GEOGRAPHICAL PHASES OE FARM PRICES : CORN. 7 
GENERAL FEATURES OF CORN DISTRIBUTION. 
The United States produces more than twice as much corn as the rest of 
the world combined, but consumes practically its entire crop. Its share 
of the foreign commerce in corn is relatively insignificant. 
Available foreign supplies are small, hence diminished consumption, and 
not international supply, regulates prices in years of domestic shortage. 
AMERICAN CORN IN RELATION TO FOREIGN MARKETS. 
Except in years of domestic shortage, the general level of American 
farm prices of corn is to some extent influenced by the prices pre- 
vailing at importing European markets, though to a much less 
S, &07, 000,000 &US//£LS 
2>7/, 000,000 &6/S//£Z<S 
Fig. 1. — Corn : World production and commerce. Figures are averages for the five years 
1909-1913, the latest available data showing usual conditions. They relate to all 
countries for which data are available, and represent, substantially, world production 
and exports. 
marked degree than in the case of wheat, because of the lesser im- 
portance of corn exports. There exists, moreover, a degree of inter- 
relation between corn, wheat, and rye prices. 
The United States ordinarily produces over TO per cent of the 
world's corn, more than twice the production of the rest of the world 
combined ; yet our exports seldom exceed 1^ per cent of the domestic 
production. They averaged in 1909-1913 only about 15 per cent of 
the world's exports. On the other hand, Argentina, whose average 
crop is about one-sixteenth that of the United States, contributes 
nearly three times as much as the latter to the world commerce in 
corn — 12 per cent of the total exports, or over half of its harvest. 
Practically all corn exports go to Europe. 
Domestic consumption evidently absorbs practically the entire 
harvest of the United States. But even in our internal commerce 
