MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 137 



THE CAUSES OF THE INCREASED COST OF AGRICULTURAL 



STAPLES AND THE INFLUENCE OF THIS UPON THE 



RECENT EVOLUTION OF OTHER OBJECTS OF 



EXPENDITURE. 



EDWARP D. .TONES. 



A review of the history of agricnltiiral prices shows that between 

 1870 and 1900 there is a period of 30 years during' which an inijiortant 

 group of agricultural products was low in price. Witliin this period 

 the lowest prices were experienced in the nineties/ and especially in 

 the latter part of them. During the year 1000 a change took place and 

 since that time, with some irregularities, but especially in the years 

 1901, 1904 and 1907- prices have been moving upwards at first gradually, 

 then rapidly. The level of the eighties was passed about 1904. The 

 present prices of corn are above and of wheat very nearly the levels of 

 the last five years of the 60s. 



These advancing prices of recent years have for some time been a 

 matter of general comment and if they are a return to normal prices 

 the change is keenl}' felt because of the long period of low prices by 

 which they have been preceded. 

 EdhdHStion of Free Land. 



This thirty year period of low prices was the result of the develop- 

 ment of the wonderfully effective American mechanical methods of ex- 

 tensive single-crop farming, and of the opening of a vast area to the 

 market in advance of dense settlement, by extensive railway construc- 

 tion. For a time the fact that this was an exi>loitive process w^as its 

 chief merit and was an inevitable result of the conditions. When old 

 lands were abandoned equally fertile ones could easily be annexed to 

 the agricultural area in the Avest. P>ut of late years warnings have been 

 frequently heard that the process, depending upon free land of standard 

 fertility, was coming to an end. Especially was attention directed to 

 this when Sir William Crooks, in his address as President of the British 

 Association in 1898 said. "Practically, there remains no uncultivated 

 prairie land in the United States suitable for wheat growing."" 



The marginal producer who sets the price has, in recent years ad- 

 vanced onto progressively inferior soils and this progi'ession of in- 

 feriority has apparently been rapid since 1900, as may be seen from 

 the large migration of farmers which soon started for Canada, and 

 from the rise in western farm values which ranged from 50 to 100% 

 between 1900 and 1905.* Since 1905 an almost equal advance has been 

 made, so that lands in the corn belt which were |100 per acre are |250 

 and are too valuable to be used for cattle raising. By these advances 



'Corn, wheat, rye. cotton, bacon, ham and mess beef for export illustrate this. 



-In 1904 sharp upward turn for wheat and rye, 1901 for corn, beef, bacon and ham, 

 1907 for oats. 



^C. Wood Davis and John Hyde of the Dept. of Agriculture substantially agreed with 

 Crooks. 



^Holmes in Year Book, Dept. of Agr. 1905, p. .514. 



