98 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



reduced. There is no way in which the users- of liquor and tobacco 

 can hold their own, when their habits impose upon them so great an 

 economic burden. The temperance people will increase in numbers 

 and wealth until they are able to crowd out or suppress their oppo- 

 nents. Their advantage is as great as that of the power loom over 

 the hand loom or of the railroad over the canal. Of the ultimate 

 result of such a conflict there can be no doubt. The only question 

 is whether drinkers shall be forced to reform or gradually be crushed 

 beneath the weight of then* growing disadvantage. 



24. AGRICULTURE AND THE LIQUOR INDUSTRY' 



Never before have brewers, maltsters, distillers, and wine-makers 

 made so large a contribution to the agricultural prosperity of the 

 country as during the fiscal year 1913. In the course of that year 

 the latest for which reliable statistics are available grain and other 

 farm products to the value of $113,513,971 were used in the manu- 

 facture of liquors, and this amount does not represent the value of the 

 products so used as reported in the markets of Chicago, Cincinnati, 

 Buffalo, Philadelphia, and other commercial centers, but the actual 

 sum received by the growers, based upon the carefully compiled 

 reports on farm prices issued from time to time by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. 



The full significance of this amount, which represents, it may be 

 stated, a return of 5 per cent on an investment of $2,270,279,420, can 

 best be appreciated if we compare it with the reports of the last 

 United States Census on the total values of the crops of certain typical 

 states, which show that it exceeded the total combined crop values 

 in the census year of Vermont, Maryland, and West Virginia; of 

 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Florida; of Louisiana 

 (with its great cotton and sugar interests), New Hampshire, and Utah, 

 or of Maine, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, 

 and Wyoming. The figures for these states, as given in the Thirteenth 

 United States Census (1910), Vol. V, p. 545, are as follows: 



Vermont $ 27,446,836 Louisiana $ 77,336,143 



West Virginia 40,374,776 Utah 18,484,615 



Maryland 43,920,149 New Hampshire 15,976,175 



Total $111,741,761 Total $111,796,933 



1 Yearbook of the United States Brewers' Association, 1914, pp. 265-67. 



