It will not do to say that a sale and a purchase is bona fide involved
in even such transaction, and that one is a set-off against the other,
because, while it is impossible to add to or diminish the actual supply
by selling and buying atxandom on the exchange, yet the very fact of
reporting large sales for future delivery far above the actual supply on
hand is evidence conclusive that all of them can not be made good, for
there is not grain enough in existence to do it. But giving tlie sug-
gestion all the force claimed for it, the fact remains that overtrading
tends to create extravagant estimates of« the supply, and that of itself
depresses prices. '

Take the case cited, where the wheat sales reported as having been
made in JSTew York City in the two years 1892 and 1893 amounted to
2,203,456,000 bushels, or at least 30 bushels for every 1 bushel that
was actually sold, or that was on hand to be sold ; an amount equal
to more than twice as much as all the wheat grown in the country
those two years, not more than one-thirtieth part of which could have
been in New York for sale there. When prices are regulated by a
market which appears to be very full they will tend downward.
POWER OF THE GRAIN DEALERS.
