18 Generating Economic Cycles 



periodically varying magnitude that will produce a 

 corresponding rhythm in the prices of raw materials 

 and the prices of products derived therefrom? Is it not 

 possible that this same periodicity may be of such 

 length as to approximate the average length of cycles 

 which has been noted by Professor Aftalion and Pro- 

 fessor Bresciani-Turroni? 



If we discover this periodicity in the yield of farm 

 products, we shall make a distinction between generat- 

 ing economic cycles and derived economic cycles. 

 Generating economic cycles will then be economic cycles 

 which have their origin in non-economic causes and are 

 themselves the originating source of derived economic 

 cycles. If the varying yield of the crops has its origin 

 in a periodic meteorological cause, it will itself be peri- 

 odic and will generate periodic sequences in the whole 

 of the dependent economic changes. If the existence 

 of such a generating cycle is established, there will be 

 no need, in treating the phases of economic cycles, 

 to seek separate explanations for their existence. The 

 phases of the generating cycles will themselves originate 

 corresponding phases in the dependent, derived cycles. 



The Correlation of Crop Yields and Crop Prices 



From the point of view of the value of the product, 

 our crops ranked, in 1919, in the following order: corn, 

 wheat, cotton, hay, oats, potatoes. These six crops, in 

 1919, contributed 70.8 per cent of the value of the 

 multitudinous crops produced by our farms. The 

 aggregate value of all the crops produced in 1919 was, 



