26 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



a year before. The American crop, meanwhile, ran ahead of that 

 of the previous year by 145,000,000 bushels, and proved, with one 

 exception, the largest in our history. The farmers of the Middle 

 West got two or three times as much per bushel as they had been 

 receiving for several years ; and, as they disposed of their in- 

 creased output at these much advanced prices, they were rapidly 

 lifted from a condition of extreme depression to one of prosper- 

 ous activity. They began to pay off their farm mortgages, and so 

 set locked-up capital free ; and at the same time they greatly en- 

 larged their purchases of goods. This in turn gave a stimulus to 

 trade in the factory centers of the East, which were called upon to 

 meet the new demand for manufactured goods. The same condi- 

 tions added enormously to the tonnage and earnings of the West- 

 ern railroads, opening up a new era of prosperity for them ; and, 

 as the trade of transportations is one of great importance and of 

 wide-spread ownership, the whole country reaped an advantage. 



The bearing of the crop situation of 1897 upon our foreign 

 trade was no less important. Our exports of wheat and corn in- 

 creased in the course of the year that followed by a valuation of 

 over $120,000,000, and our relations with the international 

 market were reversed. Instead of exporting gold, we imported 

 $142,000,000. Through this movement not only was credit stim- 

 ulated by the enlargement of the cash resources of the banks, 

 but also by the new accessions to the government's gold reserve, 

 which had been passing through the direst of vicissitudes during 

 the years just preceding, and which now rose to the highest 

 figure ever reached in the country's history. Great agricultural 

 windfalls had once more set the wheels of trade in motion and 

 initiated a new period of prosperity. 



The prolonged continuance of this upward tide beyond the 

 term of any previous period of prosperity in the past half century 

 has amazed the world and aroused much speculation as to its 

 cause. Some have attributed it to the wane of radicalism in 

 politics and the growing conservatism of our legislatures in matters 

 of currency and finance. Some have connected it with the in- 

 creasing concentration of control in industry and transportation 

 which has obliterated the wars between rival interests and the 



