PRICES OF PRODUCTS 



so, and some of the supply would be cut off. 

 Thus it is that agriculture must ever be adjusted 

 to the changes in the prices of the products. 



There are certain products which can be substi- 

 tuted for each other and thus tend to keep prices 

 from rising so high or sinking so low as they 

 otherwise might. Rye bread, for example, is 

 consumed very largely in northern Europe, and 

 when the rye crop is larger, and the wheat crop 

 smaller than usual, more rye bread and less wheat 

 bread is consumed. When the rye crop is smaller 

 than usual, there may be a larger wheat crop to 

 balance the shortage in rye. Thus, it is the 

 world's supply of wheat and wheat substitutes, 

 and the world's demand for bread and bread sub- 

 stitutes, that fixes the price of wheat on the 

 world's market at any given time. 



Liverpool is the center of the world's wheat 

 trade, and the conditions which regulate the price 

 of wheat on the Liverpool market may be said to 

 regulate the price throughout the world. More 

 wheat is produced in the United States than is 

 consumed at home. The surplus of the great 

 wheat producing states is brought together at the 

 "primary" grain markets, 1 the most important of 

 which are: Chicago, Minneapolis, Duluth, Supe- 

 rior, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Toledo, Kansas City, 

 Peoria, Cincinnati, and Detroit. From these pri- 

 mary markets, wheat and its products are sent 



1 Report of the Industrial Commission, 1900, Vol. VI, p. 45. 

 141 



