88 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Fes., 1898. 
It appears that the report relating to the Russian crops emanated from a 
Russian paper, in which a great mistake had been made in an attempt to extend 
the official estimates, as to yield, given in total by the Ministry for Agriculture 
for only the fifty Governments of Russia proper, to Poland and the Caucasus, 
in respect of which only rough estimates of percentage decrease on the average 
yield per acre were issued. The statistics sent direct from the Ministry to the 
Corn Trade News, converted into measured quarters, are as follows, for Russia 
in Europe (exclusive of Poland) only :— 
1895, 1896. 1897. 
Qr. 
Qr. Qr. 
Wheat ...—... 28,944,000... 27,216,000 ... 22,530,000 
Here we have a deficiency, comparing the wheat crop in Russia proper for 
1897 with that of 1896, approaching 5,000,000 quarters, instead of the small 
deficiency indicated by the unauthorised extension of the figures to a much 
larger portion of the Empire, and a comparison of the total with the 1896 crop 
on astill larger area, given in the Russian paper. The Ministry of Agriculture 
estimates the crop of Russia proper at 17 per cent. less than the previous 
year’s production, and this reckoning, applied to the total for the whole Empire, 
as given in the final estimate of the Bureau of Statistics for 1896, or 48,455,000 
quarters, would make the crop in the Empire, for 1897, about 40,000,000 
quarters, or between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000 less than the previous year’s crop. 
The deficiency in the rye crop is still more serious. Again, the report that 
South Australia will have no surplus is confirmed, and Argentine papers just 
received contain accounts of increasing destruction by locusts, confirmed by 
some telegrams, and ignored by others. On the other hand, the wheat crop in 
India has had a capital start. 
Taking the present position of affairs in the wheat markets of the world, 
it would appear reasonable to look for a hardening market in the near future. 
Co-operative Bacon Factories. 
Tue benefits to be derived from co-operation have so often been written upon, 
explained, and definitely proved, that it would seem superfluous to again allude 
to the question. Still there is, amongst many other industries, one which 
should commend itself strongly to agriculturists as a valuable object for co- 
operation. ‘There are very few holdings, large or small, on which swine are not 
kept, either for domestic use or for sale; and one of the complaints of the 
farmers is that, although occasionally good prices are obtained for pigs, as a 
rule, they are obliged to take whatever price is offered by the butcher, the 
factory, or the middleman, or else let the animals cat their heads off till the 
market improves. > 
In view of this state of affairs, why cannot the farmers in a district 
combine and start a co-operative factory for the curing of hams and bacon ? 
We lately heard a great deal of the dairying industry of Denmark, and 
we know that their butter fetches a very high price in England. But, besides 
being dairymen, the Danes are also exporters of ham and bacon, which 
commodities are prepared in co-operative factories, run by the farmers. As in 
Queensland, co-operative sugar-mills, or central mills as they are called, are 
erected with money borrowed from the Government on the security of the 
farmers’ lands, so in Denmark the cost of establishing bacon-curing factories 
is defrayed by loans raised on security given by the promoters of the work. 
