THE FARMER AND THE CURRENCY. 345 



one time one gold or silver dollar would buy two and one-half 

 times as much as a paper dollar. This was the result of 

 excessive issues. When, however, it becomes evident that 

 representative money will never be redeemed, it very soon 

 loses all value. "Confederate" bills, after Appomattox, were 

 known to be valueless, and nobody would take them at any 

 price. Until other currency could be provided such exchanges 

 as were necessary took place by means of barter, w^hich is the 

 exchange of one commodity for another. But wliere there are 

 goods to be exchanged there money will go, and there was 

 very soon other money in circulation. 



Money is an element so essential to the transaction of 

 modern business — barter being so extremely inconvenient — 

 that no community will do without it. If gold and silver are 

 not available, something will be substituted as a temporary 

 expedient. Horace White enumerates the following as having 

 been used as money within liistorical times: cattle, cacao 

 beans, salt, silk, furs, tobacco, dried fish, wheat, rice, olive-oil, 

 coconut oil, cotton cloth, cowry shells, iron, copper, platinum, 

 nickel, silver, and gold ; indeed, he says, "it would be difficult 

 to say what has not been used as money at some time or 

 place." The " wampum " and tobacco currencies of our early 

 colonial times are familar to every one. On the Pacific Coast, 

 cattle were commonly used as money up to recent times. The 

 abstract of my farm in California shows two cases in which 

 the property was sold for "cattle" with no money value 

 attached to them, and to be delivered at a future time. 



It is even insisted by some that notes upon which are 

 printed by national authority the words, " This is a dollar," or 

 some equivalent expression, are as good as any money for all 

 necessary purposes, even though issued with no promise or 

 intent to redeem in anything. There is just enough of truth 

 in this contention to make it a very dangerous error among 

 those who have not thought carefully about money, and who 

 are anxious to be able to get money cheaply. There is no 

 doubt that the necessity of money is so great that, in the 

 absence of anything better, such money as this would perform 

 all the necessary functions of money within the territory of 



