Wheat and Wheat Flour

Abstract

IN order objectively and judiciously to appraise the position and purpose of wheat culture and exports of the United States, we must include consideration of the wheat of Canada. From the standpoint of North American wheat growing, agriculturally and geographically, the boundary between Canada and the United States is artificial. The boundary has, however, determined developments in transportation, milling, trade and banking. Whatever view one may hold on the subject of tariff on wheat, the United States, with large population and low per capita wheat production, is directly faced by Canada, with small population and high per capita wheat production. The relations between the United States and Canada find expression in competition between their wheats within each country and in the common cereal markets of the world. If it were not for divergent varieties and qualities, Europe would regard North American wheat as unity. For American mills, however, the wheats of North America are not a manufacturing unity. In the charts on pages 34 and 35 are depicted the changing positions of wheat crops and exports of the United States and Canada during the past three decades, under the combined influences of natural developments and war. From this chart one makes the inference that expansion of wheat growing and exporting may be expected to continue in Canada. There is still virgin wheat land in the Prairie Provinces of Canada adapted to Marquis wheat. A new Canadian wheat has recently been developed, called Garnet; if the predictions for this wheat are fulfilled as w re the predictions made for Marquis wheat when it was introduced, a long east-and-west belt lying north of the p esent Marquis belt will become available for the growing of high-grade wheat. Canada is in the full swing of the extractive stage of wheat growing; the United States, apart from one area centering around western Kansas, is passing out of this stage. Appraising the data in the light of increase of population, dimensions of agricultural areas and expansion of acreage since 1890, one realizes that the United States has passed out of the homestead phase of wheat growing, while Canada has not yet reached the crest of the development. Canada is expanding in the direction of greater exportation; we are contracting in the direction of self-sufficiency. Table I presents for the United States the figures for crop estimates, exports of wheat, exports of flour, imports of wheat and imports of flour for the crop years 1904-05 to 1913-14 and 1921-22 to 1925-26, with net export of all wheat in terms of wheat and the percentage of this net export to the crop. Table II presents for Canada the corresponding data for the same periods. The transit wheat and flour passing into export is excluded. The table for the United States presents an exaggerated figure for export for the post-war period, because a considerable volume of flour ground from Canadian wheat is included in the domestic flour export, a matter to 30