THE INFLUENCE OF CROPS UPON BUSINESS 27 



protracted discrepancies between supply and demand that formerly 

 afflicted the country's business. Many have credited it to the in- 

 creasing output of gold, which has almost doubled in the past ten 

 years and more than trebled in the past twenty, and which has 

 tended steadily to inflate bank reserves, prices, and profits. Others 

 have attached great importance to the growing centralization of 

 power among the New York banking interests, and the extension 

 of their international affiliations, with the consequent increase in 

 their ability to secure foreign assistance in times of impending 

 trouble. Unquestionably, however, another factor not to be over- 

 looked in explaining the longevity of the period is the persistent 

 success of American agriculture during these recent years, a 

 success which, unlike that of previous periods, has for the time 

 being depended neither upon the abundance of the American 

 crops nor upon the failure of the crops abroad. There have been 

 no serious crop failures in Europe since 1897, and upon several 

 occasions since then one or another of the American crops has 

 fallen short ; yet the prosperity of American agriculture not only 

 has remained unimpaired, but has actually advanced to ever higher 

 and higher levels. With regard to two of the agricultural staples 

 of the country, cotton and wheat, the demand throughout the 

 world has from all appearances increased more rapidly during the 

 past half-dozen years than the output, so that in several cases, 

 even when the harvests have shown a decline in bulk, their aggre- 

 gate value has expanded.^ Whether the increasing demand is the 

 consequence of general prosperity or not is a matter of question, 

 but certain it is that the world's consumption of these staples for 

 some reason or other has taken on new dimensions, and, notwith- 

 standing an increasing output, less has been produced than could 

 have been sold with a profit. The prices of cotton and wheat 

 during recent years have risen in consequence to levels not wit- 

 nessed before for a generation, and one has to turn back to the 

 year 1883 to find their prices averaging as high as during the 

 past two years, 1904 and 1905. In fact, both the cotton and 

 the wheat crops of the last three or four years have aggregated 

 a value not far from double those of similar years a decade ago. 



^ See charts. 



