THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



353 



how much would be eaten if all had their fill, 

 because we know that a pound of bread a day 

 would be a fair allowance for each individual in 

 a family, or community, that used wheaten 

 bread without restriction. We suppose, upon 

 the average, wheat yields ^0 pounds of flour 

 per bushel, and that 40 pounds of flour make 

 60 pounds of bread; so that six bushels of 

 wheat per year, for each member of the family, 

 would be a fair calculation, provided the whole 

 population used wheat flour exclusively. But 

 they do not. 



A very large portion of the population of all 

 the Southern States live exclusively upon bread 

 made of the meal of Indian corn, as the slaves 

 maj be said never to taste wheat bread, while 

 many of their masters eat it but sparingly. In 

 the Northern States, corn, rye, buckwheat, are 

 eaten largely, and, to a limited extent, oats and 

 barley, for breadstuff, so that we doubt whether 

 the consumption of wheat in this country ex- 

 ceeds two and a half or three bushels per an- 

 num to each inhabitant. We think a calcula- 

 tion based upon three bushels a safe one, so that 

 assuming that as the quantity required for home 

 consumption, and adding the exportation of the 

 last year, the total of the crop can be approxi- 

 mated, and then if the yield of any given year 

 is equal to the previous one, the quantity it will 

 afford for exportation can be at once determined, 

 and the price abroad would be the regulator of 

 the prices at home. Now it is regulated by 

 wild and reckless speculation. To ascertain the 

 yield, consumption, quantity to export, and 

 price, should be the business of government, 

 and if this country had one, such would be its 

 business. 



Now the whole of the immense wheat busi- 

 ness, and the price and demand of different 

 sections of the country, is based upon guess- 

 work. 



This is the cause of such terrible fluctuations 

 in prices, bringing ruin upon scores of men 

 every year, who engage in such guess-work 

 business. 



It certainly would be one of the easiest things 

 in the world to ascertain, in an farmer's famil}?^ 

 that do their own milling, how much wheat is 

 used in a year, and yet we do not b'elieve one in 

 a thousand can answer the question, and we 

 doubt whether those who buy their flour could 

 give any accurate account of how many pounds 

 per head is sufficient for their yearly supply. 



It is an important question — who can answer 

 it: — What is the average crop, how much is 

 exported, and what is the annual consumption 

 of wheat in the United States ? At our rate of 

 calculation it is something over sixty millions 

 of bushels a year. The census calculation of 

 the product of 1840, was one hundred millions 

 of bushels. As the product has gained as fiist 

 as the population, that would give forty millions 

 of bushels per annum, for exportation — suf- 

 ficient we should say, always to keep the price 

 of wheat and flour far below the speculative 



price of last winter, which was based, as it has 

 proved, upon guess-work, and not on the demand 

 for export or consumption. 



D. J. Browne, Superintendent of the Agri- 

 cultural Bureau of the Patent Office, makes the 

 following calculation of the grain products of 

 the United States for the year 1855, to Avhich 

 he had added an estimate of values as follows: 



Bushels. Valve. Total Value. 



Indian Corn, 600,000,000 $0 60 $360,300,000 



Whf^at, 165,000,000 1 50 247 500 000 



Rye, 14,000,000 1 00 ]4 00o'o00 



Barley, 6,000,000 90 5,940 000 



Oats, 170,000,000 40 68,000000 



Buckwheat, 10,000,000 50 5,000,000 



Upon what data this estimate is based we are 

 not avrare, or at what point between the pro- 

 ducer and consumer the calculation of price is 

 made we are not informed. Certainly, the far- 

 mers of this country, as a whole, never realize- 

 anything like the prices affixed to the different 

 products named. The price of Indian corn in 

 all the great corn growing States of Kentucky, 

 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, will not 

 average one-third of the sum stated per bushel; 

 and we doubt whether in all the United States 

 it will average one-half. If the error in quantity 

 is equally erroneous, the table is not of much 

 value in calculating the surplus for export, or 

 the number of bushels used for home con- 

 sumption. 



The above table gives the grain products of 

 1855 at 905,000,000 of bushels, to which add, 

 as estimated in the -same calculation, 110,000,- 

 000 bushels of potatoes, and 9,500,000 bushels 

 of peas and beans, 250,000,000 pounds of rice, 

 and it does appear to us like a pretty liberal 

 allowance of breadstuff. With anything like 

 the C[uantity of the coarser portion of the pro- 

 ducts which we do not export, and a considera- 

 ble portion of which goes to swell the amount 

 of bread consumed by the people of the country, 

 we are satisfied that our calculation of three 

 bushels per head as an average consumption of 

 wheat each year, is fully up to the mark, and 

 all the excess over that quantity of an}'- crop, 

 may be set down as so much surplus to feed 

 some other country, less the small quantity 

 used in starch and cloth manufactories. 



Now, if we could have an accurate census of 

 the production of the country taken ever}?- five 

 years, and then some careful estimates of the 

 actual consumption, it would be very easy to 

 determine every year what was the actual sur- 

 plus on hand, and so reguhite the price upon 

 the only true basis — demand and supply. 



The price of wheat in Chicago and other 

 great wheat marts of the West, has quadrupled 

 in ten years. Such fluctuations are not advant- 

 ageous to producer or consumer, and only ccca- 

 sionally to the grain merchant. They can only 

 be obviated by a careful ascertainment of the 

 annual production of the country, and the aver- 

 age annual consumption per capita of the whole 

 people, and how much consumption is affected 

 by high or low prices. Not that the people can 



