EQUALIZATION OF THE PRICE OF WHEAT BY IMPROVED STORAGE.
1 Adam Street, Adelphi, 3d October 1853. Sin—Political economy teaches us that the supply of all necessaries, food included, is most safely left to the operations of individual buying and sell- ing ; and that rises in prices are the salutary methods whereby people are unconsciously made to economize their consumption, and thus enable a limited supply to hold out, just as Joseph in the olden time in Egypt kept corn in hand till the years of famine had expired. But Joseph did keep corn in hand ; and probably the Egyptian dry climate had much to do with its duration : possibly some of the mummy wheat of our time may have been of the identical grain hoarded by Joseph.
Our English grain is of three classes ; two of which, oats and barley, are kept in the husk. Wheat is shelled out, and consequently is more exposed. The methods used to preserve it do not seem adapted to our climate and it is not considered in the light of a permanent substance, if we may judge from the fact, that while money may be borrowed on the mortgage of pipes of brandy in the docks, the like thing does not take place with a stock of wheat in a granary. The one is considered a real property, the other ephemeral. We hear constantly of damaged wheat, but not of damaged brandy ; and of all fluctuating prices those of wheat are the most uncertain. To specu- late in wheat, is commonly supposed to require more shrewdness, skill, and knowledge, than most other mercantile transactions, and commercial disas- ters in wheat are more common than in other commodities.
Why should this be ? Why should an article in such universal demand be a source of peril to those dealing in it ? The only apparent reason is, its perishable nature, the uncertainty of its remaining a fixed quantity in the granary that holds it. A thousand quarters may go in, good sound wheat ; and in a month or two, by the operation of rats, mice, weevil, mildew, and men, may come out five hundred, and this amount reduced in value by the double operations of meting and transit thereof. Most things connected with the storage and transit of wheat appear to be ill arranged. Home-grown wheat is tied up in sheaves and stacked—the stacks being erected on stone stilts to keep out vermin. It is usually thrashed out to send to market. If bought by the miller, it is ground up ; if by the speculator, it is conveyed to a granary. A granary is a building of better or worse construction according to lo- cality and circumstances, and is commonly situated on the banks of a navi- gable stream, or in a seaport-town. In most cases it is exposed to a very moist atmosphere. If of large size, the granary usually consists of many stories with wooden floors, barely sufficient for a man to stand upright, and with numerous small windows for the purpose of ventilation. The wheat is laid on the floors from eighteen inches to two feet in thickness. Previous to storing, it must have undergone the process of weighing or measuring ; which has added to its cost. Transit and storing has added to this expense ; and when in the granary it is frequently turned over by men with wooden shovels, to prevent mildew or fermentation by damp. This is a third source of expense. Loss by vermin, or by pilfering, is a fourth item. When sold, there is a fifth and sixth item in remeting and transit. Wheat is heavy, and the granary must be a very strong building. Owing to the necesety of ventilation, the bulk of wheat stored is only equivalent to one-third or one-half the cubic contents of the building ; and this again adds considerably to the dead capitol employed, and on which interest has to be calculated. Another evil is, that for want of efficient granaries on a small scale in different localities, there is a tendency to the gathering together of large stocks of wheat in particular districts, which is subsequently redistri- buted, perhaps carried back to the original localities. It would appear, then, that the want of efficient storage to preserve wheat permanently is one of the main causes not merely of the fluctuations in price, but of a generally much higher price than would obtain if we could make as sure of it as of a cargo of deals or coals. More persona would then embark in the trade, and there would be less tendency to make hurried sales for fear of loss. It would be a safer business for monied capitalists ; the difference between harvest-time and winter prices would lessen; lucky specu- lations would be less numerous, but heavy losses would also lessen and general profits would increase. It would be a far better trade for those desirous of obtaining a lower but sure profit on their capital, and the advantages to the general community of obtaining the staple article of their food with little fluctuation in price would be very great.
There does not seem to be any difficulty in the matter, if we can divest ourselves of preconceived ideas ; of the notion that a granary or grain re- ceptacle must necessarily be a building with a floor and windows more or less multiplied in altitude. We may reason by analogy as to what is the cheapest and most effective means of securing perishable commodities from the action of the atmosphere and vermin. In -England we put our flour in sacks. Brother Jonathan puts his in barrels ; which does not thoroughly answer ; for, through the fissures or pores, the atmosphere turns sour or musty a portion from half an inch to an inch in thickness, and sometimes the whole mass,—as witness the return cargoes now coming from Australia, to do duty, mixed with cotton, in our calico-manufactories, and subsequently be washed out by our housewives. If Brother Jonathan wishes really to pre- serve his flour or his " crackers " undamaged, he makes them thoroughly dry and cool, and hermetically seals them in tin cans. This also is a com-
mon process to prevent goods being damaged at sea. The Chinese, not having much facility for metal manufacture, line wooden chests with thin sheet- lead or tin, and pack their teas in them. In England we keep our tea and sugar in cases of tinned sheet-iron. We preserve meat in tinned cases her- metically sealed. We put fruit into sealed bottles. In all these cases, the object is to exclude the air as well as vermin. There can be no doubt that if we were to put dry wheat in an her- metically-sealed tinned case, it might be kept as long as the famed " mummy- wheat ' of Egypt. This will readily be admitted, but the expense would be queried. Let us examine into this. A canister is a metallic reservoir; so is a gasometer ; so is an iron water-tank in a ship, at a railway-station, or else- where ; and a cubic foot of water-tank on a very large scale will be found to cost very much less than a cubic foot of canister on a small scale. And if a bushel of wheat be more valuable than a bushel of water, it will clearly pay to put wheat into huge canisters of iron. The wheat-canister, in short, should be a wrought or cast metal tank of greater or less size according to the wants of the owner, whether for the farmer's crop or the grain-merchant's stock. This tank should be constructed of small parts connected together by screw-bolts ; and, consequently, easily transported from place to place. The internal parts should be galvanized to prevent rust, and the external parts also if desired. It should be hermetically tight at all the joints ; and the only opening should be what is called a man-hole, that is to say a canister-top, where the lid goes on, large enough to admit a man. When filled with grain, the top should be put on, the fitting of the edge forming an air-tight joint. Wheat put dry into such a vessel, and without any vermin, would remain wheat for any number of years, But an additional advantage to such a reservoir would be an air-pump, by the application of which, for the purpose of exhaustion, any casual vermin would be killed. If the grain were moist, the same air-pump might be used to draw a current of warm air through it to carry off the moisture. By this process, and subsequently keeping out the air, the grain might be preserved for any length of time. As the reservoir would be perfectly air- tight and water-tight, it might be buried in the ground with perfect safety ; and thus cellars might be rendered available for granaries, economizing space of comparative little value. The grain would be easily poured in from the surface, and to discharge it an Archimedean screw should be used. The size of the reservoir should be proportioned to the locality ; and it should hold a specific number of quarters, so as to serve as a measure of quantity and prevent the expense of meterage. Reservoirs of this kind, of large size, should be placed in the ground, with rails running above them, so that waggons might run over them and discharge their contents inside by a hopper below. Thus, the grain of a corn district might be concentrated by railway at one spot, and discharged and reloaded at any time with the minimum of manual labour, without the expense of meterage, supposing the waggons to be constructed on the same principle of a specific quantity. The communicating railways would thus transfer grain without trouble from one locality to another ; and if run on to the docks and shipping, the same arrangements would serve both for export and import grain. If constructed above the ground, a stair or ladder must communicate with the upper part, and the lower part must be formed like a hopper for the purpose of discharge. For many farm localities this arrangement might be best ; and wheat might be thrashed into grain direct from the field, and stored.
For public granaries the reservoirs might be made in compartments, and provided with locks, keys, and seals. A merchant might deposit his grain therein, lock it up quite secure against fire, vermin, or robbery, and deposit for any length of time, quite sure that when he might come back he would find it in the same condition, and of the same quantity. Or he might transfer it when away from home, the purchaser receiving it as exact measure, without fresh meterage.
Granaries of this description would occupy less than one-third the cubic space of those of the ordinary description, and their coat would be less than one-fifth.
They might be erected in any part of Europe, without regard to locality or climate.
They might be built as Government magazines, supposing it were desirable so to invest public money ; but the greater security to holders would insure a much larger constant surplus than now usually exists under a sense of insecurity, against decay. With this security for storing safely, a farmer would have less hesitation in sowing great breadths of land. He would not be driven to market under an average value, and might choose his own time for selling. The fear of loss being dispelled, people would buy with less hesitation, and the great food-stores of the community would by a wholesome competition insure the great mass of the community against a short supply. But so long as uncer- tainty shall prevail in the storage of grain, so long will it be a perilous trade to those engaged in it, and so long will the food of the community be sub- ject to a very irregular fluctuation of prices. There is nothing difficult in this proposition. It is merely applying ex- isting arrangements to unusual cases. There needs but the practical ex- ample to be set by influential people, and the great mass will travel in the same track. To the wealthy agriculturist it will be but the amplification of the principle of the tin-lined corn-bin, that keeps out the rats from the oats of the stable. The experiment might be complete in a month; the ex- perience may spread over all time, or till wheat shall cease to be a human food, by the substitution of some vegetable substance better fitted for the nourishment of man,—a problem not yet solved.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully, W. BEIDGES ADAMS.
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