DEPARTMENT UE AGRICULTURE. 
fee help in correcting error- as to the numbers needed. A violent 
change in the corn crop can thus be quickly reflected in hogs. These 
and other causes make the hog curve less smooth than the horse curve. 
but at the same time prevent its moving so far from normal at any 
time. It is to be observed that the horse curve has a much more 
violent swmg than the hog curve. As already noted, the long period 
of time before errors in production of horses are apparent allows very" 
great overproduction and equally serious underproduction. 
With annual crops an error m acreage can be corrected the next 
year. The acreage of crops is. therefore, subject to less violent fluc- 
tuations than is the number of hogs and much less than is the number 
of horses. The weather is so much more powerful in influencing pro- 
duction than is any ordinary change m acreage that the effect of 
changes in acreage are often obscured. The response to prices is 
none the less sure. For example, the cotton acreage for 1921 is 72 
per cent of the 1.920 acreage. Such an extreme change in acreage of 
a basic crop rarely occurs and could only be brought about by an 
extreme change in the purchasing power of cotton. Ordinarily 
changes in acreage are much less. 
Re< is< 'i the cycles in prices a one-year basis of comparison is 
not long enough. In this bulletin a five-year average before the war 
is used as a base, represented by 100. Farm prices by months are 
not available before 1909. For horses even a five-year base is too 
short for the five-year period before the war was a high-priced period 
for horses. The base for timothy seed was only four years and in- 
cluded a year of very high prices. Tins makes the index numbers for 
timothv seed too low. 
EELATION OF WAGES AND FAKM PRICES. 
When prices suddenly rise or fall wages lag behind, as is shown in 
Table VI. When prices rise rapidly, as they did in 1863-64 and in 
1916-17 3 and wages lag. there is a real high cost of living. The usual 
quantity of labor will not buy the usual quantity of things. Some 
form of economy must be practiced. One of the things economized 
on is food. By changing from animal foods to plain foods, a food 
suppiv can be purchased at much less cost, although it is much less 
satisfying food, and if carried to the extent of denying milk and 
butter to children, may have very serious consequences. When prices 
suddenly increase and wages do not. the food habits of a more crowded 
. itry are temporarily adopted. The increased demand for plant 
Is usually causes prices of grams to rise faster than does the general 
price level and causes those of animal food to rise less rapidly than 
does the general price level. But grains are used in the production of 
animal foods, so that the annual producer is confronted with unprofit- 
able production, but the public discussion turns to the prices of things 
