"It is indisputable that in normal times when the harvests in the producing countries 

 are favourable, the state of affairs which has led to the present complaints will militate 

 strongly against American certificated wheat obtaining its proper intrinsic value in 

 competition with those of other countries. It is hard to believe that even those sellers 

 who are dominated by considerations of merely personal advantage can be satisfied 

 with this state of affairs, and it must be in the highest degree unsatisfactory to honour- 

 able traders in the States who have to suffer for the misdeeds of the unscrupulous ones. 



"Federal Inspection seems to be the only way to produce a uniformity in quality. 

 Any other way may well be described as a "stupendous undertaking." The want of 

 uniformity in a system of grading must result in a lowering of the value of the whole 

 crop, for buyers naturally base their price on the poorest quality they may receive. 

 Separate grading by different ports tends to the lowering of the grades in the endeavour 

 to secure trade. 



"In our opinion neither sellers nor buyers should serve upon grading Committees 

 nor have control of inspections. 



"The chief point we desire to emphasize is that grain should be graded on its intrinsic 

 merits according to standards which should not vary from season to season. Uniformity 

 of treatment should be accorded to domestic and foreign buyers. For these and other 

 reasons Federal grading appears to be necessary if operations in American grain are to 

 be conducted to the greatest mutual advantage of traders on both sides of the Atlantic, 

 and if the producer is to receive the highest current prices for his grain." 



Record Crops, their Infrequency and their Recurrence — Significance of this 



Fact. 



The United States have, in the last three years, 1913, 1914, and 1915, established 

 each year a new high record production of wheat, viz.: 763,000,000, 891,000,000, and 

 1,011,000,000 bushels respectively. We have examined the annual production of the 

 United States since she began to become a big exporter in 1882 and find no repetition 

 of such an extraordinary performance. There are not even two new high records 

 following each other. An examination of the following table will show how infrequent 

 these new high records have been and how sometimes long periods of average low 

 production have followed them. 



• Millions 



Year of Bushels 



1882 504 Record. 



1883 421 



1884 512 Record. 



1885 357 



1885-90 Average 6 years 425 



1891 611 Record. 



1892 515 



1892-97 Average 6 years 466 



1898 675 Record. 



1899 547 



1900 522 ' 



1901 748 Record. 



1902 670 



1904 552 



*1902-12 Average 11 years 659 



Million Yield 

 Acres Per Acre. 



1913 50 15.2 763 Record. 



1914 53 16.6 891 Record. 



1915 59 16.9 1,011 Record. 



*Average acreage 46,000,OCO acres. 



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