Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1896-05-19
RESTS ON CROPS.
Business Not Expected to Improve
Now Until They Are Assured.
Influence Of Politics Also Felt-Enor.
nous Business Looked For in
Last Half of Year.

New York, May 16.-R. G. Dun & Co.
in their weekly review of trade say:
at is now the middle of May, too late for
business to change materially until tho
prospects of coming crops are assured and
definite shape has been given to the presi-
Dental contest by the conventions Until
the future is more clear there is prudent
aisinclination to produce much beyond or
ders or to order beyond immediate and GER
tain needs. If this waiting spirit prevails
two months longer, it will crowd into the
last half of the year an enormous business
II the outlook then is good. For the present
there is less business than a year ago,
though in some branches more, and the de-
lay following months of depression Is to
many trying, and causes numerous fail
ures. Speculative markets are compare
lively inactive, but the stock market Is
stagnant.
IAN attempt was made to manufacture
excitement in cotton out of the govern
nent report, but the price closed exactly
as 1t began last week. and the port receipts
have been actually larger than last year.
Wheat Is unchanged in spite of all rumors.
The volume of domestic business. though
.arge In some branches, is represented by
payments through clearing houses 1873 per
cent. smaller than last year. The railroad
earnings have been for the first week Of
May 3S per cent larger than last year,
showing trifle better than the returns for
April.
"The most fortunate of the chief in
dustries at present is the boot and shoe
manufacture, which is not only shipping
to customers within six per cent. of the
largest number of cases ever forwarded in
the first Of May, but is getting many new
orders, and there are many urgent requests
to anticipate orders for June and July
delivery, indicating that distribution to
consumers has outrun expectations. Prices
are unchanged at the lowest average yet
~ 10 NO. lnr oy,t1 n
vance in hides at Chicago and leather be-
gins to stiffen little. The iron and steel
Industry on the other hand is pronounced
as dull as 1t ever has been in its whole
at Pittsburgh, in part because of doubt
about the maintenance of prices recently
advanced. and the demand is so small that
in spite of such advances prices average
LIZ per cent. lower for the week. Sales Of
wool have been little larger the past week.
The large drives In clothing have cleared
out stocks of some readymade concerns,
but check new business and the general
disposition Is to postpone orders as far as
possible.
Failures for the week have been 22i in
the United States, against 2l1 last year,
and 80 in Canada. against 81 last year."
Bradstreet's View. 49,
Bradstreet's says:
General trade throughout the country
remains quiet, wholesale merchants con-
tinue conservative, and the distribution of
general merchandise is almost of hand
to-mouth character. South and southwest
business remains dull and featureless and
unchanged from last week. Collections in
most directions continue unsatisfactory.
Concessions have been made in prices of
wool and manufacturers of cotton goods
complain that prices are below a parity
with the cost of raw material. Unseason-
able weather has had an unfavorable in
i1ucnce on sales of clothing and other sta
pies, while labor disturbances at some
western cities have checked demand. Re-
quest for lumber is smaller than anticI-
pated, and dry weather at the south has
emphasized the dullness of last week"