Wheat

On indications that the world supply of wheat for the coming year would be larger than previously anticipated, wheat prices in the Chicago wheat pit have slumped for some time. The fear has even been expressed that the price of a bushel of wheat might descend below $1.00 on the present movement.

Canada particularly is becoming a bigger competitor of America in the world wheat markets; India's surplus is estimated at 90,000,000 bushels, compared with only 9,000,000 last year; the European countries, even including Russia, are showing greater production. The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates the American wheat crop this year at 817,000,000 in addition to a carry-over from the last crop of about 140,000,000 bushels, or almost a billion bushels all told. Our home consumption, including seed wheat, and our exports for the coming year are estimated by the same authority as about 800,000,000 bushels.

In a telegram to Secretary Wallace, of the Department of Agriculture, the American Farm Bureau Federation requested President Harding's assistance in a scheme for withholding the surplus 200,000,000 bushels from the market during the coming year, and " stabilizing" the price of wheat at about $1.50. The plan involves the use of credit from the new Intermediate Credit Banks.