Surely the price of wheat has touched bottom. On Monday
last "a good sample of Fen wheat" was sold at Sleaford market for 16s, 6d. per quarter, and many excellent lots, such as last year would have fetched 25s. per quarter, sold at 17s. Prices so low have, it is said, never been recorded. It is needless to say that it does not pay to grow wheat at that price. The farmer, if he grows wheat, grows it for the straw, and treats the grain as an extra which will bring him in something in addition. Of course the competition of foreign wheat is the cause, but there remains a mystery. How can it pay to bring American wheat here, and sell it at prices which send English wheat to 17s, when it is admitted that American wheat costs 30s. a quarter to produce in America, and before the carriage to England is paid ? These are the official figures given in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture. No wonder that the mortgages on American land are advancing by leaps and bounds. A Committee of the Senate on Agricultural Depression in America recently reported that the mortgage-debt on real estate (land and houses) "was equal to a debt of £21 to each person in the United States." If the mortgages stilt roll up, and prices still fall, what will be the end
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