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Gambling in Farm Produce. 
With regard to options, I am of opinion that in years of abundance 
and cheapness they do undoubtedly depress values, but that in a year of 
scarcity, “ bear ” dealings in options have but little effect. 
Another grain-trade authority writes to me as follows : — 
I have not followed the question of late, because the plant does not grow 
here (in London) ; the climate is not suitable for it. The attempt to accli- 
matise it in London, although backed by some great capitalists, has signally 
failed, and there is now only the Indian parcel business, which is free from 
the worst features of the gambling affairs. As to options as they exist in 
the United States, there can be little doubt of their object. It is to create 
extremes of 'value out of which the lucky gamblers may win. I think the 
tendency is quite as much in one direction as in the other. 
Before examining these arguments I will give some of the 
opinions of opponents of the option system. 
Evidence Against the System. 
Mr. Jeremiah Rusk, the late Secretary of Agriculture, has 
on several occasions strongly denounced the system of gambling 
in grain prices, on the ground that it caused an enormous 
fictitious supply, and therefore tended to lower prices. In reply 
to the objection that the corresponding fictitious demand and 
the corners got up by speculators had a tendency to enhance 
prices, he said that whenever this result occurred it was after 
the farmers had disposed of all, or nearly all, their grain. 
Mr. J. R. Dodge, late Statistician of the Department of 
Agriculture, in a recent address to the National Grange, alluded 
to the existence of the “ swarming thousands of speculators, 
under the innocent disguise of brokers, in every city, not to 
receive and forward grain, but to bet upon its future price, 
producing nothing, neither cultivating nor carrying to market 
a single bushel.” “ Yet,” he added, “these thousands live upon 
the finest of the wheat.” 
One of the most powerful writers against the option system 
is Mr. 0. AYood Davis, of Kansas, a very extensive farmer, and 
a capable statistician. I have before me several articles of his 
upon this subject, but shall only be able to give the gist of his 
more important arguments. In the first place, in reply to the 
contention as to the impossibility of marketing all the grain 
produced in the United States at the time when most of it is 
disposed of by the farmers without the option system, except 
at very low prices, Mr. Davis quotes, as previously stated, from 
the report of the Chicago Board of Trade for 1888 to show that 
during the five years ending with that year over 11,040,000,000 
bushels of wheat and maize were produced, of which only 
