97 



best commentary that can be made upon the uncertainty that must always 

 attend the fixing a value upon our wheat. The table is as follows, and is 

 for April first of each year: 1878, 50 shillings; 1879, 45 shillings; 1880, 45 

 shillings; 1881, 85 shillings; 1882, 65 shillings; 1883, 35 shillings; 1884, 

 35 shillings; 1885, 36.3 shillings; 1886, 32.6 shillings; 1887, 22.6 shillings; 

 1888, 25 shillings. 



Our isolated situation adds still more to the difficulty, because Liverpool 

 fixes the price of our home market. Mr. Starr, at Port Costa, pays about 

 the price in Liverpool, less freight to Liverpool, plus cost of carriage from 

 the interior. General Bidwell, at Chico, pays the Liverpool price, less cost 

 of carriage to Port Costa, and thence to Liverpool. And so we in California 

 are raising wheat in direct competition with all the world. This is not so 

 in the great country east of the Rocky Mountains. The home consumption 

 is enormous. The great manufacturing centers in the East are large buyers, 

 and never ship from East to West. 



The change from East to West of wheat production is an interesting fact 

 in .agriculture, and deserves passing mention. 



In 1849 the Atlantic Coast produced 51.4 per cent of all our wheat. The 

 central belt, 43.3 per cent, and the trans-Mississippi only 5.3 per cent. 

 Gradually this changed so that in 1884 the order stood thus: Atlantic 

 Coast, 12.2 per cent; the central belt, 36.1 per cent; and the trans-Missis- 

 sippi, 51.7 per cent. The great West went from 5 per cent to 51 per cent, 

 and the Atlantic Coast, from 51 per cent down to 12. 



The increase in absolute quantities on the Atlantic Coast was slight, but 

 west of the Mississippi it went from five million two hundred and eighty- 

 eight thousand nine hundred and eight bushels in 1849 to two hundred and 

 sixty-four million nine hundred and twenty-six thousand bushels in 1884. 



Whence comes our competition ? It comes from the wheat growers in 

 our own country and from foreign lands. 



Steamer rates from New York City to Liverpool, per ton, are . $1 80 



Water rates from Chicago to New York, per ton, are 1 82 



From Chicago to Liverpool $3 62 



The average rate from San Francisco to Liverpool for the past eleven years is, per 



ton, 43 shillings, equal to _ $10 75 



To this add interior freights, averaging, probably on the whole crop shipped, per ton. 2 50 



Total, California to Liverpool __ _ $13 25 



This shows that we start in the race for Liverpool with our eastern farmer 

 at a great disadvantage — nearly 30 cents a bushel. Our present rates of 

 freight are not much over half the average for eleven years, but even this 

 makes the cost to us more than double the cost from Chicago. 



Another competitor on this continent I think will be the provinces of 

 Canada, along the line of her great continental railroad. I am informed 

 that an immense area of wheat land, equal in productiveness to our Dakota 

 lands, lies along that road. British enterprise and British determination 

 to be independent of the world for food products, will soon be directed 

 towards that region. 



British India already is a large factor in wheat competition, although not 

 yet so formidable as has been feared. It seems to me, however, that a people 

 who work for a few cents a day, who plow with a stick, who thrash with a 

 flail, and market dirt and seeds of weeds with the grain, and themselves live 

 on rice and millet, and scarcely know the taste of wheat, and outnumber 

 us four times, who can increase their exports from two hundred and sixty- 

 7 h 



