10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



have been several commercial crises during the present century; 

 but not all are aware tliat each and every one has been pre- 

 ceded by short crops. These commercial disasters have been 

 by some, attributed to the varying financial policy of government 

 destroying confidence and preventing business from settling 

 into fixed and productive channels. Doubtless this has had an 

 influence, but it is quite inadequate to the effects produced. 

 The cause lies deeper, even in the very sources of business, 

 ■which appears from the fact that such serious disasters do 

 not uniformly result from a change in governmental policy, and 

 also that when they have occurred, business has recovered from 

 its embarrassments under what have been considered most un- 

 favorable circumstances, so far as this policy is concerned, just 

 as soon as abundant liarvests ensued. Nor is it true that these 

 crises have occurred only on occasions when the commercial 

 and monetary policy of the government was unsettled, or when 

 what was deemed nn iinfii\-nrn.blo policy was adopted. But 

 how is it in relation to failures of agiioultuml prnrlucts? Not 

 an instance can be pointed out where these have fallen much 

 below the general average, which has not been followed by 

 commercial embarrassment. This is so well understood by in- 

 telligent merchants that it has come to be a maxim witli them, 

 that short crops and high rates of exchange will at any time 

 produce a panic, and high rates of exchange necessarily follow 

 short crops, for the simple reason that we liave then a deficiency 

 of exports with which to cancel indebtedness for imports, and 

 the balance must be met by a drain upon the specie of the 

 country. Every one of the commercial crises which have oc- 

 curred during the present century have been preceded by short 

 crops — crops very considerably below the average. They were 

 not all equally disastrous, owing, in part, to difierence in the 

 amount of failure, and in part to. collateral circumstances afiect- 

 ing them. Thus the last was greatly mitigated by the influx of 

 California gold, and but -for which it would probably have been 

 vastly more disastrous than any previously experienced. A 

 Ycry little reflection will enable any one to understand why, and 

 how it is so. There are 1,449,075 farms and plantations in 

 the United States. Now suppose the failure of crops, including 

 hay, grains, roots, cotton, sugar, and all else, to be equivalent 



