Bread for Sale

In its inevitable seasonal progression last week the North American wheat harvest rolled into the red-gold acres of Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota. Northward away from the declining sun the harvest will sweep until the snow flies around the threshing machines in Canada's Peace River district on the Arctic's frontier. Through vast areas of Canada's Prairie Provinces the harvest's conglomerate followers will pass swiftly, for those flat lands have been seared by drought, wasted by rust until the Dominion has resigned itself to the lightest wheat crop in modern years.

But throughout the stubbled country to the south the clattering of harvesters and combines made a rejoicing sound. In some spots there had been drought, in others black rust, in still others grasshoppers. But the harvest was the U. S.'s fattest in six long years--a billion-dollar crop. After satisfying its own needs of some 650,000,000 bu. and adding 35,000,000 bu. to its depleted carry-over reserve, the U. S. would have perhaps 165,000,000 bu. to toss into the breadbaskets of Europe.

For two years the U. S. has been an importer of wheat, and for three years before that it sold practically no wheat abroad because the domestic price was artificially high. Today U. S. wheat at $1.20 per bu. in Chicago is the cheapest export wheat in the world. The world is short of wheat and the U. S. has more to sell than any other country. The first wheat boats from Chicago sailed last week.

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