673 
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AT 
HOME AND ABROAD. 
Three years ago, when I contributed to this Journal 1 an article 
on “ The Future of Agricultural Competition,” there were strong 
reasons for hoping that we had seen the worst of agricultural 
depression, especially in relation to the production of grain. It 
was shown that the wheat area of the world had not nearly kept 
pace with the population since 1880, the increase in the former 
having been extremely small between that year and 1890; or, 
in other words, that the ratio of wheat acres to bread-eaters was 
very much smaller in 1890 than it was in 1880. That ratio, 
however, had been excessive in 1880, owing to the enormous 
extension of the world’s wheat area during the decade ending 
with that year, so that three or four years had been required to 
enable the population to overtake the supply. When that ad- 
justment was apparently about to take place, however, calcula- 
tions were upset by a series of abundant seasons, which kept 
the supply from a diminished acreage j ust about equal to the con- 
sumptive demand. Still, at the end of the cereal, year 1890-91 
the stocks of wheat in the world were low almost beyond record, 
while there was a famine in Russia, and France had an ex- 
tremely small crop of wheat. Consequently the weekly average 
price of wheat in England rose from 32s. 7 d. a quarter at the 
beginning of January to 41s. 8 d. in the first week of September, 
and the average for the whole of 1891 was 37s., or higher than it 
had been since 1883. But the crop in the United States turned 
out a phenomenal one, by far the greatest ever produced, and 
much in excess of the estimate of the Department of Agriculture. 
An almost continuous fall in prices, therefore, took place in 
1892, when there was another great crop in the United States, 
and in the world as a whole. In that year, too, the Argentine 
Republic, under the stimulus of a high gold premium, first be- 
came a considerable contributor to the wheat supplies of Europe, 
shipping over two million quarters. The year’s average price 
in England was only 32s. a quarter. In 1893 there was a still 
greater production of wheat in the world (though the United 
States had only a moderate crop), and Argentina came out with 
an export surplus of about 4,600,000 quarters. Prices, there- 
fore, fell to a lower point than they had ever before touched since 
the value of money was anywhere near its modeni exchange 
value, the year’s average in this country being 26s. 4 d. The 
last harvest, so far as can be at present determined, has been 
1 Third Series, Vol. II. Part IV. 1891, p. 742. 
