790 



The Corn Markets in December. 



[JAN., 



There are a fair number of cattle sold at so much per lb. dead 

 weight, sinking the offal in favour of the purchaser. 



The number of buyers attending this market varies from 500 to 600, 

 purchasers attending" from all the principal towns of Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire. 



THE CORN MARKETS IN DECEMBER. 

 C. Kains-Jackson. 



Inquiry for grain in the three working weeks before people began 

 to go away for the Christmas holidays was below the average, and 

 there was no effective resumption of trade on the four last days of the 

 month. Thus the new year enters with every prospect of brisk trade, the 

 stores in the hands of bakers and corn chandlers being decidedly small, 

 while millers hold much smaller quantities of foreign wheat than is 

 usually the case at this date. Some of them, however, are well stocked 

 with English wheat. The importers of grain closed the old year with 

 less wheat than usual in the port granaries, but they are overstocked 

 to some degree with light and inferior oats and barley, largely Russian. 

 The stores of maize are extremely small, so that the new crop supplies 

 from the United States will not improbably be absorbed without causing 

 any marked depression in prices during January. The November imports 

 were much below the average, and those of December still more so. 

 The cold weather on the 27th increased retail consumption, but did not 

 affect any December exchanges. An exception was to be found in appear- 

 ance in the price of Town Household Flour in London being raised 6d. 

 per sack on the 30th, but this official quotation of the London Millers' 

 Association is rather a herald of coming value than a record of business 

 done. " Town Whites," as usual, accompanied the ordinary grade in its 

 price change, keeping, also as customary, a distance of three shillings 

 per sack in advance of average quality. 



Wheat. — The price of English wheat for December will encourage 

 or depress the grower accordingly as he compares it with the last three 

 months, or with a whole year back. On the nearer comparison, is. to 

 is. recovery, no negligible quantity, is shown. On the twelvemonth 

 there is about a florin fall. This decline has been caused by the very 

 free sales to millers. British wheat-growers seem to find it very difficult 

 to refuse a bond fide cash offer of over thirty shillings per quarter, and 

 millers, finding that foreign wheat was stiffly held, have been willing 

 to pay for English produce 305. at the lowest ; at the highest, perhaps, 

 375. per quarter. Foreign wheat declined during December is. to is. 6d. 

 on Canadian, gd. to is. on United States produce, the result very 

 largely of price changes at New York, which on November 28th was 

 paying 395. id. for winter wheat, but on December 19th only 375. 6d. 

 per quarter. Before the new year there was a slight recovery, 1908 at 

 New York closing with a 385. quotation. Freights are amazingly low, 

 and grain which costs 385. at New York can be delivered on quay at 

 Liverpool or into Tilbury Docks at 405. per qr. Still 405. is substantially 

 above the price of English wheat, and no pressure upon values for the 

 latter can be said in December to have come from the imported produce 

 of North America. . The Canadian surplus is clearly a large one, and 



