Show I NO DANqER OPFAMHi I Sir William Crooles Wheat Forecasts Fore-casts Were Inaccurate Albany N Y Dec 25J n Dodge for many years statistician of the United States department of agriculture agricul-ture at Washington has written to the Country Gentleman an exhaustive answer an-swer to the address cf Sir William Jrookes before the British Science association ociatlon in which the latter predicted 1 great wheat famine He takes Sir William to task for presenting inaccu ate figures SHe S-He says lSlr William Crookes de cares that there is already a deficit of wheat area of nooo square miles or approximately 20000000 acres rather t l4 f j i nreaonable in view of the fact that I this area at the present rate of Yield wuld produce nearly 2GOOOOOOO bushels bush-els while the European deficiency which is the principal one iI the world I is by the Beerbohm record only 310 000000 bushels He assumes that the present annual requirement for bread I is 2324000000 bushels of wheat while the official and expert estimates for the I period since 1896 average more than that figure the compilation of such estimates for seven years by the department de-partment 01 agriculture averaging 244845000 an excess of over 150000 000 though the eminent scientist is almost al-most as lame in his statistics of consumption con-sumption as he is in those of production produc-tion really minimizing both He makes the supply of the year onlY9Z1OOOOOO while in the statement quoted above the product of 1897 the smal st of seven sev-en yea is given a 2H000JOOO It is a very unreliable forecast that understates production nearly 10 per ment I would be uncharitable to hope for n scarcity of bread rations still our wheatgower would not feel very despondent de-spondent over a prospect of good prices The Crookes view is a distinct encouragement encour-agement to them and similar views have been put forth sometimes apparently appar-ently in the hope of raising prices Unfortunately Un-fortunately when exaggerated a temporary tem-porary rise of 10 per cent is followed as the result of natural reaction and from the effect of increase of area stimulated stimu-lated by temporary advance in value by a fall of 20 t 30 per cent as between be-tween 1891 and 1895 I is hard to con vince people scientists a well a plain I people that honesty is the best policy I and truth in statistics cannot be safely departed from The practice of stock I exchanges as well as that of bucket I shops to secure a temporary advantage can never aid the cause of science or of I rural economy |