GAMBLING IN WHEAT 37 



farmers. It also confesses why the summer price 

 did not remain low all winter or untO such time as 

 the farmer might have parted with the bulk of his 

 crop. The Bulletin says: 



"During the first quarter of the year the stated 

 prices advanced very rapidly, some 38 cents per 

 bushel, and held to the advance during April and a 

 part of May, but before the close of that month 

 nearly 30 cents of this advance was lost. . . . The 

 year's range — top prices for cash wheat in April and 

 bottom prices in August and September — shows a 

 range of 68 cents, $1.66 being high and 98 cents 

 low. . . . The high prices during the early part of 

 the year were the result of very heavy exports of 

 wheat from the United States to European coun- 

 tries. . . . Speculation helped to force the prices 

 upward. Aided by bearish operations, prices made 

 the remarkable descent from the top to the low prices. 

 When prices reached the lower level an active export 

 business was carried on, but the purchases and the 

 business were carried on in such a manner that prices 

 did not respond so liberally as during the year. . . . 

 Some reaction followed from the low prices, due 

 partly to this export buying, but more particularly 

 to the disappointing movement from the interior, 

 farmers generally having held back their wheat for 

 higher prices." 



In other words, the speculators had gotten the 

 1914 crop away from the farmers at a low figure 

 and then put up the price 38 cents for their own 

 benefit. They had then sold out to Europe at high 

 prices and, having cleaned out the 1914 crop, they 



