CARRIAGE OF WHEAT FROM CHICAGO. ~ 235: 
district of Zleiten, it is stored in wells sunk in the rock, and 
keeps good for several years, but this custom does not obtain 
elsewhere, owing to the sandy character of the soil. Mr. Jago 
estimates from the best information available that the barley 
harvest varies, according to the amount and distribution 
of the rainfall, between 1,400,000 and 2,000,000 bushels ; the: 
former representing a fairly good harvest, and the latter a. 
very good one, occurring about once in 1o years. In bad. 
years the yield falls as lowas 475,000 bushels. 
The extent of land suitable for the cultivation of wheat is. 
restricted, and while barley straw is used as fodder for 
animals, wheaten straw is valueless. During the past ten years,. 
wheaten flour and semolina to the value of £30,000 to 440,000: 
a year have been imported from France, but chiefly from Italy. 
The preference for foreign flour is largely caused by the 
poverty of the majority of the inhabitants of Tripoli and of 
the smaller towns, who, unable out of their small and 
precarious daily earnings to lay in even the smallest stock 
of wheat, content themselves with buying every day the small 
quantities of foreign flour which suffice for their daily wants.. 
[Forezgn Office Reports, Miscel. Series. No. 527. Price 2d.| 

THE CARRIAGE OF WHEAT FROM CHICAGO. 
The United States Department of Agriculture has published, 
in the “Crop Reporter,” some interesting information regard- 
ing the relative cost of transportation of wheat by rail and 
lake from Chicago. It appears that the railways began to: 
compete actively with the water routes for the graintrade about 
thirty years ago, but that owing to the lack of facilities for 
loading and unloading, high working expenses and small. 
train loads, they had previously been at a decided disadvan- 
tage. But improved methods, resulting in a lessened cost 
of transportation, have greatly improved the position of the 
railways, and enabled them not only to equal, but eventually to: 
surpass, their competitors in the carriage of many of the 
