“The value of wheat having receded, without a check, from week to week since the commencement of the year, has fallen to a point at which growers are very unwilling to sell; and within the last eight days the deliveries have fallen off more or less, which circumstance, and the probability of short supplies during the time farmers shall be engaged preparing the land for the reception of the spring crops, appear to have led to the belief that quotations will not for the present undergo any farther reduction. That a temporary rally may take place is not improbable; but we are by no means sanguine on the subject, and regard any improvement of moment as wholly out of the question. Whatever may be said to the contrary, we maintain that prices of wheat are at present higher on the continent of Europe than is warranted by the result of the last harvest. With average crops, such as those secured in 1849 in most of the large grain-growing countries of Europe, a very considerable surplus must have been produced for export; and as there appears to be no chance of France, Holland, or Belgium requiring supplies from the Baltic, and as our markets hold out little encouragement for calculating on higher prices, the value of the article must, we think, inevitably come down in Russia, Poland, and Germany. Any argument founded on what has occurred in bygone times is no longer applicable, the alteration in our corn laws placing the matter in an entirely new position. For the past to be serviceable in affording materials to form a judgment of the probable future, it is necessary to have a parallel instance; and all calculations founded on what prices have been in years when a different order of things existed, are more likely to mislead than instruct. It is not probable that prices will fall to so low a point as they have done on former occasions, when England has required comparatively small supplies, the removal of our import duties and the repeal of the Navigation Laws being greatly in favour of the foreign grower; but, on the other hand, it may be easily foreseen that with wheat at 35s. per quarter in many of our home markets, British merchants will not purchase abroad on such terms as have been hitherto asked for spring delivery. Speculation may for a time support prices at Dantzic, Rostock, &c., but the value must ultimately be regulated by prices here; and we feel perfectly satisfied that supplies on a much larger scale than we are likely to want will reach us from the Baltic, Black Sea, &c., later in the year.”