Chart IX. Prices of hogs and hams in Chicago, 1884-1907. Page 95.
_Prices of live hogs and green hams in Chicago, 1884 to 1897_
_General description._--This chart exhibits the fluctuations in prices of live hogs and green hams as shown by reports of the Chicago Board of Trade from September, 1884, to August, 1897, together with the visible supply of live hogs in the market from month to month and for the entire year. The figures to right and left give dollars per cwt. of live hogs, and per barrel of green hams. The figures upon the upper third of the chart, right and left, indicate the number of thousands of live hogs received in Chicago during the successive months, as indicated by the dark lines. The figures at the top of the chart under the date line give the number of thousands of hogs received during the entire year. The year is taken from September to August following, because the hog crop is in large measure dependent upon the corn crop coming into use in September.
_Prices of live hogs._--No. 3, irregular line, gives the fluctuation of top prices in every month from September, 1884, to August, 1897, for fat hogs. The total range is between $3.30 per cwt. in September, 1896, and $8.80 in February, 1893. A somewhat striking general correspondence is readily seen between this line of prices and a line connecting the ends of the lines indicating the monthly supply of live hogs at the top of the chart. The average price of the year is easily seen to be low when the supply for the year is high, and high when the supply is low, though in some instances the effect of an increased supply is evidently anticipated in the prices. Thus, an increase of 2,000,000 of hogs in 1889-90 over the supply in 1888-9 is anticipated by falling prices during the early part of 1889. In a similar way, the effect of a diminished supply in the summer of 1895 is not so marked upon the prices as might have been the case had not the prospect been strong for a large supply in the fall of 1895. Whatever influence the local manipulation of the market may have had, it is perfectly evident that conditions of supply and demand have overwhelming influence.
_Prices of green hams and mess pork._--No. 2, giving the range of prices per barrel of green hams, shows fluctuations in some respects corresponding to the prices of live hogs, but with variations due in a measure, undoubtedly, to speculative interests in these products. The range is from $6.60 in December, 1897, to $13.80 in May, 1893, corresponding with the range in the prices of live hogs. Were there room upon the chart, it would be easy to show an almost exactly corresponding fluctuation in the prices of mess pork, which article is one affected largely by speculation, though even that speculation is dependent upon prospective supply and demand. The prices of mess pork at the New York Produce Exchange during the same period ranged from $9 a barrel in 1885-6 to $15.80 and $15.60 in 1887-8, $14.20 in 1889-90, $11.75 in 1891, $14.20 in 1892, $22.60 in 1893, and gradually down to $7.25 in 1896-7.