Minneapolis Money Shakes the Palouse Wheat Market
An outside buyer offers farmers far more than local dealers can match, touching off a market furore and the first major Eastern wheat shipment since 1893.
The wheat market throughout the Palouse country received a rude shock last week by the appearance of Ted Cardin, representing J. Q. Adams Co., of Minneapolis, who was trying to buy 250,000 bushels of wheat for Eastern shipment, and offered prices that local dealers could not duplicate for shipment to the Pacific coast.
Cardin offered 63½ cents f.o.b. for wheat testing 58 pounds to the bushel, which is one pound less than the test for No. 1 required for Coast shipment. This is for bulk wheat, which is equal to 66½ cents on board for sacked wheat or 65 cents in warehouse.
This is 6 cents better than local dealers offered. Cardin bought 100,000 bushels out of the Farmers' Warehouse at Garfield at the price quoted above, and the market is in a furore.
This is the first time since 1893 that wheat has been shipped to Eastern markets in any considerable quantity.
“This is the first time since 1893 that wheat has been shipped to Eastern markets in any considerable quantity.”
Then as now, Washington growers sold into distant markets where an outside buyer could suddenly reset the price local dealers had to beat. The story captures an early version of a familiar rural economic tension: local merchants versus outside capital, with farmers watching the bid.
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