196 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



that their prosperity depends upon the prosperity of the farmer, 

 and that they cannot transport the crops which he fails to 

 harvest. 



Transportation from Seaboard to Foreign Market. The in- 

 creased exportation of American cereals, especially of wheat, 

 dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, and was coin- 

 cident with an increased demand for grain abroad. Europe's 

 extremity in grain has always been America 's opportunity. The 

 chief features in the development of wheat exportation from the 

 United States were a decrease in cereal production in western 

 Europe; an increase in the demand for grain, mainly in the 

 United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland; 

 the laying of the Atlantic cable; the commercial grading of 

 cereals; and the economies effected by modern elevator and 

 transportation methods. Prior to 1850, not more than from 1 

 to 9 per cent of the production of agricultural nations, or of the 

 consumption of manufacturing nations, was a factor in inter- 

 national trade. 1 



The first direct shipment of grain from the Great Lakes to 

 Europe was a cargo of wheat in 1856. Out of 125 cargoes thus 

 going in the next eight years, only three or four carried grain. 

 The first wheat shipped from the Pacific coast around Cape 

 Horn was sent to New York. The grain was of such a novel 

 character that the New York millers did not know how to man- 

 age it, and the venture was not a success. In 1860 California 

 made its first shipment of wheat to England. The English mil- 

 lers sent back for instructions how to mill this grain, but it 

 found a ready market there. By 1901 about half of the wheat 

 flour shipped from San Francisco went to China, Japan and the 

 East Indies, but the United Kingdom still received the greater 

 portion of wheat. At that date, 12 ships per month were 

 leaving San Francisco loaded with flour for the Orient, whereas 

 only a few years before there were but two or three. 



In 1900 a load of 82,000 bushels of wheat was shipped from 

 Portland, Oregon, to Yokohama. This was the first cargo made 

 up of wheat alone that ever crossed the Pacific to Japan. In 

 the same year at the same port a cargo of wheat was loaded 

 for Europe to go the route by way of Japanese, Chinese, Philip- 

 pine, and Indian ports through the Suez canal to the Mediter- 

 1 Emery, Speculation in U. S., p. 106. - -~ .--^ ... ^ . 



