Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-10-17
movement Of the Crops.

AS the autumn approaches, readers OF
the newspapers can but notice the fire.
ducnt illusions to the pressure on the
money market in the great cities like
$. New York, caused by the demand for
<&oney for moving crops, more espec-
klly the wheat crop. To most people
His IL vague phrase, and is not gener-
= kl,ynnderstood, but to those whose bust
bessit is to watch financial movements,
refers to very imperative and ex-
haustive demand for money, which will
not be put off, but must be satisfied,
however inconvenient it may be to stock
md commercial transactions in the
cites ....
The movement of the wheat crop is
&generally understood as referring to
That portion OF the yield of this grain
(which comes to the Atlantic seaboard
a for consumption, means. in financial
b aspect, much more than the money
n which Is required to purchase the amount
Of wheat which ismoved to the seaboard.
In agricultural countries the harvest
season is the time for the liquidation and
payment Of nearly the whole years en-
gagements. The laborers have then to
be paid all other charges which fall up
on the farmer are expected to be met
and discharged in money, including his
accounts for merchandise, for which he
may be indebted, and all other current
charges Of the year. These claims which
are in comparatively small amounts,
cannot be met.by the transfer of balances
in the ordinary method of bankers and
merchants, through the agency of drafts,
checks, or bills of exchange. The far
mer keeps no bank account. What he
owes he must pay in money, which is
in turn paid out by his debtors to their
creditors, and by these to others, and is
thus kept for a considerable period pass
ing from hand to hand, until the circuit
Of liquidation being completed, these
moneys accumulate at the financial cen
tiers, where they are finally used in large
amounts, as remittances to meet the
general liabilities of the interior to the
seaboard cities, for imported and manu-
featured goods.
During the time in which money is
performing this round of circulation, it
disappears from New York, and in con-
sequence the annual season of financial
stringency sets in at the Metropolis. AT
the first of January, in each year, cur
rency in large amounts being less needed
in the country, is found to accumulate,
increasing towards midsummer, till it
grows so plenty that it is lent in the
large way, from day to day, at rates
sometimes as low as two per cent. per
annum.
An example which indicates how large
is the demand for money in the country,
is presented by the crops in the Pacific
States the present season. AS the figures
are easily at hand, let us refer to the
rather exceptional, butnevertheless illus
tratiye instance of this years wheat
yield in the State of California. The
wheat crop Of 1872 amounts, in that
State, it is computed, to thirty millions
of bushels. The farmers have to dis
burse in small amounts, for labor, etc,
expended, applied to raising of a crop of
this magnitude, at least eighteen millions
of dollars = probably sixty cents per
bushel. What is not the practice in the
Western States, the California wheat has
been hitherto put up in sacks, made of
white cotton cloth, each containing two
bushels. In these sacks it lies upon the
ground, sometimes for months, unharm-
ed in that dry climate. The President of
the California State Agricultural Society
writes that such sacks, to contain the
wheat grown in the State this year will
cost three million four hundred and thir-
ty thousand dollars, or something over
ten cents per bushel This aggregate,
covering an apparently inconsiderable
item of expenditure, indicates how much
money has to be disbursed in growing
and harvesting such vast masses as are
embraced in our cereal crops.
The farmers OF the West, especially
of the Mississippi Valley, are liberal in
their purchases. Their houses are well
furnished: their children are expensive
ly clothed, and in all particulars they
are free disbursers of money. All the
money that the farmer handles, all that
supports the community around him, is
mainly realized from the industry in
which be is engaged. The grain and
meat products pay all the bills. These
have mainly to be paid at that particular
time of the year when the farmer is in
position to pay, and that is as soon as
his crops are annually harvested and
sold. Thus it is that Immediately after
the grand harvest, in the vast Mississip-
pi valley region, the money of the coun-
try, by the inevitable laws of trade,
goes TO that region to pay the debts
incurred in producing the bread and
meat which form the food of forty
millions of people in the United
States, and The surplus which goes to
feed the millions in the countries Of Wes-
terri Europe.