THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



343 



gards the high price of grain. Considering 

 the circumstances affecting prices, existing in 

 our country and throughout the world, the 

 present price of grain is very low. Let as ad- 

 vert to some of these circumstances. 



I. 



The cost of production. However much 

 prices of commodities may be affected from 

 time to time by supply and demand, it cannot 

 be doubted that in the long run the cost of 

 production will regulate prices. The cost of 

 wheat to the producer is the rent of land, the 

 wages of labor, and the profits of capital ne- 

 cessary to produce it. For fifty years or more 

 the average price of wheat in New York has 

 been over one dollar a bushel. The wheat 

 until of late years was grown on new lands, 

 requiring no manure, and by labor demanding 

 less than half the present rate of wages. Now 

 it is grown to a great extent on exhausted lands, 

 requiring a heavy outlay in guano, lime and 

 other expensive manures. In harvest, three 

 dollars are often demanded for a day's labor, 

 whilst formerly one dollar was the highest price 

 paid. So scarce and dear is labor, that crops 

 in the West are left to rot upon the ground, 

 because of the impossibility of saving them. 

 In Virginia, and other southern grain-growing 

 States, the price of labor has, within a few 

 years, more than doubled. Such laborers as 

 sold a few years ago for four or five hundred 

 dollars, now readily command a thousand ; and 

 such as hired for sixty dollars, are now in de- 

 mand in the factories, and public improvements, 

 at one hundred and fifty dollars a year. Medi- 

 cal bills and life insurance being also paid by 

 the hirers. Mules that sold for fifty or sixty 

 dollars, now bring from one hundred and ten to 

 one hundred and fifty dollars, and lands also 

 have advanced more than 100 per cent. Is it 

 wonderful that where all the elements of prices 

 have more than doubled, that the price of grain 

 should advance? I repeat, it is extremely 

 low, and but for the money pressure, occasioned 

 by over-trading and fraudulent stock specula- 

 tions, wheat would be to-day $2 50 per bushel 

 in the principal markets of the United States. 

 This general rise of prices is not speculative 

 or transitory, but permanent and progressive. 

 Hume, in his essay on money, has described 

 this subject with much greater clearness than 

 is exhibited in the more elaborate articles pub- 

 lished during the last year or two in the fo- 

 reign periodicals. He says, that at the end of 

 the century from the discovery of the Spanish 

 mines in South America, prices had advanced 

 more than 400 per cent., and would have ad- 

 vanced still more but for the increased demand 

 for money, arising from the new impulse to en- 



terprise occasioned by the influx of the precious 

 metals. If the opening of those mines, chiefly 

 of silver, produced such an effect upon prices, 

 during the last century, what may we not ex- 

 pect during the next, from the vast treasures 

 in gold continuity pouring in from the mines of 

 California and Australia? Mankind seem to 

 forget that gold is but the measure and not the 

 standard of value, and that it fluctuates quite 

 as much in price as other commodities ; its 

 value being at last regulated by the cost of 

 production. None need be surprised if the 

 average price of wheat for the next century 

 should exceed two dollars and fifty cents a 

 bushel. This cause operating on prices is a 

 permanent one, only to be checked by the fail- 

 ure of the gold mines. There are other causes 

 affecting prices of grain, more or less tempo- 

 rary, that require notice, 

 II. 



The price of grain is not regulated by the 

 quantity of land in the country, or even by 

 the quantity in actual cultivation, but by the 

 labor and capital that can be employed in ma- 

 nuring the land, and producing the crops. No 

 greater error can exist, than that it is possible 

 naturally to increase crops by increasing the 

 breadth of land sown, without a corresponding 

 increase of labor and capital. The census re- 

 veals some striking facts on this subject, which 

 it is well to consider. The tendency of our 

 population is to the cities and towns, fearfully 

 increasing the number of consumers without a 

 corresponding increase of producers. From 

 among many others, take these examples : The 

 increase of population in the State of New 

 York, from 1840 to 1850, was 668,475 ; of 

 this increase the city of New York had about 

 202,837, and Brooklyn, Albany, Buffalo, Ro- 

 chester, Troy and Utica, had together 132,230; 

 making in the aggregate an increase in these 

 seven cities of 335,067 — being more than one- 

 half the entire increase of the State. If the in- 

 quiry were pursued through all the towns and 

 villages of the State, it would probably appear, 

 that whilst in this great State there is a fearful 

 increase of mouths to be fed, the rural population 

 — the only producers — have in fact been dimin- 

 ished. The increase of population during the 

 decade in Pennsylvania, was 587,753 ; of 

 this increase Philadelphia alone had 1 19,622. 

 In slaveholding Maryland the same state of 

 things to some extent prevails — though happily 

 for the inhabitants and the welfare of the coun- 

 try at large, the general tendency of the slave- 

 holding States is to a diffusion of the popula- 

 tion over the rural districts. The increase in 

 Maryland was 113,015; of which the city of 

 Baltimore alone had 66,741. It will thus be 



