102 HOW THE CLUBS BECAME GRANGES. 



less cost than ever before. Yet, at the prices of average seasons in 

 England, in past years, California wheat would have to secure lower 

 freights than there is now any reason to count on, in order to pay 

 the cost of its production, with a surplus offering from the Con 

 tinent increased beyond the old figures, the average English price 

 will rule lower than there, and as we have seen, California wheat 

 must then be shut out as a living crop. 



The only point remaining to be inquired into, in this chain of rea 

 soning, is the question whether continental producers can afford to 

 lay down their surplus in England at the rates which will exclude 

 California. Experience has shown that they can. But the facts at 

 tending that production, so far as I have been able to learn them 

 the almost nominal rates of wages paid in the wheat districts of 

 Russia and Austria, with the improved facilities for transportation to 

 the wheat ports, satisfy me that the wheat from these districts will 

 cut out, not only California, but will cut out the surplus of our great 

 West, even allowing it the benefit of the cheapest possible rates of 

 transport to the Atlantic sea-board. If these facts as here suggested 

 are all true, it is of the first importance to California producers to 

 know them. The production of such a surplus as we have moved 

 the past season, with the English market quoted at nine to ten shil 

 lings, would be as great a calamity as a drought. What could be 

 done with the wheat? Absolutely nothing. It would not pay to 

 harvest; there are not the animals in the State to eat it; it could not 

 be ground for flour to China. Nothing could be done with it. And 

 so far from this being an imaginary state of affairs, it is the state of 

 affairs which we are to expect which is probable during the mar 

 keting of our harvest for 1874. And all the facts of the situation can 

 be easily learned in time for our farmers to govern themselves. 



Probably most of the information is already in the archives of the 

 State Department at Washington, in the reports of the American 

 Consuls at Odessa, Eiga and Dantzig, or, perhaps, as to the new 

 Russian railways, in the documents forwarded from the Minister at 

 St. Petersburg. Or, if it is not there, a circular from the Depart 

 ment addressed to those officers, asking the specific information, 

 would produce it; and the Department at the solicitation of this 

 body, presented through our Representatives, would not hesitate, I 

 am confident, to issue such a circular. If action be taken now, the 

 information can be received by this organization by the time the 

 next harvest is fully secured, and before the work for the following- 

 year is laid out. 



^ The facts of the situation can be laid before every producer in the 

 State, and he will go to work with his eyes open. Later in the sea 

 son, as the reports of the condition and prospects of the continental 

 crops are received, their full signification will be understood, and 

 producers will act understandingly in the disposal of their crops. I 

 believe the prospect- to be, that a surplus of half a mllion tons of 

 wheat in California in 1874 will not repay the cash outlay of making 

 it; and I therefore feel that this organization cannot do a more use 

 ful thing than lay before the class whom it represents, the facts 

 which will either confirm that belief or show it to be unfounded. 



