C. A. PILLSBURY'S OPINION OF MARKET WRECKING. 



The ulterauces of an organ of Chicago interests, in tlie best sense of the term, may 

 well be supplemented by the opinion of one who is. beyond a doul)t, the greatest dealer in 

 the world in the products of the soil, aud one who yearly grinds more than half as much 

 actual wheat into flour as reaches the Chicago markets. 



The following eseerpts are made from an interview witii Mr. C. A. Pillsbury, pub- 

 lished in the Minneapolis Daih/ Market Jiecord: 



"While talking with respect to the matter of limitation of wheat production, so 

 that for the last three years there has been a decrease of the reserves, Mr. C. A. Pillsbury, 

 the miller, says: ' If the world was entirely out of wheat at the end of this crop, imd our 

 crop was only eleven months' supjily, under the old method of doing business wheat 

 would .sell at from $1.50 to |2 per bushel, but under the new method the heavy short-seller 

 in Chicago would sell 10,000,000 or 1-5,000,000 bushels out while he was talking higher 

 markets, and then on some weak spot sell two or three millions more whe» there was no 

 demand for it, in order to break the markets down to 60 or 70 cents a bushel, then buy in 

 his short sales, and this would discnurage all holders of wheat, until the scarcity was ac- 

 tually felt aud there was hardly anyone holding any wheat to get the benefit of the ad- 

 vance. 



•'Mr. C. Wood Davis, in a recent elaborate article in the "Arena" gave his conclus- 

 ions that the consumption of wheat throughout the world had already overtaken 

 production, and at so earlj' a date as 1896 the United States will have ceased to e.xport 

 wheat." 



"In reference to Mr. Davis' idea Mr. Pillsbury said: / think Mr Davis' theory is 

 right, but it will not do any one much good, no matter hoiv short the crops are, until short- 

 selling of wheat by those ivho do not own a bushel can be stopped. As I said before, farm- 

 ers may talk about railroad and elevator charges, but if the elevators handled their wheat 

 for nothing aud railroads hauled it without compensation, these benefits would not be- 

 gin tooflfset the injuries which they receive from the Board of Trade." 



''My opinion is that we have been eating uji the wheat reserve duriiig the last five 

 years and that at the end of the last crop the visible (sujyply) all over the world was about 

 as low as practicable on even the new method of doing business and carrying stock, and I 

 shall be surprised if before a new crop is fit to use, we do not see a worse situation." 



■'As long, however, as this short selling is not circumscribed by the strong arm of 

 the law these advances in wheat will only come at the latter end of the crop year when 

 farmers have sold nearly all their grain, and when neither the farmers nor the mercantile 

 communities nor the business men in the State wifl get the benefit of the fact that the 

 world is not producing as much bread-stufl'as it is consuming." 



-<•**■- 



THE MARKET WRECKER PREVENTS AN ADVANCE IN VALUES. 



Not only is the world short of food by reason of a deficient cultivaleil acrea;. e, but 

 the disaster which has befallen the crops of Europe renders it certain that the last of the 

 reserves will disappear and the grain harvested in 1892 go into empty granaries, and Ihiit 

 the supplies for the 1892-3 cereal year will be trenched upon by enormous drafls made 

 upon India, South America and Australasia, early in 1892. for the purpose of fteding the 

 famishing people of Europe and this exhaustion of all reserves; ihe trenching upon 

 future supplies an<l the well established deficient acreage would assure high prices fcr a 

 long term of years but for shoit selling upon the Boards of Trade, such practices cousli- 



