$1.50 Wheat

In the days when farmers were demanding that wheat prices be pegged, not even the farm bloc would have ventured to set the official price at $1.50 a bushel. What the economic vagaries of the farm politicians did not dare, the forces of supply and demand have accomplished, and wheat futures touched that price recently in the open Chicago market.

This year, according to the Department of Agriculture, only five countries are expected to have important amounts of wheat for export: Canada, 200 to 180 million bushels; the U. S., 180 to 165 million bushels; Argentina, 170 to 150 million; Australia, 85 to 75 million; India, 35 to 25 million; all other countries, 15 to 5 million. The total thus will run between 635 and 600 million bushels.

Of this exportable surplus, about 150 million bushels will go to continents other than Europe. According to recent estimates, Europe will need between 554 and 460 million bushels of wheat in 1924-25. Disappointing harvests have occurred in France, Russia and Poland, as a result of excessive rainfall. The European demand is accordingly bidding for wheat, and the result is a buoyant and rising grain market.