THE HOLDING MOVEMENT IN AGRICULTURE 267 
page 142 are given diagrams showing the average price move- 
ment over the five year period, 1909 to 1914, for all wheat for 
the United States, for winter wheat for Ohio and Kansas and 
for spring wheat for North Dakota. From the diagram it is 
seen that the extreme seasonal variations for all wheat for the 
United States was ten cents; for Ohio winter wheat, twelve cents; 
for Kansas winter wheat, eight and one-half cents and for North 
Dakota spring wheat, eleven and one-half cents. In each case 
these differences measure the extreme seasonal range in price, 
and the holding period, if from the low of September to the high 
of the following July, is a period of ten months. 
It must be evident that the chances for the wheat grower to 
make a gain at all commensurate with the costs involved is very 
slight indeed, and yet on the same page with this diagram one 
reads: “A large part of the wheat crop is marketed in a few 
months after harvest which causes a rapid decline in prices dur- 
ing the first few months of the new crop year. This is one of the 
principal causes for the need of credit for storing grain.” 
“The average difference in the price of corn between the low of 
December 1 and the high of September 1 is given as fifteen cents.” 
(Year Book, Department of Agriculture, 1921, p. 213.) The 
shrinkage of this grain over the holding period is given at 16.6 
and if this single item of the carrying charges be taken into 
account the difference shrinks to three cents per bushel. Before 
even this can be considered as profit all the other items of expense 
growing out of the holding must be met. 
A great deal has been written and spoken about the demoraliz- 
ing influence of the after harvest dumping of cotton on an already 
glutted market and the importance of credit to enable the grower 
to hold his cotton for a more orderly marketing has often been 
stressed. As a result the holding movement has been more 
extensive in cotton than in any other of our staple crops. And, 
despite the disastrous experience of 1920 and subsequent years, 
the sentiment favoring the holding of cotton for higher prices 
under the guise of orderly marketing is well nigh universal 
among the growers and among the officials who come in touch 
with the industry. 
The Year Book, in referring to the warehouse, says: “It is a 
place where cotton may be deposited under conditions which 
enable the owner to obtain money in advance upon it until such