

 freely, and while the receipts from July to December, both inclusive, were 

 not quite as large as during the corresponding period in 1886, stocks in 

 San Francisco warehouses rapidly accumulated, owing to no outlet being 

 found, as was the case in the previous year. 



The fact that there was a considerable increase in the acreage in most 



of the so called barley sections of the State, was forgotten. This, coupled 



with very favorable weather immediately preceding harvest time, accounts 



for the actual outturn so greatly exceeding earlv estimates. 

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