208 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
the more reliable. By it we learn that between January, 1875, and 
January, 1876, general prices had fallen more than 26 per cent, or 
what is the same thing, the value of gold had risen more than 35 
per cent, in a single year. Now, 35 per cent, is a greater fluctua¬ 
tion than has occurred in the value of greenbacks in any one year 
since 1863, with a single exception. 
Another fact or two in the current commercial and industrial 
history of California may exemplify the effect of an exclusive 
gold currency as compared with one of reliable paper. Mr. Kelley 
in a recent speech introduced some statistics indicating very clearly 
that the progress of that State in wealth and population during 
the last decade was less in proportion to the favorableness of its 
conditions than that of any State not made the theatre of war 
during the rebellion. But this is not the chief point to which I 
wish to direct attention. I have with much care compiled a table 
of comparative wholesale prices of a list of nineteen staple articles 
of general use, as they were sold in the month of February of the 
present year, in the cities of San Francisco, Chicago, and New 
York. Instead of giving the prices of the commodities in the 
quantities in which they are usually sold, T have taken proportional 
amounts of each so as to bring the prices as nearly as practical in¬ 
to the neighborhood of $1 each, otherwise the difference of the 
price of one article in different places might unfairly affect the gen- 
eral average. Thus, if pork at $20 per barrel be put against cotton 
cloth at 7-^ cents per yard, the proportions will not be as just as if 
we take one-twentieth of a barrel of pork and 14 yards of cloth. 
