known to be closely related to the amount of rainfall in the three most important growing months.  Recently, it has been shown that the rainfall of the Ohio Valley occurs in cycles of about eight years, and in a larger cycle of thirty-three years.  The cycle of yield per acre of the nine principal crops is shown to correspond closely with the cycle of pig iron production (one of the best single indices of growing business) dated one to two years later.[14] As the cycles of rainfall and of harvests are not coincident in different countries, it will require further study to adjust to these observations the fact of the world-wide extent of the great financial crises.  But a better understanding of objective conditions of this kind will give fuller meaning to the psychological interpretation of crises.

Sec. 16. #Remedies for crises#.  The financial crisis must be looked upon as an economic disease which brings many evils in its train.  The need is not merely to mitigate the severity of the brief period of crisis, but also to smooth out the curve of the business cycle so as to reduce periodic unemployment, the lottery element in profits, and the number of unmerited failures in business.  Several measures may aid toward this end.  In the past the crisis has been more severe in America than in Europe because of certain well-recognized defects which now have been largely remedied in the Federal Reserve Act.[15] The provisions whereby any one may get credit on good commercial assets should make it impossible for a crisis to degenerate into a panic.  This legislation has provided springs to reduce the jolt of the change from a higher to a lower level of prices.

Probably other improvements may be made in our banking laws.  Competent students of the subject have urged that the payment of interest on deposits not subject to notice before withdrawal should be made unlawful, because demand deposits constitute the greatest danger at critical times.  In principle this objection is sound, tho experience may show that this evil has been practically remedied by other features of the Federal Reserve Act.  Moreover, bankers could, by pursuing a more conservative policy, discourage speculative methods of enterprise.  The strong public disapproval of stock-market speculation on margins may some day be able to express itself effectively in ways that will not injure healthy business.  Greater stability in our tariff policy would remove a constantly disturbing factor in prices, as would likewise the stabilizing of the standard of deferred payments.  In the attempt to remedy the great evil of unemployment, public works of every kind might be planned and distributed in time so as to better equalize the demand for labor and materials.  Finally, much better commercial statistics are needed, and for collecting them and reporting the outlook, government organization is required comparable in range and methods to the weather bureau.