Volume 25
Number 303
Prices of farm products in Iowa,
1851-1940
Article 1
May 1942
Prices of farm products in Iowa, 1851-1940
Norman V. Strand
Bureau of Agricultural Economics
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Recommended Citation
Strand, Norman V. (1942) "Prices of farm products in Iowa, 1851-1940,"Research Bulletin (Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station): Vol. 25 : No. 303 , Article 1.
\
JMay, 1942 Research Bulletin 303
Prices of Farm Products
in
Iowa,
1851 .. 1940
By NORMAN V. STRANDAGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION IOWA STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
AND MECHANIC ARTS
AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS SUBSECTION RURAL SOCIAL SCIENCE ~CTION WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
Coop.erating
CONTENTS Part I
Scope _______________________________________________________________________________ _ Methods _________________________________________________________________________ _ Composition of the series _____________________________________________ _ Evaluation of data used _______________________________________________ _ Weighting _____________ y ________________________________________________________ _
Editing ___________________________________________________________________________ _ Iowa terminal market quotations eliminated _______________ _ Prices on the gold basis _______________________________________________ _ The accuracy of the series ___________________________________________ _ Livestock ___________________________________________________________________ _ Grains _________________________________________________________________________ _ Poultry and poultry products ___________________________________ _ Miscellaneous _____________________________________________________________ _ Part II. Annual price tables and graphs for all
com-Page le07 ,e07 le09
Jell
1915 le16 H)18 I() 19 /919,e20
1925 1-e30 le31 1£)32 modities ________________________________________________________________________ 1034 Part III. Monthly prices for all commodities ________________ le55 Appendix A. Currency prices adjusted to gold values __ Ifj76 Appendix B. Productions and inventories of items usedPrices of Farm Products in Iowa,
1851 .. 1940
1By NOR"fAN V. STRANO 2
Part I
The need for local farm product prices for a long period of time is generally conceded, since numerous problems in agricultural economics depend for their solution upon the existence of adequate and accurate farm product price series. Terminal market prices are suitable for many purposes, but for studies of local significance it is necessary that "farm" price averages be available. No attempt will be made in this bulletin to develop any of the possible uses of a price
series. Their actual applications may be so varied that any
treatment given here would necessarily be inadequate. Rather, the intent is to furnish a long time series of prices which may be used for any occasion requiring historical prices. An historical record of material, which has been compiled at great expenditures of time and effort, has been brought together in table form ready to be employed on in-quiries concerned with prices.
SCOPE
The V.S.D.A. series of monthly prices for Iowa farm prod-ucts begins around 1910. This study was designed to extend these series backward in time to the earliest date that an average could be constructed. Farm product price series for 21 commodities are presented in this bulletin. The prices are monthly and annual averages for the State of Iowa. Sev-eral of the series begin in 1851, but others could not be
started that early either because of the nature of the product
or because prices were not available in sufficient quantities to justify preparation of a series. In this period Iowa -evolved from a few settlements along the eastern and
south-ern riv'2rs to a great agricultural state. Many commodities now important were not so in the early years of this state, 1 The prp.paration of the material in this bulletin was accomplished by the "York Project~ Administration, Iowa, O.P. No. 465-72-3-251. Project 383 of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station.
,.:'-Plr" author is at present Assistant Land Economist of the Division of Land J Economics, Bureau of Agricultural Economics and was formerly State
'V.P."". Supervisor of Agricultural Economics Projects in Iowa.
AppreCiation is expressed for the assistance given by Mr. R. C. Bentley, Assistant Research Professor of Iowa State College. Mr. Bentley sug-gested the project and gave assistance during all the time the series were in preparation. Obli.'l"ation to Mr. L. M. Carl, Senior Agricultural Statistician of the Agricultural Marketing Service must also be expressed. Mr. Richard P. Elwood, Mr. John G. Schultz and Mr. Edwin P. Betzer assisted the author in the task of assembling the price data and computing the averages.
1008
consequently few quotations were found for them. The be-ginning date of the series roughly corresponds to the time when the commodity became an important factor in local sales. This is true because the source of price quotations
used, the local newspapers, would naturally begin carrying
quotations as soon as there was need for them.
Annual prices are included in this bulletin and cover the period from the beginning date of· each series to 1940. Be-ginning for some series in 1908 and for others in 1909 and 1910 and including all years to 1940, the prices were com-puted by the V.S.D.A. Agricultural Marketing Service: The
annual price of the products named below is for 1909 a
simple 12-month average of quotations derived partly from
the newspapers and partly from the V.S.D.A. series. The
V.S.D.A. begins its series for beef cattle, veal calves, sheep,
lambs, hogs, butterfat, clover seed, timothy seed and
un-washed wool in August, 1909. Its chicken, egg and butter series begin in February, 1909, and its turkey series begins in February, 1912. To the series in 1909 and 1912 given by: the V.S.D.A. were added newspaper prices for the remaining months. These were averaged to get the annual price. Graphs for each commodity are included in Part II.
Monthly prices are printed in Part III up to the time when
the V.S.D.A. Agricultural Marketing Service series begin,
varying from January 1, 1908 to January 1, 1910. To pro-vide check data and to furnish a base period for index num-bers, prices were prepared through December, 1914. These were not printed since the series covering' the intervening years already exists and some confusion would be caused by issuing a duplicating set which vary some from the prices now in use.
A farm price is that which the producer receives. It is the price which the farmer or handler receives at the local mar-ket not the farm. The farmer must transport his products to the market before receiving this price. Farm prices some-times vary greatly from the terminal price. The state aver-age farm price, as conceived here, should be a composite of
'~ all grades and classes of a commodity and should ha,.ve in it
prices from all parts of the area it represents. Eacll: grade and class should be represented in proportion to the amounts
marketed. Each part of the state should provide quotations
to the total in proportion to its importance as a source of supply. It is thus a general expression of a price conditIOn prevailing on a specified day and is made up of more or less
adequate samples of all prices for the commodity on that
day. It is the price which when multiplied by the total
3 Price trends as related to agriculture in Iowa. Iowa Department of Agrl· culture, Bu!. 92:2.1940.
le09
sales of the commodity for that day will give the gross re-ceipts from the commodity for that day. This assumes that perfect weighting has been done which, as a matter of prac-tice, can only be approximated. It is, nevertheless, the best available average for computing income or receipts. It is the price, also, which may be used in constructing index numbers. For measuring seasonal trends peculiar to a state it may be used, since terminal prices are affected by seasonal char-acteristics of perhaps several states.
The method of computing the averages, an indication of source of data, an evaluation of data, and an appraisal of the accuracy of the series is presented in the following pages. Annual price graphs and tables, monthly price tables, gold prices of commodities 1862-1878, and weight tables are pre-sented following the textual comments.
METHODS
Several sources of basic data for farm produce price series were sought for use in this study, but only two, newspapers and accounts and diaries kept ~y farmers, were available in sufficient quantity to be of much aid. The newspaper file section of the State Historical Library was surveyed to de-termine the number of papers carrying farm prices. A tabu-lation was made which indicated that there was available from this source a large number of quotations, enough in fact, to justify the preparation of the series from this source alone.
It was thought necessary, however, to collect and tabulate price quotations from an independent source in order that check data would be available, and for this purpose all quo-tations were recorded, which, for the historical period under consideration, were securable from farmers' accounts.
The problem of collecting original price quotations from farmers' accounts and records resolved itself into two phases. The accounts had to be located and access to them gained. Two mailing lists, those of the Iowa Agricultural Extension <--: Service and the Iowa Agricultural Marketing Service were
----circularized in order to locate persons having, or having knowledge of, old farm account records. These two lists, at the time of mailing, comprised about 28,000 names. About -1,200 people answered the questionnaire, and a large number
of accounts were located.
The prices which anyone farmer was able to provide were usually spotty; that is, few commodities were listed for short and broken periods of time. If it had been necessary to rely upon this source for a series, it would have been impossible to construct one with sufficient length and continuity to be of much value. However, as a bench mark against which to
1010
check the price series obtained from the newspapers and private records: it proved to be very valuable.
The State Historical Society was not able to gather a com-plete file of newspapers for all the years involved in the anal-ysis. When the enumerators were in the field, tabulating prices from farm accounts, the additional duty of tabulating prices from newspapers not on file in the state library was necessary. In this way a nearly complete survey was made of all newspapers in the state from their beginnings to 1914. Farm product prices in the State newspaper files were tabulated by persons who worked in the State Historical Library for nearly a year. About 250 newspapers from all parts of the state contributed prices to the series. Com-plete tabulation of all the price quotations given was con-sidered to be most effective under the circumstances. There-fore, all the quotations for the commodities farmers sell were copied on listing sheets and became available for inclusion in the price series. Two exceptions to this rule had to be
adopted. It was unnecessary to include more than one price
for the same date in the same market. Prices, in cases such as this, were copied from only one of the two or more papers containing quotations. Chicago base prices, that is, those which were derived by deducting freight charges from the
Chicago price, were not used. It was assumed that factors
other than freight rates also cause differences in the Iowa farm and the Chicago terminal prices.
The prices copied on the original tabulation sheets were checked for accuracy by a worker other than the one who
had first copied it. This done~ the sheets were sent to the
project headquarters for editing, tabulation and preparation of average prices.
The data from both sources were classified according to the following criteria: the commodity by grades, the name of the newspaper, the city and county of origin and the month and year.
At the beginning of the study, four prices a month were taken from each newspaper. Some test tabulations were run which indicated that the increase in accuracy achieved by taking four prices each month and averaging for a monthly price, against taking one price a month as close as possible
to the fifteenth, was not great enough to justify the extra_
work involved. It was decided, thereupon, to enumerate only~
one price a month per commodity, that being as near to tht 15th as the dates of issuance of the weekly and bi-weekly papers would permit. There were so few quotations in the • Some individuals sent their record books to the project headquarters at Des Moines for tabulation and others had to be tabulated at the homes of the owners.
1011
farmers diaries that it was necessary to use all those given. If several were available for any month the chances are that the average would approximate a middle of the month price.
Each quotation in the form of a range was reduced to a mid-point or mean of the range. This was made necessary for the reason that some prices were quoted as a range and others were quoted as an average of prices received in a market on a certain day. The mid-points were considered to be equally as valid as quotations which were given as aver-ages and were included in the crop-reporting district series. The sums of all the indications in a district were divided by
the number of quotations to provide the district prices.
COMPOSITION OF THE SERIES
Quotations for each product are given under a large
num-ber of grades, classes and weights. In the period concerned
there was little if any standardization in this respect, and
each market more or less had its own names for various
grades of commodities. The great number of grade names
made it necessary to classify the various commodities by grades according to the number of papers quoting each grade
by years. It was only by some such method that the grades
appropriate to, for instance, beef cattle, could be isolated from other cattle quotations, their price levels examined and the number of prices per grade found. This method was used to choose the grades to be included in each series, if grades were chosen. All grades given by the papers were used for the grains, lambs, sheep, chickens, butterfat, clover seed, timothy, flaxseed, turkeys and potatoes. Test series in which various grades of each of the above commodities were com-bined and averaged and compared showed no appreciable
dif-ference in levels. In these cases the obvious thing to do
seemed to be to combine all quotations given regardless of grade name.
Choices of grades had to be made for beef cattle, hogs, eggs, butter, hay and wool.
Table 1 contains a selection of grade names which were f{iven to various cattle classes. It is not complete; many
other names were given and the project work sheets were
slUrnmarized by crop-reporting districts rather than for the
£;catf'1 as a whole, but it is representative of the list. Those grades omitted from the table were usually of the same gen-eral nature but had a qualifying term such as fat, choice, common, grass, corn-fed, old and young, appended.
This table shows the number of quotations given in each
year by grades. From it may be ascertained the relative
frequency with which grades are quoted, the years of quota-tions and the grade descriptions as indicated by the name.
TABLE 1. NUMBER OF NEWSPAPERS QUOTING PRICES, BY YEARS. IOWA.· bD
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1847 1 1848 2 1849 18-50 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 2 1858 2 1809 <::0 1860 1 I-' l-v 1861 1 1862 1 1863 1 2 1864 2 1865 1 2 1866 3 2 1 1 1867 7 2 2 1868 9 1 1 2 1869 8 4 1 1870 4 4 6 3 1 1871 4 7 3 1 1872 5 3 8 2 1873 3 2 5 2 1 1874 3 10 2 1 1 1875 6 2 11 7 2 1876 8 1 1 10 4 1 1877 10 3 12 2 5 a 1878 11 ,,-,\.i 9 4 1 1 1 1879 8 2 10 3 2 1 -~,
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1880 12 2 9 6 3 3 1 1881 13 1 11 6 5 4 1882 13 3 8 4 7 3 1883 16 3 27 6 6 2 3 1884 17 3 27 5 6 1 1885 21 2 22 6 7 1 4 1886 15 3 31 5 7 3 3 1887 12 29 6 2 6 3 3 1888 15 4 24 13 4 5 2 3 2 4 1 1889 13 4 25 15 3 3 1 3 3 1890 28 2 19 35 7 5 1 5 6 7 1 1891 22 2 11 15 8 5 4 4 4 1
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1892 22 2 11 11 7 8 6 5 2 (0 1893 34 3 37 18 14 5 1 7 12 4,....
1894 31 3 41 17 11 12 2 2 8 13 6 Ci:I 1895 33 4 2 44 16 6 11 1 1 2 2 9 18 6 1896 35 3 4 42 23 5 9 1 2 2 2 13 1 13 5 1897 39 3 2 67 18 4 8 3 3 8 2 12 4 1898 48 2 2 65 22 14 11 2 3 2 10 3 12 3 18'9 43 1 1 51 23 6 12 1 17 2 8 6 1900 32 2 1 49 18 7 11 4 16 3 9 7 InOI 43 2 49 32 11 10 3 23 8 5 1902 45 3 58 32 9 11 2 6 18 11 8 1903 33 3 1 50 30 10 12 2 5 19 3 8 9 1904 38 5 1 46 25 9 9 1 3 16 3 8 8 1905 31 3 2 49 17 6 9 2 1 3 12 2 8 9 1906 24 1 1 47 22 8 8 1 2 5 17 3 6 7 1907 35 2 1 2 39 24 7 8 4 2 2 22 1 6 10 1908 29 4 37 26 12 8 2 3 1 4 20 1 8 8 1909 37 1 1 42 20 10 6 2 3 20 10 6 1910 31 1 2 29 21 8 4 1 3 2 14 9 6• The figures in this table indicate that as a minimum that number of papers have given at least one quotation for
one or more grades for the year. For example. in 1870 four newspapers quoted steers. This may mean that four
quotations or any number up to 48 quotations have been given depending on the number of months for which there
HH4
Specifically, by use of the complete tabulation, of which the
table is an abridged example, it was possible to begin to iso-late the grades which would be included in a series. Veal calf prices, for instance, were known to be in sufficient quan-tity to permit of construction of a series by reference to these tables.
On the basis of this classification of names were selected the grades which were finally included in tne beef cattle (and other) series, which were as follows: beef cattle, fat cattle, fat steers, steers, shipping steers, shipping cattle and cattle. All of the rest of the grades were left out of the beef cattle series. Example of names left out are cows, can-ners and cutters, bulls, veal calves, stockers and feeders.
The local newspapers designated butter by a great number of grades but only two, butter and cash butter, were used in
the series presented in this bulletin. Quotations for butter
and cash butter were numerous and seemed to be standard names throughout all the years in the series and in all lo-calities of the state. Other names, as was the case for cattle, occurred infrequently and were left out of the series. A number of grades of butter which did not seem to correspond in their levels to the average prices paid to farmers also were eliminated from the series. That is, extremely good or extremely poor grades were left out as were quotations which were not "farm" prices.
Eggs were also quoted a great number of ways. Here again it was necessary to eliminate the "retail" quotations in order to approximate the farm prices. Types included in the series were eggs, fresh eggs, cash eggs and merchant's pay eggs. These were quoted frequently and in all sections of the state. Other grades quoted might have been included, but the numbers in the classes given above were sufficient and they seemed to be similar as to price level and about on the average of all grades given.
Quotations for the grade hogs and live hogs only were used in this series. The number of quotations was sufficient, and apparently the prices were about on the average of all quotations. This is natural since the term "hogs" was the one most frequently used by the editors and was evidently a term expressing what was considered an average grade in the market.
All quotations for loose hay were taken. This included those for tame hay of all varieties and wild hay. Baled hay prices were not used. The wool series is for "unwashed" wool and will compare with the similar V.S.D.A. series. The loose hay series also was designed to include all types of hay used by the V.S.D.A. Quotations for the grades wool and unwashed wool were used. The veal calf series includes only
HH5 \
those grades called calves and veal calves. Turkey prices were figured only for 4 months of the year, and the annual average for this product is based on just the 4 months. But-terfat includes all the per pound quotations which could be
derived from the so-called private records. It is the only
series based on th~s source of quotation. All others are
en-tirely based on newspaper indications.
EVALUATION OF DATA USED
In the early stages of the study there was considerable doubt about the accuracy of prices quoted in newspapers, particularly for the reason that other investigators had pointed out that editors frequently lagged in changing
quo-tations. Another doubt stated concerned the use · of
mid-points of ranges as expressing the average price paid for any
commodity on one day. It was the opinion of the author that
these doubts about the usefulness of newspaper prices were considerably over-emphasized, particularly for Iowa in the period studied. The newspapers in the early days of this state were relied on very largely by farmers for price indi-cations and it is believed that the editors, by and large, took the responsibility of quoting accurate prices more seriously than they, perhaps, do today. Most of the papers did change their quotations regularly each issue if market justified the change.
Use of the mid-points of prices quoted as a range is the best and only thing which can be done under the
circum-stances. It may legitimately be assumed that the bulk of
the commodity is sold at the mid-point since the extreme prices are generally for unusual grades, but even if the mid-point is not the average price of the commodity in one market its error may be offset by an opposite error in another mar-ket. Therefore, when several quotations comprise an aver-age price, the chances are that errors introduced by use of the mid-point have been cancelled and that the averages for districts are not much affected by its use.
It was believed that if similar trends could be demonstrated
to exist in small areas of the state the newspaper quotations
would be serviceable, at least, to show price changB~. The
charge that quotations were not changed often could be in-vestigated by preparing large numbers of averages for sev-eral three or four county districts and comparing one with an-other for mere change. Consistent changes in the averages from month to month would prove that enough papers pro-vided current reports to make them useful for the purpose of showing change. The test of general trends of prices quoted
by different newspapers within relatively small areas was
/()I6
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. Figure 1divided into three sections by counties, each section containing three or four counties. Averages of newspaper quotations within each sub-district were made, the averages were plotted on graph paper and comparisons made. Examination of a number of these sub-district price charts convinced the in-vestigator that while levels in the sub-districts were in all cases a little different the trends were so much alike that little hesitancy need be felt in the way of using newspaper quotations for this purpose. Figure 1 is representative of the charts prepared for this purpose.
Having been assured that the newspaper quotations were sufficiently flexible to portray price changes, all of the
sub-district sums were re-grouped according to crop-reporting
districts and monthly averages were computed. WEIGHTING
The use of historical material limits the investigator to (merely) what is available. The ideal farm price data for a state average would be selected in proper numbers from all
sections of the state to supply a weighted average of all
grades and classes sold on a certain day. It was not possible
to design a sampling method which was ideal for the
pur-pose of this study but instead the data in existence had to be worked over to provide the best answer possible under the circumstances. Prices for all grades and classes of commodi-ties may be assumed to be reported in newspapers which
1~17
average may not, especially if the number of cases is small,
express the correct average grade. There is nothing which can be done about this, but sectional price differences may be made to exercise their proper weight in a state average even though one or more districts may be improperly represented in the state average as to number of quotations. This is done by the method of applying to crop-reporting district averages, weights which are proportional to the importance of the district as related to the state totals.
To get state averages two procedures could have been fol-lowed. The first would have been to compute a simple av-erage of all quotations for a commodity as of a certain day. This method would be satisfactory if it could be assumed that the newspapers reporting prices on that day were
scat-tered throughout the state in proportion to production or, better, marketings of the product. In other words, quota-tions as received would have been deemed to be self-weight-ing. This assumption is not in accordance with the facts, so an alternative method of obtaining the state price had to be adopted.
Prices were computed for each of the nine districts and weighted by the district production or inventory figures. The weights were taken from the Federal Agricultural Cen-suses for Iowa.
The period for which each set of weights had to be used extended for 5 years prior to the date taken to 5 years after the date taken. The agricultural census was, in the period, taken only every 10 years. Crop-reporting district totals by commodities for each census were added to arrive at state totals. The district having the low production or number was given a weight of one and all other district totals were divided by the total of the low district to provide weights by which to multiply the district average prices. This method assures that a district having four times as much corn as the base district, for instance, will have its price weighted twice as heavily as a district having only twice as much corn as the base district.
In the earlier years the weights given to the various dis-tricts differed far more sharply than they did in the weight period based on the 1910 census. In this year the smallest weight for "other cattle" was one (for six districts) and the largest and only other weight was two (for the remaining three districts). In the earlier years weighting was much more important, and a comparison of a simple average of district prices as against the weighted average of district prices reveals this characteristic to a marked degree.
In order to provide an annual average for each series, aU years of each commodity having 12 quotations were added
J(:l18
and averaged. It is to be noted that the annual averages in this bulletin are not exactly comparable with those com-puted by the Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S.D.A.
since they weight their monthly prices by estimated
market-ings. It is believed that the annual averages for the historical
series as printed are not widely different from those which
would have been derived by weighting according to monthly marketings except for some commodities which are sold in a very short period of time, such as turkeys. See Appendix B for tables showing productions, numbers and weights.
EDITING
In spite of the fact that, in general, the prices quoted by a newspaper were good reflections of prices paid by the mills or markets on that day, evidences were found of a tendency for the editor to run the same prices week after week. Where
these prices affected the district series they were edited out,
since it was believed that they could not be real prices. In
some cases the prices which remained identical for a long
period of time were believed to be about correct. Another type of price edited out was that considered to be either too high or too low. The basis for removing quotations from the series both for the very high and low prices and those ex-hibiting the editorial lag tendency was by comparison with other prices in the same district. The tabulation forms listed all prices for the district and month side by side, and it was relatively easy to throw out prices which definitely disturbed the accuracy of the final district series. The net result of this procedure was to furnish a series, each price of which had been carefully scrutinized for its reasonableness.
The monthly state average farm prices computed in this
study were plotted on graphs which also contained Chicago
prices for grades of the same commodity, and Wisconsin farm prices. The latter are considerably more comparable to the Iowa series. Trends of the Iowa farm prices were checked against trends of Wisconsin and Chicago terminal market prices. Discrepancies in trend were noted and the original quotations making up the Iowa geries were again checked for reasonableness in those cases where the trend in Iowa and Wisconsin and Chicago prices differed. It was possible by this procedure to catch some unreasonable quotations which had been overlooked in the first check.
As another part of the process of editing, the practice of eliminating quotations which would destroy the compara-bility of a series one month with those preceding and
succeed-ing, was followed, particularly when very few quotations were available for that month's price. To give an example of what is meant the following explanation is offered: Suppose
l(;j19
that quotations from three newspapers comprise the price for June, 1860. The price for newspaper A is high, the price for newspaper B is medium, and the price for newspaper C
'is low. In July the price for newspaper A is absent.
Averag-ing the two remainAverag-ing quotations in July would thus result in too Jow a price. In instances such as this, a price for the first newspaper whose level was the highest of the three, would be interpolated from June to August in order that the .series not be distorted by the omission described. Of course, the more numerous the quotations in the average the less serious such omissions become.
Crop-reporting district prices provided data with which to check trends as exhibited by nine rather than one series. Each district average was scanned in an attempt to determine its trend as related to the trend of averages in each of the
other eight districts. If it could be established by a
com-parison of trends in the districts that unreasonable prices did disturb the accuracy of the district series, the out-of-line prices would then be taken out and the average re-computed. This was an additional method of eliminating prices from the original tabulations which distorted or reversed price trends. IOWA TERMINAL MARKET QUOTATIONS ELIMINATED No terminal market quotations can be included in a series purporting to show farm prices. An examination of the mar-kets in Iowa showed only one such market in the state-Sioux City. The Sioux City market became a wholesaler's market for cattle, hogs and sheep in 1870 and for grain in 1907. The tabulators had taken quotations from Sioux City for all classes of livestock, livestock products and grains in the regu-lar course of their work. In order to test whether or not the terminal market price was at variance with farm or coun-try market prices a special tabulation was made to show the difference between Sioux City prices and prices from other towns in crop-reporting district No.4 (where Sioux City is lo-cated.) The averages of the district No.4 quotations other than Sioux City varied from the Sioux City prices only in respect to hogs. Cattle and sheep prices were approximately the same in both sources as were all the livestock products and grains. On this basis it was decided to eliminate only Sioux City hog prices from the farm series, since they were definitely higher than prices from other towns in the district. Therefore, from 1870 on, the hog series contains no Sioux City prices, but all other series contain Sioux City prices.
PRICES ON THE GOLD BASIS
During the period 1862-1878, inclusive, gold payments for
1(}20
newspapers quoted during this period were, of course, on a currency basis. These prices in United States currency have been deflated in order that comparisons could be made with other sets of prices on the gold basis and in order that the amount of the inflation could be noted.
The method of making the deflation consisted in multiply-ing all currency quotations by the value of $100 of currency in gold and dividing by 100. The gold values of currency in this period are printed in the statistical section as table 1, Appendix A.
The currency quotations for this period are printed along with the prices for all other years of the period in Part III. The gold basis prices for all commodities have been printed in Appendix A.
THE ACCURACY OF THE SERIES
A great deal of difficulty may be experienced in achieving a true level of farm prices for some products. The reason for this is that in a farm price there are represented numer-ous grades, weights and classes which may be very different in price. The quotations averaged may include dispropor-tionate representations from higher or lower grades and thus improperly weight the average to the extent that it will be either too high or too low.
Another cause of possible error in the level of the series may arise as a result of disproportionately weighting one section of the district or state by including relatively too many or too few prices peculiar to a location. Freight dif-ferentials, surplus and deficit areas and varying marketing methods cause geographical price differences and make it necessary that each district contribute quotations in propor-tion to its share of the state producpropor-tion or marketing. In this study the effect of inadequately represented districts has been reduced by resorting to the device of weighting crop-reporting district average prices by numbers and bushels on hand or produced.
A particular bias, such as that which might come about as a result of collecting prices mainly from farmers or busi-ness leaders whose reports are confined to the better grades, or biases which come about as a result of "editorial lag,"
'may also affect accuracy.
Trends are quite easily approximated, even with relatively few quotations. This is to be expected. Grades which differ widely in price level will almost certainly fluctuate in har-mony, and it is also to be expected that prices of the same commodity in different parts of the area in question will roughly move together.
H~21
Many considerations such as these will concern the user of
a price series. It was thought advisable, therefore, to
com-pare the series presented here with prices obtained from private account records, those which have been prepared by
the U.S.D.A. for Iowa, and lastly prices which were computed
by the University of Wisconsin for Wisconsin: The latter
comparison is mainly to check trends.
The number of quotations which enter into anyone average
price is closely related to the accuracy of the average. It is
realized that the standard deviation of prices also affects this,
but the difficulty of using this measure with a time series is
so great that it was deemed advisable to indicate sampling accuracy by reference only to the number of quotations given
in each series. For this purpose, also, since it is recognized'
that only a rough check on accuracy may be made by use of the number of quotations, it was decided to condense and summarize these numbers as much as possible and still make
them of some interest in this regard. For each price series
in this bulletin the average number of quotations, by modity, for the beginning year of each decade were
com-puted and are presented in table 2.
Numbers of quotations and standard deviations are not, of
course, the only things which can affect the accuracy of a
price series. It has been mentioned that a bias would also
affect the exactness with which prices measure true levels. With the exception of butterfat, all series are derived from newspaper quotations, and the confidence of the user may be
affected unless he knows that either bias does not arise as
'a result of use of this source of price data or exists in such
small quantity that he may use a price series based on them
for many of his purposes.
It may be said now that a large number of the series are
as accurate as any which could be constructed both as to
trend and level. These series are the grains, poultry and
dairy products, hogs in the livestock group and wool, hay,
potatoes and flaxseed in the miscellaneous group.
It was to be expected that those commodities which vary
most as to grade would be most difficult to check against
other indications, and this assumption was adequately borne
.out by this study. Beef cattle, sheep and lambs, in
particu-lar, were difficult to prepare averages for that corresponded
with indications given by the U.S.D.A. series, although,
trends of the two series corresponded almost exactly.
5 Mortenson, W. P.; Erdman, H. H.; Draxler, J. H. ,Visconsin farm
TABLE 2. AVERAGE NUMBER OF QUOTATIONS PER MONTH IN EACH SERIES BY
CROP-REPORTING DISTRICTS.
-Livestock Grains Poultry and dairy Miscellaneous
(/) >.
""
""
District (/) oj""
.,
(/) and year <= >. .<::.,
.,
<11.,
(/) (/) .- ~..,
'- '-.,
(/)'"
0 <11 _<11 C. .0 (/) oj.,
.>: (/).,
.,
.,
"
fIl (/) "0 '0; ....-
"
E <= (/)"
"
.>: .- .- (/) E .:.,.-
oj>.,
bo '- .- .<:: 0::.,
:a
bo'-=
.-.- 0 0 oj 0 <:.,.-
<11-oS 0 oj >. bo"
0 ~5 >~ .<:: rn :x1 C) 0 0 00 ~ ~ P< C) r..< <-< ~ ~ ::>00 .... ~ 5 E:: ~ ~ Po. -Northwest II
II I I I
I
I
I
I
I
I
1850I
I 1860 I I I I I I I I I I I .11 I I I I I 1870 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 18RO 1.61 I I I 1.61 2.01 1.61 1.61 2.01 1.11 I 1.31 I .91 I I 1. 71 I 1.3 1890 .81 I I I 3.01 2.91 3.01 3.01 2.91 1.01 .21 2.91 .21 2.91 1.01 1.01 1.51 3.01 .81 1.3 1900 5.61 1.81 .81 .8116.5116.5116.6116.6116.31 8.21 1.2114.61 1.6111.81 I 7.81 4.8111.91 I 7.9 J 910 2.91 1.01 I 111.8113.4113.41 9.1111.11 5.41 .8112.21 2.41 8.21 2.81 3.11 4.91 5.61 I 5.5 North Cent.I
I
I I I
I I I I
·
I
I I
I I
I I
I I I
1850 I 1860 I 1 I l.01 1.01 1.01 I I .11 1.01 I 1.01 1.01 1.01 I I I 1.0 1~70 I I .91 2.01 1.91 1.91 .91 1.01 .31 1.91 .31 UI 2.01 I I I .91 1.9 18RO I I I .11 I I .11 I I I I .31 I I I I I I 1890 3.7! I 1.01 1.2.51 4.01 4.41 4.21 3.41 1.61 I 1.51 i 1.21 I 3.01 1.01 1.31 2.81 I 2.1 1900 5.21 1.01 1.01 I 9.7110.9110.61' 8 91 8.81 4.31 3.01 7.61 2.41 6.01 110.21 3.81 7.21 8.11 1.01 5.1 1910 5.11 I 2.21 1.01 7.61 9.41 9.41 6.61 7.91 2.11 7.61 9.61 3.11 2.61 I 2.81 1.01 5.31 5.51 .51 7.4 Northeast II II II II II II I I II III
.6/I
.4/ I .1/ .3/ .3/ .1/I
1850 .51 1.01 I .3 1860 1.01 I I I .41 1.81 1.81 1.81 1.21 I I 2.3! I .81 I I I 1.01 I 1.31 1.8 1870 1.31 1.01 I .81 .21 2.91 2.91 2.91 3.51 1.01 I 2.91 I 1.01 I 2.21 .41 .41 I 1.11 3.0 1S80 3.21 ! .61 I 2.11 3.11 3.21 4.41 3.31 1.81 I 3.21 I 1.41 I 1.21 1.01 1.61 1.71 1.21 3.0 1890 I 5.91 .91 1.31 1.01 4.81 7.01 6.91 4.01 3.91 4.01 3.81 6.71 2.6[ 4.01 I 8.81 4.61 4.61 3.01 1.11 5.6 1900 I 7.61 5.01 2.21 2.81 9.5110.8110.81 8.41 8.01 8.21 6.41 9.21 3.81 6.21 111.81 2.31 6.41 6.21 3.91 8.4 1910 I 5.61 3.81 1.01 .61 4.31 7.21 7.21 4.81 5.81 2.81 11.51 7.31 4.41 3.51 I 6.41 1.81 3.21 2.71 2.61 4.2 'Vest Cent. /I
!
!
I I I
I
I
I
I
II I
I
I I
I I I I
1850 I 1860 ! I I I I 1.01 .31 I I I I I 1.01 I I I I I 1.0 1870 I 1.11 I .31 I .41 2.01 2.01 .21 1.21 .61 .21 .41 .71 .21 I I I .21 1.5 1880 1131 I I I 2.01 1.81 2.01 .41 .31 I I .21 I 1.01 I I I .21 .41 2.0 1890 I 5.01 1.71 .41 I 8.21 2.51 2.51r
1.51 1.61 I 1.81 I 1.91 1.01 I .41 1.81 I 1.8 1900 I 8.21 6.41 1.01 6.1120.6119.6119.41 111.6110.31 4.21 5.51 3.3110.91 I 3.21 1.41 3.41 5.51 I 9.5 1910 I 6.91 3.01 I 4.4114.8112.8112.81 I 6.81 3.21 2.21 2.21 1.21 7.01 1.2110.61 1.01 1.01 2.21 I 5.0-
~ t-:l t-:lTABLE 2 continued
-~ ._ -- - - -- - --- - - - -- - - ---- - - -- - - --- - --
-Livestock Grains Poultry and dairy Miscellaneous
rn :>. 't:! 't:! District rn til 't:!
.,
rn and year en rn +''"
:>. .:::.,
.,
.,
.,
0. :>..,
.,
... ....,
rn.,
0.,
.0"
.,
...
.,
.,
.,
rn 00 ...-
-"
.,
S rn'"
rn.,
;::"
rn...
..
..
rn E >: '0 ~.,
..
""
.,
bl) ... ~~
.,
:a
bl) .....
. . 0 0"
0...
Pl~.,-
.::: til 0 0"
:>. bl) =' =' ;:j~ 0 0>5 111 ..:I D:1 u 0 !XI P< u riI E-t !XI !XI ... I ..:I U H r.;; i$ Il;
Central
I
.31I
.31 .31I
\ .3\ \ .31 1 I 1850 I I 1860 I I I I .21 .61 .61 .61 I I I .61 I .41 I I I I I .4 1870 2.71 .81 I I 1.31 3.11 3.11 3.01 1.31 1.01 .21 2.61 .31 3.01 I 1.21 .81 .81 .81 1.41 2.9 1880 2.01 1.01 1.01 I 3.21 3.61 3.61 4.01 1.61 1.61 I 2.21 I 1.31 I 1.01 I .61 1.31 1.61 2.2 1890 6.51 2.31 3.21 .81 4.81 6.61 6.61 4.61 .71 3.51 2.51 6.51 1.61 5.51 1.01 7.71 .41 .61 .21 .91 4.8 1900 5.81 1.91 1.01 .21 5.81 6.81 6.81 7.41 2.91 6.81 8.41 6.81 5.61 5.11 I 8.01 1.61 1.31 .21 1.61 2.6 1910 5.11 1.81 I I 3.31 6.01 5.81 4.21 2.21 I 13.61 4.61 4.61 4.51 1.31 1.11 I I I 3.01 1.2 East Cent.I I I I
.11I
.21 .21I
I
I .11I
.11 II
I
I
I I
1850 1 I -1860 I .41 .31 .61 I .81 1.81 2.11 2.21 .41 .61 .21 1.91 .21 1.71 I .21 I .21 I I 1.9 0 1870 I .81 .21 I I .21 .81 I .31 .81 I I 1.01 I .31 I I I I I I I.\:l 1880 1 4.01 3.01 1.81 I 2.21 4.01 4.01 6.61 4.01 2.31 .51 3.81 1.01 2.21 I 3.11 1.61 1.61 I 6.51 3.6 C;:l lS~O I .51 1.01 1.81 .31 2.31 2.91 3.81 3.21 .51 3.51 2.11 3.51 1.01 2.11 1 3.81 .21 1.01 .21 2.81 3.3 1900 I 4.91 5.61 5.01 3.01 5.51 8.81 8.81 8.21 4.91 6.21 7.91 8.61 4.91 4.21 I 5.41 1.01 1.01 I 2.11 5.3 1910 I 8.21 5.71 4.01 3.51 3.81 9.51 9.51 9.21 8.21 8.51 11.61 7.21 7.81 1.01 I 8.21 .61 1.41 I 1.01 2.8 SouthwestI
I
I
I I
I
I
I
I
I
I I I
I I I I I I
I
1850 1860 I I I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I I 1870 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1880 I I I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I I 18~0 .61 1.01 .61 .31 1.01 1.01 1.01 1.01 I I I 1.01 .21 I I 3.01 I I 1.0 1900 8.11 3.21 2.01 .51 9.81 9.61 9.1110.11 3.01 4.01 8.91 9.11 5.11 6.91 1.01 2.11 1.01 2.01 6.2 1910 4.01 1.91 1.01 I 5.61 6.61 6.01 6.61 1.01 I 10.71 5.81 .81 5.51 1.11 .81 I I 4.3 South Cent.I I
I
I
I
I I
I I I
I II I I I
I
I
1850 i I 1860 I I I I I I I I I I I .11 I I I I I 1870 I I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I I I I 1880 I 1.01 I 1.01 I 2.01 1.01 1.01 1.01 1.01 I 1.01 I 1.01 I 1.01 I 1.01 1.01 1.81 1.0 1890 I 1.01 1.01 .91 I 2.91 3.81 3.81 1.01 3.81 1.91 3.81 I 3.91 I 1.91 2.91 2.91 2.21 I 2.9 1900 I 8.51 2.01 1.61 I 7.61 8.81 9.61 3.61 1.01 6.51 10.41 9.61 7.11 9.71 I 4.01 1.81 7.11 I I 6.4 1910 I 4.81 1.01 1.01 1.01 4.21 8.11 8.21 6.21 4.21 6.21 18.51 8.21 4.41 8.21 3.01 5.71 3.61 4.81 1 1 2.2TABLE 2 continued
Livestock Grains Poul try and dairy Miscellaneous
>. '0 District UI UI 0$ '0
'"
'0 UI <:: >. .<::'"
'" '"'"
and year UI UI .- >.'"
'"
... ...'" '"
UI'"
0 ... ~ ~'"'"
.0 UI 0$ '" ". UI ".'"
'"
UI UI '0 ~'"
E <:: UI '" () .- .- UI oj >: "'.- 0$>'"
bI) ... ~~
'i:'"
bI) ..."
.- 0 0 0$ 0"'.- "'~ .<:: 0$ 0 0 0$ >. .<:: bI)
"
".-
0 0P1~ ~~ (fJ ...:1 II: C) 0 P1 p; () ~ E-< P1 P1.::l ...:1 5 E=< r:;: ~ Jl.<
I Southeast / / I I / .41 1850 I I 1860 I I I I I 1.01 1.01 2.01 1.01 1.01 I 1.0! I I 1.01 I 1.01 1.01 I 1.0
-
~ 1870 2.91 I 2.01 I 1.81 3.21 2.81 5.81 .21 2.81 I 2.81 .51 2.71 1.71 1.41 2.21 2.21 1.21 2.8 t>:l 1880 9.51 3.81 5.81 1.81 7.6110.4110.4114.41 1.81 9.61 .31 9.31 1.91 7.21 2.21 4.21 8.01 I 4.61 5.8"""
1890 5.21 5.11 4.81 1.21 3.21 4.81 4.81 5.01 I 3.81 3.21 7.21 4.01 3.61 5.01 1.01 2.51 I 3.21 3.5 1900 7.21 7.01 7.01 4.81 6.31 7.61 7.81 6.41 1.21 5.31 12.31 9.2112.21 7.61 4.71 1.11 1.41 I 7.01 3.2 1910 5.11 8.41 7.31 3.61 9.61 9.61 9.3110.21 5.81 7.91 17.71 8.51 9.31 5.91 I 4.41 .31 .31 I 2.01 2.2 State Av.I
/I
.41 11.011.6/I
1.0\ \ .8\I
.1\ .3\ .3\ .51 18-50 .3 1860 I 1.01 .31 .61 I 1.41 7.21 6.81 7.91 2.61 1.61 .31 7.81 .31 4.81 I 2.21 1.01 2.21 1.01 1.31 6.3 1870 . I 8.31 1.91 2.31 .81 4.8114.0113.6116.01 7.91 6.31 .8112.61 1.61 9.61 I 7.21 2.61 3.51 3.11 4.8113.1 1880 123.41 7. 8! 10.21 1.8118.8126.0126.0133.8113.1117.51 .8121.61 3.2115.91 I 8.61 7.8112.81 5.9116.0118.9 1890 132.2113.0114.11 3.6132.6135.6136.8128.2112.9122.91 13.8135.41 9.6125.21 2.0135.2110.1115.0113.21 7.8126.3 1900 165.3133.9121. 6118.1191.518 2. 9199. 5188. 6157.8157.31 54.5185.8146.0168.21 1. 0 157 .3113. 0 133.9131. 9117.6154.7 1910 143.8126.5116.5114.2165.2182.6181. 6171. 6153.013 8.11 94.2171. 6138.4146.41 9.4143.11 8.4121. 0116. 01 9.2134.81()25
LIVESTOCK
The following discussion will compare, both numerically and graphically, price averages from the sources at hand. The first group of commodities to be considered are the
live-stock series-beef cattle, veal calves, sheep, lambs and hogs.
The V.S.D.A. monthly farm price series for beef cattle be-gins in August, 1909, and continues to the present date. In the construction of the beef cattle series (and all others) from newspaper prices it was considered advisable to overlap the U.S.D.A. series for Iowa from 5 to 7 years both for the pur-pose of providing a price base for index numbers which might be extended backwards from 1910 and to serve as check data. Thus there is at the disposal of the investigator from 60 to 84 months of prices supposed to measure the same thing and taken from separate and independent sources. Even if the prices from the two series were identical for the period
1908-1910 to 1914 it could not be considered that this was an adequate check on the sameness, since it checks only 5 to 7 years out of a much longer period. However, such a coinci-dence would be encouraging and would be evicoinci-dence that biases did not exist between the two series in the period discussed, and, also, if the assumption is made that methods of report-ing were the same for the entire period, it could be stated that no fundamental difference existed between the two series insofar as biased reportings of prices were concerned. To test the difference between the two separately computed
series for beef cattle, the mean difference, standard
devia-tion of the difference and the correladevia-tion coefficient were com-puted. The correlation coefficient 0.9625 is highly significant and shows that the trends exhibited by the two series are almost exactly the same. The variance analysis represented in table 3 does indicate that there is a significant difference in the level of the two series which may not be explained by
sampling error and which, therefore, must be attributed to
biases in either one of the two series.
It may be assumed that either the newspaper series or the U.S.D.A. series is incorrect. It is to be noted from fig. 2 that the annual average prices for beef cattle taken from the
V.S.D.A. series are higher than those from newspaper series
and that this is consistent during the 5 years studied. The TABLE 3. ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE OF MONTHLY BEEF CATTLE
PRICES, 1910·1914. Source Total Prices Sources of prices Discrepance (error) df 119 59 1 59
Sum of squares
94.7640 90.5855 Mean square 1.3632 1.3632 2.8153 0.04772 F = 28.5666
le26
Unnua.L
u(te'r.a.
e
P'licei
oh
Bee e.attLe
<.00 t - - - j -LI---i\
Figure 2
average difference is $0.21, and the standard deviation of the difference is $0.31. No statement will be made cate-gorically that one series is wrong and the other is right,
since it is not known which is wrong or right. It should be
pointed out that $0.21 is a small percentage of the ordinary hundredweight price of cattle in the period and that it is,
therefore, of minor economic importance even though
statis-tically significant.
Figure 2 was constructed to show the relation of Iowa prices to Wisconsin prices. During the early years, that is up to 1895, these two prices were rather close, but after that time there was a noticeable widening in the
hundred-weight price. The difference in quality of the animals
mar-keted as beef cattle in the two states is probably sufficient to explain this. In order to test this assumption two inde-pendent sources again were brought together on one graph, fig. 3, to prove or disprove the assertion. These prices are the U.S.D.A. Jan. 1, per head values from 1866 to 1914 for Iowa and Wisconsin. A glance at the graph will show that approximately the same relation exists in the widening spread of the Wisconsin and Iowa series as the years passed. It,
therefore, seems to be borne out that the spread in the
hun-dredweight prices is legitimate and is due to something other
than sampling error or bias either in the Wisconsin or Iowa
series. The level of prices may, therefore, be accepted with a large amount of confidence as being not more than a few
cents on the average from the correct one.
f
I S27 ~
from private account records which were separately tabulated, added and averaged. The quotations were too few and
scat-tered to be of much help in the preparation of a series, but as check data they are very helpful. Rather violent fluctu-ations exist from month to month in the private account av-erages because so few quotations were available for inclusion in the averages. However, the annual average of monthly quotations are not so widely affected by such variations and
may, therefore, be used to compare against the annual
av-erages computed from the newspaper quotations.
For beef cattle it was possible to compute an annual aver-age, which contained prices from 6 months or more for each
year, for the period 1894 to 1911. The newspaper annual averages were laid against the private account annual
aver-ages. The average difference for the 18 years was $0.047, and the standard deviation of the difference was $0.37. This
shows that appreciable differences may have existed in any
one year between the two series but that one series was not consistently higher or lower than the other series. This is
encouraging since it does indicate that the newspaper series
was not biased, either high or low, according to the
compari-sons given in the above illustration.
To summarize comparisons of beef cattle newspaper prices
with those from check series, it may be said briefly that the 1910-1914 comparisons with the U.S.D.A. prices showed the
newspaper series as being consistently lower but not enough lower to worry the user of these prices to any great extent.
Also, the trend in this comparison was shown to be identical
qa.nua.'r.y
11t
P'ci.cei
C>fs
Cattle
~r---4---r---'-~
----.---.---'O~'=",---c':---,L---'---"ooL---'-:---=,_
1928
in the two series. The spread experienced by the Wisconsin and Iowa beef cattle prices on fig. 2 was shown to be legiti-mate and correct by the similar spread of the prices for the two states on the head value basis. The difference between the newspaper and private account annual averages were, for the 18 years studied, on the average very small. The standard deviation was large in relation to the mean differ-ence, but it was to be expected since instability of prices in the private account record series may be expected as a conse-quence of the small number of quotations in each average.
The difference in the average price of lambs between the
newspaper series and the U.S.D.A: series for the 60-month
overlapping period, 1910 to 1914, was computed and found
to be $0.76. A variance analysis similar to that which was presented for beef cattle was run on lamb prices and is
pre-sented in table 4.
TABLE 4. ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE OF MONTHLY LAMB PRICES,
1910-1914. Source df Total 119 Prices 59 Sources of prices 1 Discrepance (error) 59 Standard deviation of difference Standard error of difference Correlation coefficient
Sum of squares 66.3582 42.2805 Mean square 17.4727 17.4727 6.6050 0.1119 F = 156.1457" Sd _ 0.4733 Sxd = '0.06110 r = 0.7468"
Here again the mean difference is significant. The corre-lation coefficient 0.7468 is highly significant, indicating that trends of the two price series correspond quite well, although
not as well as was the case for beef cattle prices. The
differ-ence of $0.76 in the means of the two series is so high that it must be conceded that the lamb series taken from
news-papers for the period 1910 to 1914 is not particularly good
for showing levels of prices although the trend is shown
quite well. Figure 4 indicates that Wisconsin prices and
Iowa prices are only roughly similar being widely divergent
in many of the years.
The prices composing the newspaper lamb series were
scrutinized very closely in an attempt to discover reasons
for such wide discrepancies with check data, but it was not
possible to conscientiously adjust the newspaper prices in any
manner so that they would be more nearly like the V.S.D.A.
and Wisconsin prices. Table 2 shows that in 1890 only 3%
quotations per month were available for the lamb series. This
is an inadequate number in view of the area for which the
price is representative and in view of the possibility of differ-ence in the grades of lambs sold. In 1900 there were 18
'e29
annua.l
a
(fe'ta.ge
P'rice1
O'b
Lambi
-
.J
.
""""(0 ""'" - .... WISCONSIN ~IC[ ' - '-'USOA ~~
.J
I;
t\~
-' ~5.00 j/--
.
'\:/-\/' ... -, Figure 4prices a month which should give a more satisfactory average, but in 1910 the number had gone to 14. For an accurate live-stock series where there is so wide a fluctuation in prices paid for the commodity named, it is believed that the quantity of quotations is probably insufficient to give a really accurate average and that the series should be used to indicate trend only.
Three more livestock price series have been constructed, those for sheep, veal calves and hogs. The mean differences for these commodities, in the 60-month period 1910 to 1914, were figured against the U.S.D.A. series and were found to
I be as follows: sheep $0.44, veal calves $0.69 and hogs $0.06.
The newspaper averages are lower for all three products. No variance analyses were made, but a comparison of graphs which show the U.S.D.A. and Wisconsin prices and the Iowa weighted newspaper prices would indicate that sheep and veal calves had high correlations and significant differences in means and that hogs had an extremely high correlation and a non-significant difference in means. The number of quota-tions for hogs was high, for veal calves fairly adequate and for sheep probably inadequate. In general it could be fairly said that the lamb and sheep prices are good indications of trends but should be used with caution when considering levels. Hog, veal calf and beef cattle series are probably sufficiently accurate to be used both as an indication of trend and level. This may be said in spite of the fact that the series for veal calves and beef cattle are significantly lower in price level than similar series computed by the U.S.D.A. for Iowa.
1f:l30 GRA·INS
Much less trouble was experienced by the author in his preparation of price series for the grains. Series have been prepared for corn, oats, wheat, barley and rye. A few quota-tions were given for buckwheat, but they were insufficient to provide an adequate series.
Three sources of check data are available to match against the newspaper series given in this bulletin. The newspaper
prices overlap the V.S.D.A. Iowa grain prices for 7 years,
from January 1908 through December 1914, which provides 84 monthly indications, again from two independent sources. The correspondence of the two series is so close that it is possible to tell by inspection that there is no statistically sig-nificant difference in the means of the two series and that the correlation is almost one. The mean differences,
how-ever, were figured and turned out to be as follows: corn
$0.003, oats $0.004, wheat $0.01, barley $0.024 and rye $0.028. These differences are so small as to be entirely pos-sible to arise from sampling error. The average difference for each grain as given above all show the U.S.D.A. series to be the higher on the average.
The next source of check prices against which the news-paper series were matched are also U.S.D.A. historical prices. They are the Dec. 1 prices which have been collected since 1867. The newspaper series reports as of the 15th of the month, hence, there is a difference of 15 days in reporting dates which may cause some slight discrepancies in the two series which would not otherwise be there. However, these
discrepancies are so small as to be non-important. . The
pro-cedure followed was to take the difference between the Dec.
15 newspaper price and the Dec. 1 V.S.D.A. price for each commodity available from both sources. The mean differ-ence computed for corn was $0.009, for oats $0.008, for wheat $0.008, for barley $0.009 and for rye $0.008. These differ-ences are less than $0.01, thereby showing an amazingly good correspondence between indications from the two series. The standard deviation of these differences was not figured, but a casual glance at the individual differences indicate that the standard deviations of the differences would be very small for all of the five grains mentioned. Corn and oats in this test were higher in the newspaper series than in the V.S.D.A. series, and wheat, barley and rye were lower.
The quotations derived from private account records were so few that it was not possible to compute even an annual average for any of the grains. Although the graphs for Wisconsin and Iowa annual prices are not shown in the bulletin they were made, and in all cases the trends exhibited
