168 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 



Tlio declared value of these exports was as follows: 



The above figures present some very interesting indications in regard 

 to our foreign wheat trade. The enormous increase of exports in the 

 five years ending with 1865 is especially remarkable, being more than 

 double those of the previous five years. These were years of civil strife 

 and bloodshed, of gigantic struggle to conquer a peace with revolted 

 States. These States had previously consumed a large proportion of 

 the wheat products of the North and West, but the operations of war 

 broke up this Internal trade and threw an immense surplus into the 

 channels of our export trade. The next five years, closing with 1870, 

 showed a reduction of nearly 100,000,000 bushels, or 20,000,000 bushels 

 per annum, but the five years ending with 1875 more than doubled the 

 export. It is noticeable that the average export values of wheat during 

 the civil-war period were lower than in the serai-decades immediately 

 previous or subsequent ; while those of fiour were but a few cents above 

 the previous period, and far below the exceptional rates of the semi- 

 deciwie immediately succeeding. 



The proportion of flour shows a steady and invariable decline. Fifty 

 years ago it constituted nearly the whole of our wheat export, but in 

 1870 it was but little over one- fourth of the whole, either in quantity or 

 value. A special reason for this is found in the necessity of giving 

 •Vvery possible scope to industrial production in Europe. The increas- 

 ing cost of grain production in Europe on the one hand, and the 

 iiuprovemeut in transatlantic transportation on the other, gave to the 

 n'.illiug interest, especially in Eugland and France, a margin of profit 

 in grinding American grain, which secured to thatintericst an enormous 

 development. Vast improvements in milling macliinery and market 

 atrangements were devised, and strenuous elibrts made to secure the 

 manufacture of flour to domestic enterprise. Meanwliilo American 

 niiliers foimd more profitable markets in other countries. Over half 

 the exports of the last two fiscal years were to South America, West 

 Indies, China, and Japan ; countries in which flour-manufacture .scarcely 

 exists. To a large portion of this field wo send our cheaper flours, 

 supcrfines and low-grade extras. The United Kingdom receives an 

 increasing amount of our bettor grades of flour, the aggregates being 

 1,231,374 barrels in 1875 and 1,335,185 barrels in 1870, the last being 

 over a third of the whole flour export. France took 1,020 barrels in 

 1875, and only 19 barrels in 1870; Germany took 7,921) barrels in 1876, 

 and 14,113 barrels in 1876. 



