THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



431 



THE NEW YORK GRAIN TRADE. 



The New York Corn Exchange 13 the Mark-lane of the 

 United States. It ia not the stately London building, but 

 a capacious street-floor, fronting Broad-street and South- 

 street, and accessible from several doors. Unless pointed out 

 to the stranger, it would inevitably be passed by unobserved. 

 Internally, it is equally unattractive. There are no stalls 

 at which the leading members of the trade preside; and 

 glanced at from the street, a miscellaneous crowd, such as that 

 at the Royal Exchange at four o'clock, ia alone visible. A 

 closer inspection shows that the provision dealers form one 

 extreme portion of the crowd, the dealers in grain the centre, 

 and the dealers in flour the other extreme. The flour dealers 

 are examining samples in small green boxes, or mixing small 

 quantities of flour with water, and testing the strength and 

 colour of the dough. The grain dealers are handling and 

 chewing and scattering wheat and corn upon the floor from 

 small cotton bags taken from the pocket; and the provision 

 dealers, having no samples, do their business by unassisted 

 conversation. In one part of the room the English and Ame 

 rican and Canadian newspapers, devoted to the grain and pro- 

 vision trades, are filed regularly; and conspicuously posted up 

 in the centre of the room are the daily receipts at tidewater, 

 and Buffalo, and Chicago, and other points ; the comparative 

 shipments from New York ; and the latest telegrams, and price 

 currents, and reports from Liverpool. The room is open daily 

 ftom twelve to two o'clock. 



Those engaged in the grain and flour trades may be divided 

 into three classes : first, the mere speculators and brokers ; 

 second, the merchants; and third, the receivers. The re- 

 ceivers, as their name implies, are a class of men, usually the 

 most reputable, who receive gram and flour from farmers or 

 others, with discretionary power of sale. Their understood 

 business is to sell what they receive to the best advantage, 

 aud to refrain from buying and selling on their own account. 

 Usually the receivers are drawn on by the senders to an 

 agreed-on extent ; but not unfrequently the consignments 

 come into their hands free, and are accounted for as soon as 

 sold. Probably not less than three-fourths of the whole grain 

 and flour receipts at New York pass through the hands of 

 receivers ; and it may be of service at the moment to remark 

 that contracts with receivers may generally be depended on. 



The second class — the merchants — divides itself into those 

 who buy on European account, those who make advances on 

 European account, and thirdly into those who make advances 

 to Western speculators, and realize the shipments on the corn 

 exchange as soon as received. The difference between this 

 last class and the receivers proper is, that they are traders also 

 on their own account, and have usually advanced the full mar- 

 ket value of the shipments. This class of business — advanc- 

 ing to the full value — has always been regarded as unsafe, even 

 in New York, and it is in it that the break-downs usually oc- 

 cur. The other class, those who make advances on European 

 account, monopolize a large portion of the export trade ; and 

 it may be remarked, that in this department of the New York 

 trade there are several English firms of high standing. To 

 this class those apply who have not sufiicient standing in 

 New York to sell their own exchange, or who have no facili- 

 ties in England for effecting sales. The persons in this posi- 

 tion are quite numerous, and in such a season as the present, 

 when advancing prices will be looked for, they will be found 



to control no inconsiderable portion of the western crop. Tiie 

 remaining class of this subdivision, those who buy on Euro- 

 pean account, are neither a numerous nor an influential clasp, 

 aud their operations are necessarily circumscribed. Limits 

 are usually placed into their hands which cannot be always 

 filled, and their operations come into competition with the ad- 

 vancing European houses. 



The first class— the mere speculators and brokers — are the 

 most numerous and obtrusive of the members of the New 

 York Corn Exchange. To become a broker no qualification 

 is required, and to become a speculator it too often happens 

 that capital ia not required. Hence the unlimited number 

 of both classes — men becoming grain brokeis and specula- 

 tors when they are precluded from engaging in any other 

 business. The extent to which these classes influence the 

 range of prices ia scarcely credible : they are, in fact, strong 

 enough to set aside the ordinary law of demand and supply, 

 and to rule the market by sales and purchases which are 

 based upon no transfers of property but upon mere promises of 

 transfer. Their practice is to buy and sell for delivery on a 

 future day, and, as the saying is, to work the oracle that, when 

 the future day arrives, they will merely have differences to 

 receive. This, it need scarcely be observed, ia trading on the 

 sporting principle, and there is little doubt that the " books" 

 of many parties will make up handsomely with the large or- 

 ders sent out recently from this country in anticipation of a 

 bad harvest. Incredible as it may seem, so influential is the 

 mere speculative element on the New York Corn Exchange, 

 that the presence of a stranger, who may be reputed to be an 

 Englishman or a Frenchman, and who is suspected to be a 

 buyer, is sufiicient to advance the price of wheat and corn from 

 five to ten cents a bushel, and flour from twenty-five to fifty 

 cents a barrel. 



Besides these peculiarities in the operators on the New 

 York Corn Exchange, there are some noteworthy peculiarities 

 in the grain supply. The three great sources of New York 

 grain supply are the Erie Canal, the Southern States, and 

 New York State. The last is the least important of the three, 

 in consequence of the thickly-peopled condition of the state. 

 The great bulk of what the State of New York produces is 

 consumed in the state, and what is exported is mainly drawn 

 from other sources. Into that source of supply it is therefore 

 needless to inquire. The supply from the Southern States is 

 received in the winter months when the southern temperature 

 admits of grain and flour being transported without heating. 

 When therefore the New York market is cut off from other 

 sources of supply, it receives a continuous, although diminished, 

 supply of wheat and corn and flour until the frozen canals are 

 again open. The quality of southern grain and flour is usually 

 superior to that of the Western States, and enters largely 

 into consumption in New York. But it is in the supply by 

 the Erie Canal that anything exceptional occurs. There is 

 not, as might be supposed, a continuous supply of wheat and 

 corn by the Erie Canal ; but the supply of each is alternate, 

 and while the one is being received there may be said to be a 

 suspension of transactions in the other. Nor is this a merely 

 arbitrary arrangement. It arises from corn being harvested late 

 in the autumn, when the channels of communication are about 

 to be closed for the season ; while wheat is harvested early in 

 July, and is in really better condition then than it is some 



