GEOGRAPHICAL PHASES OF FARM PRICES: CORX. 43 
most southern States, its high price and comparative scarcity limit 
its use for live-stock production. Throughout the country large 
local consuming centers of an industrial character have sprung up; 
in the New England States many million bushels are consumed in 
glucose and starch manufacture; a strong local demand for corn 
existed in Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Peoria for use in 
manufacture of corn products and in distilling and brewing. 
While a strongly defined greographic trend prevails in the price 
levels, much local unevenness is observable, as well as irregularity 
in the degree of increase. This is particularly manifest in regions 
which are mountainous, with inadequate transportation facilities 
or otherwise not well situated as to markets. It is also seen in areas 
wherein corn traffic is in smaller volume. In the midst of sections 
of insufficient production localities raising a surplus appear occa- 
sionally; the level of prices there is lower than in surrounding 
territory. 
The outstanding feature of the distributive movement of corn is 
the local character of its markets, for only a fifth of the crop enters 
the national trade channels. Farm consumption absorbs over four- 
fifths of the crop; hence local conditions are partly responsible for 
much unevenness in the trend of the price levels. In some localities 
costs of hauling from farms to shipping points appear to be greater 
in time of peace than rail and ocean freight charges to some Euro- 
pean markets. Diverse elements enter into local prices, such as the 
condition of roads, accessibility of markets, availability of cheaper 
water transportation, and the character of the local demand. 
Although urban consumption disposes of only about a sixth of the 
crop, a considerably larger fraction is concentrated in urban markets 
for local use and reshipment. The largest markets are in the corn 
belt ; they reship two-thirds of their receipts. Unlike wheat, markets 
for corn in other sections of the country are of minor importance. 
Freight rates constitute the most important single element in 
price disparities. While distance is an important factor, rates are 
not directly proportional thereto. Competition between trade routes 
and markets, and volume of traffic, tend to lower rates in the sections 
affected. 
In aligning sectional differences in farm prices with costs of pro- 
duction it is necessary to take into account yields to the acre. In 
the main, low farm prices are offset by high costs of production, 
and the converse also is true. High prices and high yields in bushels 
to the acre result in low money returns in the industrial East, be- 
cause of high costs of production ; high prices and low costs of pro- 
duction, but also low yields to the acre, result in relatively low 
money returns in the South. 
