I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE CROPS UPON BUSINESS 

 IN AMERICA 



By a. p. Andrew 

 (From The Quarterly Journal of Economics^ May, 1 906) 



FLUCTUATIONS in business prosperity result from a wide 

 assortment of causes. They are variously attributed to epi- 

 demic states of mind, to changes in legislation, to the develop- 

 ment of new industrial processes, to the opening of new trade 

 routes, to excesses in banking, or, again, to changes in the meth- 

 ods of industrial organization. With all of these factors, men 

 may, by taking thought, foresee in some degree their movement, 

 and in some measure may control their outcome. Business wel- 

 fare in every community depends, however, very largely upon 

 another set of factors, whose caprices none can predict and none 

 can govern, factors which are closely connected with conditions 

 of weather and of temperature. As there is no country where 

 agriculture is not pursued or where agricultural products are not 

 used either as foodstuffs or as raw materials, there is no country 

 where the chance conditions of weather are not of vital conse- 

 quence. Nor is the influence of the harvests confined solely to 

 agricultural areas and occupations. It reaches far beyond the 

 fields. It affects manufacturing and transportation interests, bank- 

 ing and foreign trade, and is responsible for many of the larger 

 deviations in commercial prosperity. 



The product of agriculture differs from the output of all other 

 branches of production in being so largely independent of human 

 regulation and so little adjustable in amount to demand. This 

 results not merely from the dependence of the harvests upon 



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