744 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



What has been said concerning cotton also applies very largely 

 to corn. To even a greater extent than in the case of cotton, the 

 volume of the American crop fixes the price. As to competition 

 with other countries, there is none worthy of serious consideration. 

 Less than 4 per cent of the yearly crop of corn is exported, 

 while something like 80 per cent is yearly consumed in the very 

 county where it is grown. The price is, consequently, dependent 

 not only upon the American supply but also chiefly upon the 

 American demand. Furthermore, the export demand for corn is 

 not increasing. Notwithstanding special efforts made to introduce 

 corn in various forms as a food product among European peoples, 

 the average annual exports for the ten years preceding 1895 were 

 less by 7,400,000 bushels than for the ten years preceding 1885. 

 During these two decades the greatest export movements have 

 occurred as frequently in years of moderate as in years of 

 exceptionally large crops. Under such circumstances, in the com- 

 petition among exporters to supply the foreign demand, an ex- 

 port bounty upon corn would be quite as likely to go to the 

 foreign consumer as to the American producer. Such a result is 

 indicated by the experience of Nebraska farmers in 1884, 1886, 

 and 1890. In those years railway rates upon corn from points 

 in Nebraska were reduced in deference to the demands of 

 farmers, with the effect, however, not of increasing the price 

 to the producer, but of lowering it to the consumer. Even if 

 exporters were induced by the bounty to offer a higher price for 

 the supply of the export trade, that trade seems relatively too 

 insignificant to affect materially the farm price of corn in the 

 United States. Assuming that the price might be momentarily 

 enhanced by the bounty, the mere fact that the area devoted 

 to corn cultivation is capable of indefinite extension leaves little 

 reason to suppose that such an advance would be permanent. 



The cases of hay and oats are in nearly all particulars anal- 

 ogous to that of corn. An analysis of the probable effect of 

 an export bounty upon wheat and meats, also, would lead to 

 similar conclusions. 



From the political point of view, a system of bounties on the 

 exportation of agricultural staples is clearly impracticable in the 



