OCR Text |
Show THE CROPS AND MONEY. A -;.k' i3r The Department of Agriculture estimates the eereal crop for the last year at approximately 5.000.000,000 bushels. This includes corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, flaxseed, buckwheat and rice. It required 300.000 square miles of land to produce the crop, and the value is about $2,000,000,000. Commenting upon the above, the Now York Sun says. It would take all the gold we have dug ut in thirtv years to pay for a single year's crop of cereals. We suspect that is a faot. but if the pold had not been dug. the crop would not have boon valued at more than half what it now is, and the dipo.si-tion dipo.si-tion of it would have been simply barter, .lones would have traded wheat for Smith's pig and shop; rtopers would have srnt his apple crop South and aot back a little suear and a bunch of bananas.. Without the gold crop these farmers in the Northwest North-west who have beon swearing at tho railroads bo-cause bo-cause of the coal shortage would have had no railroads rail-roads and would have been burninc corn for fuel. The corn and the wheat and th other thinirs are very essential to human life, but to vitalize them and make the articles of extensive commerce, the work of the men in the barren mountains of the West is essential. The farmers reckon their crop in gold. Thev strujrplo for it. They tell how much jzold their crop will brine, but the amount depends upon the volume of money in the country. Eleven years aco the same crop would have brought them only half the amount that it brines this year. Indeed, it would have been much less than that, because nearly every railroad was in the hands of receivers and th crop was not worth moving. mov-ing. A country without gold is like a man with only half enough blood in his body to keep him going. He may look all right in the faep, but h cannot make a footrace or put up a winning fight. |