82 GAMBLING IN FOOD PRODUCTS. 



ways been accustomed and for which he has a great preference implies quite as high pri- 

 ces as the producer of the scarce article is likely to desire. 



When the crops of wheat and rye are greatly deficient it is not unusual for the oth- 

 er crops to be meager and those who talk so glibly of substitutions seems to have lost 

 sight of tlie fact that such things as potatoes, other grains, and all possible substitutes but 

 tree barb, are rarely produced in excess of current needs and are all consumed in addition 

 to the wheat and rye even in years of average yield of all food crops. This year of defic- 

 ient production of rye and wheat proves to be no exception in this respect, as in the 

 devastated districts of Russia other crops are nearly or quite as deficient as those of the 

 bread-making grains, and the potato crop is as complete a failure as it is possible for 

 mind to conceive, while that of hay is little if any better, and the pastures have been 

 sere and brown the year through, the result being that the farmer can neither sell nor 

 feed his animals, as no one has forage. 



That potatoes cannot, this year, be substituted for the deficient grains, over the 

 most of Central and Western Europe, is made certain by the character ♦f a potato crop 

 which is nowhere above an average and over vast areas is greatly below rendering it clear 

 that the quantity harvested will be below the amount ordinarily consumed and indicat- 

 ing the desirability of even finding some substitute, other than tree bark, for the deficient 

 potatoes. 



In Europe, as a whole, other roots are a deficient crop, and this is especially true 

 of wide areas in Britain, while there is fear of great distress in Ireland because of potato 

 blight. 



In France a lai'ge part of the frost-ravaged wheat fields were resown to oats, the 

 crop of which is some 1.5 per cent, above the average, and in France oats are not unlikely 

 to be substituted, in part, for wheat and rye, both of which are greatly deficient in quan- 

 tity and even more so as to quality, some recent estimates putting the wheat fit for mill- 

 ing as low as 50 per cent, of a yield estimated to aggregate not more than 64 per cent, of 

 an average, while in no case is the grain up to the standard in either weight or nutritive 

 power. 



Thomas Tooke, in his work on prices, lays it down as an axiom that "a very small 

 deficiency in the case of necessaries will cause a very great increase in the price: e. g.^ 

 that wheat may rise from 100 to 300 per cent, when the deficiency in the crops is not 

 more than 15 or 30." 



The writer estimates the wheat and rye crops of the world, just harvested, to be 

 from 18 to 20 per cent, below an average, and by reason of an acreage deficient for some 

 years the aggregate product to be 20 per cent, below the world's requirements. The 

 reader can readily make the application of Tooke's law. 



Mr. Hutchinson tells us we supply Europe because we have a new soil, plenty of 

 acres and use implements that cheapen production, and that a dollar a bushel for wheat 

 at Minneapolis means a great deal for such a farmer as Oliver Dalrymple who is repre" 

 sented as saying "that his wheat cost him about thirty cents a bushel with a good yield." 



How many farmers are there in the world who grow wheat under as favorable con- 

 ditions as Mr. Dalrymple? Does not even two per cent, on all their investments mean 

 much to such capitalists as a Vanderbilt or an Astor while meaning very little to the 

 widow whose whole fortune is but five thousand dollars? 



Mr. Hutchinson forgets to tell us how often Mr. Dalrymple secures the "good 

 yield" which enables him to produce wheat at about thirty cents a bushel, but the inten- 

 tion seems to be that the impression should go abroad that to produce wheat upon o>ir 

 western farms it costs but thirty cents per bushel, and that a dollar for it at the great 

 markets means that the farmer will roll in wealth and vie with the railroad magnate in 

 his expenditures, hence the insistence upon a fair price for his grain is all wrong. 



While it is within the possible that some of Mr. Dalrymple's crops may have been 

 produced at a cost as low as thirty cents, yet I venture the suggestion that such sum does 

 not begin to represent the average cost of the crops he has grown during the last five 

 years, as I know that twice that sum does not begin to cover the cost of growing wheat 

 upon lands, that even in this new country, require considerable expenditures for fertili- 



