Agricultural Depression at Home and Abroad. 691 
plained of their business being unremunerative. With respect 
to sheep, a statement published last August by a well-informed 
correspondent of the Albany Country Gentleman is to the effect 
that producers were getting only 2 cents a pound (live weight, 
no doubt) for mutton and 12 cents for unwashed wool, prices 
regarded as ruinous, and leading many flockmasters, it is said, 
to reduce the number of sheep, or to give up keeping them 
entirely. As in this country, the dairy industry in the United 
States is least depressed of all branches of farming ; but in 
recent years that country has been falling behind in her exports 
of cheese, in consequence of the competition of Canada and other 
British colonies. 
Any number of individual complaints of agricultural depres- 
sion in the United States might be quoted ; but it is necessary 
to conclude this division of my subject with a few statements 
derived from the Report of the Senate Committee on Agricul- 
tural Depression, appointed in April, 1892, the report having 
been issued last February. In the first place, some statistics of 
land values, as assessed for taxation, may be noticed. They are 
irregular in form for different States, and are for different series 
of years, while in some cases the values' of improved and unim- 
proved land are separately given, and in others the two classes 
are lumped together. In Illinois, it is stated, the average value 
of improved land fell from #20.81 per acre in 1874 to #11.18 
in 1892 ; in Minnesota, from #8.08 in 1878 to #7.88 in 1892 ; 
in Nebraska, from #4.60 in 1885 to #3.72 in 1892 ; in Kansas 
a fall of about 15 per cent, since 1884 is recorded ; in Penn- 
sylvania, 25 to 30 per cent, depreciation in the last twenty years ; 
in New York, over 33 per cent, within a few years ; in New Eng- 
land, 30 per cent, since 1875. In Missouri alone among the 
States noticed has there been a rise since 1884. A complete 
account for all States could not be given when the Committee 
reported, the details of the Census not being available. The 
farm value of cattle, excepting milch cows, in the United States 
as a whole, is shown to have fallen from #23.52 each in 1884 to 
#15.24 in 1892 ; that of milch cows, from #31.37 to #21.75 ; and 
that of horses, from #74.64 to #61.22 ; while that of sheep ad- 
vanced from #2.37 to #2.66, and that of pigs from #5.57 to #6.41 . 
Figures for groups of years show declines in oxen, cows, horses, 
and pigs alike between 1868-72 and 1888-92, and no appre- 
ciable change in the value of sheep. 
It is not necessary to quote from tables showing the great 
decline in the value of wheat, further than to state that, while 
the farm value of the crop per acre ranged from #10.86 to #15.27 
during the ten years ending with 1880, it has only twice been as 
