ANNUAL KEPORT—AGRICULTURE. 
19 
]ar crop. As a consequence, the price went down so rapidly 
that, like the holders of wool the year previous, producers of 
wheat were unwilling to sell, preferring to put in store, and 
trust to an early return to something near the previous high 
rates—a condition of things still further postponed by the un¬ 
usually large yield in foreign countries, by the fall in gold, 
and by an increasing stringency in financial matters through¬ 
out the country. 
Unhappily, we are without such statistical returns as would 
settle the question of total yield, and are thereforp obliged to 
put up with the best estimates, which have ranged between 
20,000,000 and 25,000,000. 
The average yield per acre, as reported by the department 
of agriculture, on the basis of voluntary returns and estimates 
by agents of its appointment, was 13.d bushels, being one- 
tenth of a bushel less than that of Maine, two-tenths less than 
that of Ohio, seven-tenths Jess than that of New York, one 
bushel less than that of Minnesota, one and two-tenths less 
than that of New Jersey, two and two-tenths less than that of 
Connecticut and New Hampshire, two and five-tenths less than 
that of Nebraska, two and seven-tenths less than that of Ver¬ 
mont and Massachusetts, three and two-tenths less than that 
of Kansas, four and seven-tenths bushels less than that of Cal¬ 
ifornia, and larger, in a varying proportion, than that of other 
states not enumerated. 
The average price of No. 1 wheat, at Milwaukee, which 
during the year 1868 declined from $2,091 (the average 
price for April ol that year) to $1.22 (the price in December),, 
gradually fell during 1869, until at last it reached $0.861— 
the lowest figure it had touched since 1862, as will appear by 
the following statement, gleaned from the report of the secre¬ 
tary of the board of trade : 
