THE INFLUENCE OF CROPS UPON BUSINESS 21 



with one exception, during a decade, outdistanced the best of 

 records in value by nearly $60,000,000. The vicissitudes of 

 the cotton crop are, therefore, not so vitally significant for our 

 foreign trade as one might suppose from a superficial considera- 

 tion of the relative amounts exported of the various crops. Any 

 increase or decrease in the bulk of the American cotton crop is 

 more than likely to be compensated for by a converse movement 

 in the price of cotton, and changes in the amount exported are 

 apt to be offset by opposite changes in value. This is much less 

 certain to occur in the case of wheat, because of the wider area 

 in the world over which it can be produced, and the relatively 

 smaller contribution which America makes to the total supply, 

 which in the end determines its price. On the whole, then, we 

 may tentatively conclude that the success or failure of the wheat 

 harvest, more than that of any other vegetable product, is produc- 

 tive of sudden and important changes in the balance of trade. 



But another consideration which we saw to be influential was 

 the extent to which the crop is transported. Very little of our 

 enormous corn supply is carried far from the locality of its pro- 

 duction. Most of it is fed to live stock, especially hogs and cattle, 

 which are raised in the region where it is produced, the principal 

 meat-producing states being those of the corn belt. Of course, a 

 failure of the corn crop will tend eventually (in the course, per- 

 haps, of a year or so) to reduce the shipments of cattle and meat 

 to the seaboard and to places of consumption, but fluctuations in 

 the corn crop have but little direct and immediate effect upon the 

 amount of freight carried. As for cotton, domestic means of trans- 

 port are only slightly affected by the size of the crop, two thirds 

 of which goes abroad, the greater part directly from Southern 

 ports at Galveston, New Orleans, and Savannah, and principally 

 in foreign vessels. The wheat crop, on the other hand, is much 

 more closely connected with our transportation interests, for the 

 wheat of the Middle West is carried far and wide by rail and 

 steamship to all ends of the country. Not only the third of our 

 total product which is destined for export, but a great part of the 

 grain or flour destined for domestic consumption as well, has to 

 be shipped over considerable distances. An abundance or shortage 



