Great Gains In Grain

Tt is estimated that six countries in Europe will this year be compelled to buy tliree lmndred million bushels of wheat and that Trance and England will need three-f ourths of this quantity, while France's share alone will cost her one milliard of francs, or a flf th of the Bum of her famous ransom. In France, England, Italy, Spain, the low countries and Switzerland the harvest is bad - not merely for wheat or cereals generally, but for crops of all kinds - so that those countries will not only have to buy, but will have less than ■"(iniinnii tn hny v.ith. It i tuL-un Lor granted that speculation will curry the price of all this grain to an important point beyond that at which it ordinarily rules, though we scaFcely see how it can carry it to the point estimated for France by Frenen economists ; but if it reaches that point the several countries named will together pay about six hundred million dollars for f ood to f oreign countries - an enormous burden on their resources, and one likely to stir to ■ the last extremity the latent discontents of the people. More than half of that sum will come to thia country. Southern Russia, Austria, the countries on the lower Danube, India, Hungary and Egypt will divide the rest between them. Our country could supply more than half this defleiency, for our crops are the most abundant ever known, and could supply it at prices that would undersell the world; but the speculator must make more than the farmer, and he will run the figures uy. The operations this year will tend to greatly stimulate the cultivation of wheat lands, and there is an unsettled district in northern Texas.which, it is believed, could supply alone as much as Europe needs this year. In this year's experiences will be seen one of the great results of the rapid commercial communication that rules in the world. All the west of Europe would be afflicted with f amine this winter if this were not an age of telegraphs and steamships and the systematic interchange of information. - N.Y. Herald.