Wheat and Pigs Latest reports give an encouraging account of
the harvest in most countries, though the world crop will not exceed requirements by much. An excellent harvest in America, equal to the 1928-32 five-year average, is expected to bring the farmers £2,000,000,000, or £400,000,000 more than last year. In Canada the crop has been affected by drought, but rain in the western provinces has improved its prospects and wheat prices have fallen as a result. Italy expects to cover her own needs without imports ; in Russia, though the area under wheat is smaller, the harvest is estimated to be better by ro per cent. than last year. The greatest excep- tion is Germany, in which a ro per cent decrease is expected on last year's harvest, which itself was 5 per cent. smaller than in 1935. Not even Herr Hitler is immune from the effects of drought ; the bad harvest, combined with the necessity of avoiding r..27 increase in imports, accounts for the confiscating of the entire harvest to secure the bread supply of the nation_ and especially of the army: Last week it was suggested here that the ban on the use of corn or flour fodder may have an unfortunate effect on German live stock ; confirmation is to be found in the figures of Germany's pigs ; the total this year is slightly larger, but the number of sows in farrow has fallen by 15 per cent., that of young sows by 33 per cent., so that the prospects for 1938 are bad.
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