JANUARY 26, 1912] 
The development of a more peaceful dis- 
position among nations has caused a great 
inerease in both production and consump- 
tion. Human effort has been less occupied 
with warfare and more with the develop- 
ment and utilization of the world’s re- 
sourees. All these factors make possible a 
rising standard of living which increases 
prices, unless there is equal progress in 
the various branches of production. 
2. Progress, however, has been notably 
unequal in the different branches of en- 
deavor which supply human wants. It is 
necessary to keep in mind the difference 
between a rise in the price of certain classes 
of products and a general rise in the price 
level, to which reference will be made later. 
There is a substantial distinction between 
these two phenomena. New methods in in- 
dustry and commerce are revolutionizing 
the means for supplying human wants, but 
their effect is far more helpful in some 
categories of products than in others. 
Whether this be the result of natural con- 
ditions or limitations upon our knowledge 
is not pertinent to this inquiry. The fact 
is obvious. Throughout all periods, not- 
withstanding changes in fashion and taste, 
there has existed a demand amounting to a 
necessity for certain essential products, 
such as food, clothing and shelter. It is 
evident that science, working through in- 
ventions and improved methods, has not 
accomplished the same results in agricul- 
ture, especially in producing food supplies, 
as in manufacture. The revolution in in- 
dustrial methods and in the utilization of 
capital in large scale operations has not 
been accompanied by equal progress on the 
farm. Very considerable progress has been 
made, it is true, in carrying agricultural 
products to the market and in preserving 
them for use, but these pertain to trans- 
portation and to the middleman rather 
than to the original producer. Accord- 
SCIENCE 
131 
ingly, as we should expect, the prices of 
farm products have risen much more rap- 
idly than the prices of manufactured ar- 
ticles. In a very valuable report of the 
Chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the 
Department of Agriculture for the year 
1910, a comparison is made between the 
increase in the prices of articles purchased 
by farmers during the ten years from 1899 
to 1909 and the increase in the value per 
acre of that which the farmers sell. For 
the articles purchased the average increase 
was 12.1 per cent., while the average rate 
of increase in the value per acre of that 
which the farmer sells was 72.7 per cent., 
or six times as much. The comparison is 
made even more emphatic when it is noted 
that among the articles purchased by 
farmers flour and lard show maximum, or 
nearly maximum, increase in prices in 
response to the higher prices obtained 
for wheat and hogs. To this rise in 
the price of articles of food there is one 
general exception, namely, the price of 
tropical or semi-tropical products, most of 
which show a decrease for reasons which 
do not exist in the case of products of the 
temperate zone. 
The rise in the prices of agricultural 
products in the temperate zones is well 
illustrated in the case of raw materials 
used in the manufacture of clothing. 
Until this present year the price of cotton 
had shown a steady increase. The price 
of middling cotton per pound in the year 
1895 was 7.44 cents in the New York 
market; mm 1903 it was 11.18 cents; in 
1910, 15.11 cents, or twice as much as 
fifteen years before. The price of fine 
wool in the month of January, 1895—for 
most of which year there was no duty—was 
in the eastern markets 174 cents; in 1903, 
30 cents, and in 1910, 36 cents. It may be 
added that cotton and woolen cloth in their 
various forms show a much less increase in 
