Sept. 1894.] AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION IN THE UNITED STATES. 17 



YI.— AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION IN THE UNITED 



STATES. 



The condition of agriculture in the United States forms the 

 subject of a report recently issued by a Sub-Committee appointed 

 by the Senate, in February 1893, to investigate the condition of 

 the agricultural industry as it relates to grain and farm interests. 



The Sub-Committee state that after careful consideration they 

 have arrived at the conclusion that while there have been 

 fluctuations, and while different conditions prevail in different 

 localities, upon the whole there has been a settling downward 

 of the general level of the prices of farm lands and farm 

 products since 1873, and that the depression has been on the 

 average about thirty per cent. 



The causes of the depression are divided into three classes : — 

 Special causes which affect particular classes or species of 

 property locally; general causes affecting particular kinds of 

 property ; and general causes which affect all kinds of property 

 in greater or less degree. 



In respect of the special causes, attention is mainly directed 

 to the local conditions which affect in some degree the prices of 

 grain and live stock, and influence the value of the land. As 

 regards the causes of the second class, it is pointed out that 

 although the market values, as well as the local prices, of the 

 cereals are affected more or less by large or small yields from 

 year to year, yet the effects produced in this way are less marked 

 now than during the period before facilities for distribution had 

 reached their present state of development. When 30 to 40 

 flays were required for the passage of a ship, with a cargo of 

 10,000 bushels of wheat, across the Atlantic ; before the tele- 

 graph was used to convey information concerning crops ; before 

 the Suez Canal was opened fortraflic; and before steamships 

 were built capable of conveying 100,000 bushels of wheat from 

 New York to Liverpool in ten days ; a very heavy or a very 

 light crop of any particular kind of grain in the United States 

 materially affected American market prices for the surplus. 

 Now, however, with the existing conveniences for handling, 

 storing, and shipping grain, and with low rates of transportation 

 over long distances, it is the world's production, and not that of 

 any one country, that affects the market value of grain. But 

 while the competition of farmers in other wheat-producing 

 countries is regarded as having a material effect in depressing 

 the price of this cereal in the United States, the competition 

 amongst American grain farmers themselves, and particularly 

 that form of it known as " bonanza " farming, has also con- 

 tributed to bring about a fall in local and general prices. 



O 83068. B 



