THE INFLUENCE OF CROPS UPON BUSINESS 19 



average of $171,000,000. Could we estimate the amount of 

 corn which is exported in this form we should doubtless find corn 

 occupying a much more important position in the export trade 

 than is indicated by the statistics just given of direct corn exports, 

 yet obviously a change in the size of the corn crop exerts no im- 

 mediate effect upon these indirect exports, and is only registered 

 in the commerce of subsequent years. 



Cotton, then, plays the predominant role in our export trade, 

 and one might readily conclude that the outturn of the cotton 

 crop is of greater and more immediate significance for our foreign 

 balance than the outturn of any other crop. An examination, 

 however, of the trade statistics for the past fifteen years, which 

 were just cited, reveals grounds for a different conclusion. The 

 value of our cotton exports, enormous as the aggregate has been, 

 has not varied from year to year as widely as the value of our ex- 

 ports of wheat, and not in fact so very much more widely than 

 our comparatively small exports of corn. During this decade and 

 a half the widest fluctuations in the cotton exports occurred be- 

 tween the years 1892 and 1893 and again between the years 1900 

 and 1 90 1, when the variations amounted to $70,000,000 and 

 $72,000,000 respectively ; yet twice during this same period the 

 variations in the wheat exports exceeded these figures very strik- 

 ingly between 1897 and 1898, when the wheat exports increased 

 by $99,000,000, and between 1891 and 1892, when our wheat 

 exports advanced by the amazing sum of $130,000,000. Not- 

 withstanding, too, the minor proportions of our corn exports, 

 their amounts have fluctuated from one year to another almost as 

 widely as those of cotton. The failure of the crop in 1901, for 

 instance, diminished the exports of com and of com meal by no 

 less than $67,000,000; and, if we turn to the indirect effects 

 visible a year or so later in the exports of meat and cattle, we find 

 that the exports of live stock, for instance, declined by 1903 some 

 $18,000,000 below the level of 1901, and the exports of meat and 

 dairy products fell off some $17,000,000 during these two years. 

 Even in the case of com, therefore, the ultimate effects upon the 

 export balance of a change in the size of the crop might be shown 

 to be more severe than in the case of cotton. 



