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Notes on Prices of Agricultural Commodities in the United States and Canada, 1850-1934

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

H. Michell
H. Michell*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Extract

There are here presented charts and tables of the prices of seven agricultural commodities, namely wheat, oats, barley, rye, eggs, butter, and cheese, which were assembled in the course of a study of comparative prices in Canada and the United States for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Notes on the major influences determining the general trends of these prices are given by way of preface. It is hoped that the price data will prove of interest and value to other investigators. No discussion of the difficulties of compiling and comparing such price series is included; these difficulties are, of course, very great.

The five years 1850-5 may be taken as the turning point of the long decline in prices after the Napoleonic Wars. From 1840 to 1850 this decline had been particularly severe, the price level in Great Britain falling 28 per cent, and in the United States, 15.5 per cent. From various scattered records we may be certain that a similar drastic decline was experienced in Canada. The panic of 1847, followed by abundant harvests in Great Britain and the United States sent down prices for wheat sharply: in England from 50s. 6d. per quarter in 1848 to 38s. 6d. in 1851; in Canada from $0.875 per bushel in 1848 to $0.737 in 1852; and in the United States, from $0.85 to $0.708 in the same period. Poor harvests in 1852 and 1853, and the outbreak of the Crimean War in March, 1854, sent up the price of all foodstuffs, both in Canada and the United States.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , May 1935 , pp. 269 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1935

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References

1 I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace in permitting me to publish in this place material in its possession. Much of the laborious task of collecting price series was most carefully performed by Mr. G. E. Price, now of Tufts College, Mass. I am also grateful to Professor J. E. Lattimer of Macdonald College, Quebec, for several fruitful suggestions.

The eight price series selected, those of wheat, oats, barley, rye, eggs, butter, and cheese, are, as nearly as possible, representative of the same grades in both countries; and over the whole period covered are, again as nearly as possible, homogeneous. The series are here recorded as averages of five-year periods as being the most convenient form of presentation; for monthly and annual prices the economic historian may consult the sources from which these series are taken. These sources are: United States: 1850-92. Report from Committee on Finance of United States Senate on Wholesale Prices, Wages and Transportation. (52 Congress, 2d. Session, Report 1394.). —1893-1934. Reports on Wholesale Prices of Bureau of labour Statistics. Canada: 1850-89. Statistical Contributions to Canadian Economic History (Toronto, 1931), vol. II.Google Scholar—1890-1917. Reports on Wholesale Prices of Department of Labour, Ottawa. —1918-34. Reports on Wholesale Prices, Dominion Bureau of Statistics.

2 Prices in Halifax currency converted at $3.85 to the pound.