The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-06-02
Facts About the Corn Crop.

Inc commissioner Vi agriculture
notes that the average price for the crop
of the entire country from 1871 to 1881,
inclusive, has been forty-three cents.
In the last five years of this period it
failed to reach forty cents, except in
1881, when it was siXty-three cents. 1t
is above the average now, from the
gradually increasing use of corn in
matchmaking, but mainly from its COM
parative scarcity, the last crop aver
aging only twenty-four bushels per
acre, or four bushels less than the cen
sus crop of 1879. That crop furnished
a supply of thirty-five bushels per capita;
the crop of last year only thirty bushels
per head, counting present population
at 100000. .FN. ..tff-
The intelligent observer at all con-
versant with the facts of farm econ
omy, cannot fail to see that the
surplus. held over to augment the
following years supply, must always
be small, say five or six per cent.
usually, and scarcely exceeding ten in
years of exceptional abundance. In
three-fourths of all reproducing
counties there is next to absolute ex-
haustion of corn cribs every year; in
few, in the great corn sections, there is
sometimes a liberal proportion held
over. One hundred and fifty million
bushels in all the States would be an
extraordinary surplus in any season.
The report refers to an error that should
be guarded against-the thoughtless as
sumption of an equal rate of consump-
ton throughout the year, summer as
well as winter. No farmer, intelligent
or otherwise, would make this blunder,
which is preached, though probably not
accepted to any appreciable extent, in
commercial quarters. 1t is evident that
the consumption in December in the
feeding States, where three-fourths of
the corn is grown and two-thirds of it
consumed, is five times-.-in some of
them ten times-as much as in June.
And vet there are those who thought
lessly assume that the consumption, if
an average of 10O,000,000 bushels per
month, must necessarily be in equal
quantity each month.
There is chance for misconception
of the actual requirements of consump-
ton from the rapid increase of the past
twelve years, which is sufficiently
large, but much of it is more apparent
than real. The year 1869 was one of
of 1880 was very incomplete in the
South, making the record of 1870
positively less than that of 1860. This
was deceptive, misleading the press,
which proclaimed decline in corn
culture, whereas there was an increase
in acreage. The census made go, 944, =
$40 bushels figure ten per cent. too
low for 1869, for that season, and
thirty-three per cent. less than a good
season would have made. The De-
partment of Agriculture made S74,-
100000 bushels for the same year and
claims to have fairly represented the
real status of the crop. The area was
sufficient for a crop of 100000, 900,
and in 1870 product of nearly 1,100,-
100000 was obtained.
The increase in area has been gradual,
and no such boom has occurred as the
unthnking and misinformed observer
is disposed to believe. Nor has
the Department of Agriculture made
very low estimates except in 1873
and 1879, the causes of which
are obvious. Reviewing the production
of five years for 1877 and 1881, inclusive,
in the light of census and department
work combined, the average product,
exclusive of an average of about 80, $780,
600 bushels exported, would admit of a
consumption for all purposes of nearly
1,400, 100000 bushels. For ten years
the consumption has averaged about
1875, 100000 bushels, the expectation
nearly $4,000, 900 bushels.
The increase has been gradual and
comparatively uniform. The compe-
tition of one crop with another and the
practical difficulty of much annual
change in the aggregate area of all
crops, except by the steady increase of
farms and farmers, forbid the spasmodic
and extreme enlargement of the area of
any crop. Every accurate enumera-
ton, State or National, fortifies this
position and exposes the absurdities so
often set afioat in this era of speculation.
The annual variation in average yield
per acre in the United States shows how
comparatively uniform in production is
this national crop, and yet how short
unfavorable seasons may occasionally
make it, from drouth and other causes,
as in 1881 and 1874 Western Rural.
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