1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



319 



COMMERCIAL REPORT. ' 



So little business is transacted at this season of the 

 year, that it is almost superfluous to^say any thing on 

 the subject. If intelligent country gentlemen would 

 report the state and prospects of the crops of grain, 

 cotton, tobacco, &c., such communications would be 

 much more interesting than any thing relative to the 

 present course of markets. 



Our millers should now be receiving abundant sup- 

 plies of wheat, but such is the deficiency of the crop, 

 that many of them are idle, and none fully employed 

 The quality of the grain is such, that the Virginia mil- 

 lers cannot expect to sustain the high character of their 

 Hour, nor to do a profitable business. There will 

 scarcely bs any surplus for exportation to the northein 

 and eastern slates, if indeed there be sullicient wheat 

 to serve the demand at home, and furnish seed for the 

 next crop. Such a failure has, probably, never before 

 occurred. 



In t!ie western states, and particularly in those 

 north of the Ohio, the wlieat crop is said to be good. 

 The price of western flour in New York is, ^7 a T.j 

 per bbl., and engagements to some extent have been 

 made for future deliveries of flour in N. York, at about 

 these rates. In Richmond, a contract for city mill 

 flour is reported to be made at $8^, and in Peters- 

 burg, the little good new flour that has been ground, 

 commanded $9 for home use. The price of wheat 

 ranges so widely, according to quality, that it can 

 scarcely be quoted. The best, which in ordinary sea- 

 sons would be considered scarcely merchantable, com- 

 mands .$1 50 per bushel, and a very small portion 

 reaches this standard. The importation of wheat from 

 Europe, during the present year, may be computed at 

 a million of bushels, and large supplies are expected 

 in the next two months. 



Tobacco has declined materially during the present 

 month, and is now 15 to 25 percent lower than it was 

 a few w'eeks ago, particularly the inferior sorts. The 

 total quantity inspected in Virginia, is less than last 

 year, and shipments to Europe go forward slowly. 

 Prices may now be quoted $i to 9, not embracing the 

 extremes. There is a prospect of a large and fine crop 

 of the present year's growth, and a great excess in the 

 western states. So that low prices maybe anticipated 

 during the next season. 



The receipts of cotton have almost ceased, and the 

 stock inthe U. States is now reduced to nearly its min- 

 imum quantity. All markets have recently been dull, 

 without any considerable variation in price. In Pe- 

 tersburg, 14 to 17-2 cents have been paid, and the ex- 

 tremes in the large markets are 12J to 21 cents. The 

 prospect of the growing crop is reported to be not very 

 favorable, save in Tennessee, and the extent of it w-ill 

 much depend on the continuance of wai'm weather 

 during the next two months. 



Considerable pressure for money has continued to 

 prevail in the northern cities, and most descriptions of 

 stocks are low. Exchange on England 7^. 



August 23, 1836. 



WHEAT OF THE LAST CROPS GENERALLY UN- 

 SAFE FOR SEED. 



It is now manifest to all that the unfavorable opin- 

 ions of the wheat crop, which we expressed in the two 

 lastNos. were not mistaken or exaggerated, as proba- 

 bly most readers then supposed them to be. The qual- 

 ity of the grain, throughout the Atlantic States, is as 

 defective as the quantity. It is generally shrivelled 

 and very light, and will yield but little flour, and that 

 of inferior quality. The few exceptions that exist, 

 either in entire crops or parts of crops, in which the 

 grain is of much better quality, are in cases of earlier 



ripening, or of some other cause, having prevented 

 some of the great exposure to wet weather, when in 

 the growing state. But the very small proportion of 

 the whole crop that has thus partially escaped the ge- 

 neral injury, would not suffice to furni.sh good seed to 

 the country requiring it, even if all could be used for 

 that purpose : and it will not be sold for seed, to much 

 extent, because the great demand for good flour will 

 cause almost every farmer, who has some good or mid- 

 dling wheat, to sell all except his own seed to the mil- 

 ler, as the most ready and profitable purchaser. We 

 all know how inconvenient and unsatisfactory in gene- 

 ral, to both parties, are purchases of seed wheat — and 

 every farmer endeavors, as much as possible, to avoid 

 being either buyer or seller of seed, to any considera- 

 ble extent. If these objections exist when crops are 

 generally good, they are magnified an hundred fold 

 when so little grain can be had that is worth using for 

 seed. There is then, by the failure of the last crop, a 

 new and alarming evil, in the want of good seed for 

 the next: and this evil is of enough importance, not 

 only to affect the interest of numerous individual pro- 

 ducers of the crop, but the consumers, and the public. 

 The evil which we fear and expect is not so much the 

 great cost and difficulty of obtaining good seed, but in 

 the loss of crop that will be caused by trusting to bad 

 seed. 



It is true that wheat and other seeds which are much 

 shrivelled, or otherwise of very base qualif}'^, will 

 sprout and grow, and their produce may be perfect and 

 well matured. It is one of the many laws of the 

 Creator, in wLich a benevolent and preserving care is 

 manifestly and wonderfully exhibited, that the germi- 

 nating power is the last to be destroyed by causes that 

 injure seeds. When they have beeng-athered so green, 

 or have been exposed to such other disasters as to be 

 good for nothing else, seeds will yet serve to continue 

 their kinds in future growths. The moth-weevil that 

 eats the inside of the grain of wheat until, apparently, 

 nothing is left but the empty skin, still avoids the 

 sprout, and leaves to it a power, however feeble, of 

 producing a living plant. But though the preservation 

 and continuance of the species is thus well provided 

 for, it is a dangerous error to suppose (as many practi- 

 cal farmers still do, as well as mere theorists have done,) 

 that if seed will sprout, it is sufficient for it to produce 

 a good crop. The whole interior substance of seeds, 

 serves for the first nutriment of the young plant, and 

 is converted into a kind of milky fluid, for that pur- 

 pose — and no other kind of food for plants, however 

 rich and abundant, will serve as a substitute for this, 

 during the early stages of growth. Compared to 

 spring-sowed seeds, wheat remains very long in what 

 may be called the first stage of growth — and therefore, 

 can still less dispense with the store of its first and 

 proper food which nature has provided in the grain it- 

 self. The want of this food w'ould be severely felt 

 even on the richest soils — and far more so on the poor. 

 I What then is to be done in the present very general 

 I deficiency of grain fit to be trusted as seed .' 

 I No complete remedy, for the country at large, can 

 be found. Good seed wheat, not mixed with seeds of 

 i weeds, is always difficult to obtain — and still more by 



