674 Agricultural Depression at Home and Abroad. 
the greatest of all, taking the whole world into account, and 
Argentina’s export surplus from the crop of 1893-94 is expected 
to reach 7,000,000 quarters. Thus it has happened that, in 
spite of the deficiency of the world’s wheat area to meet the con- 
sumptive requirements under what might have been regarded as 
average productiveness, there has been a superabundance of wheat 
in the world since the beginning of the cereal year 1891-92, in 
consequence of the extraordinary bounty of Nature. 
A few figures in support of this explanation of results which 
no one could have anticipated are desirable ; and as the United 
Stat es have contributed most materially to these results, the wheat 
statistics for that country may well be given first, especially as 
they will show clearly that the excessive production has not 
been due to an increased area of wheat. Until 1891 the esti- 
mates of the United States Department of Agriculture, as tested 
by exports, reserve stocks, and estimated home consumption, 
appeared to be approximately accurate ; but it is certain that 
the estimates of that year and the two succeeding years were 
greatly under the mark, and this year’s crop is believed to be 
much greater than the figures of the Department, which has 
not yet given an actual total, appear to indicate. In the follow- 
ing table, then, the official figures for the four years ending with 
1890 are given as approximately correct, and the best tested of 
commercial estimates of yield in the four following seasons, with 
official figures as to area, are presented in comparison : — 
Wheat Crops in the United States. 
Year 
Acres 
Bushels 
Tear Acres 
Bushels 
1887 
37,641,783 
456,329,000 
1891 39,916,897 
675,000,000 
1888 
37,336,138 
415,868,000 
1892 38,554,430 
550,000,000 
1889 
38,123,859 
490,560,000 
1893 34,629,418 
450,000,000 
1890 
36,087,154 
399,262,000 
1894 1 33,775,000 
475,000,000 
Four years’ U9 188 934 
total. 
1,762,019,000 
r ,°„"i y ' rs ' >«• 
2,150,000,000 
Four years’ 37 297 233 
average. 
440,504,750 
Four y’rs’ 36 718 936 
average. ’ ’ 
537,500,000 
Indicated by official estimate of percentage reduction since 1893. 
In round figures the excess in production during the last 
four years, comparing it with the total for the preceding four, is 
no less than 388,000,000 bushels, or 97,000,000 bushels per 
annum, in spite of a reduction in the mean acreage. It is 
obvious that so tremendous an addition to the wheat supply, in 
the absence of a corresponding deficiency elsewhere, was quite 
sufficient to depress the markets of the whole world ; and there 
was not such a deficiency in any one of the four years in other 
countries taken together, although Europe had a short crop in 
1891. In support of this statement the following estimates of 
