The following tabular statement shows the number of months in which each option was quoted at Chicago during the 10-year period 1907-1916, also the months in which the various options were being quoted, as determined from the annual reports of the Board. It is hardly necessary to compile a similar table for other markets and the extent to which nominal quotations would be encountered means that the result would have little significance.

TABLE 12.-Number of months during which the option ending in the year specified was quoted, Chicago futures, 1907-1916.1

1 Initial month not counted unless more than 10 quotations are given.

2 Started last half of initial month.

The fact that speculative interest is greater in the May option is indicated by the length of time during which it is traded in. This applies to corn and oats-although in these cases May is not the final option of the old crop year-as well as for wheat. There is also uniformity among the three grains as regards the rank of the four

options in respect to length of the period of trading (or of quotation), July, September, and December showing successive further decreases from May. But the December option for corn-the first of the new crop year-shows a longer period than December for wheat or oats. The period from planting to harvesting is shortest for oats and shorter for corn than for wheat. July, which is the first month of the new crop for wheat, is traded in from just before November 1, or about the time when something is known of winter wheat plantings. December corn is traded in on or before the 1st of May. September oats are traded in on or before the 1st of February, though planting will not begin for several months. Only in this case does the trading begin considerably before anything can be known as to acreage or crops. Of course, the options coming later in the crop year can have a longer life within the period during which something is known of the crop from which deliveries will normally be made.

It is worthy of note that in 1908, May corn was quoted for delivery over a year ahead, i. e., May, 1909, contracts were dealt in through the month of May, 1908. May, 1909, oats also were dealt in for a few days at the close of May, 1908. Apparently, May contracts in corn and oats for current delivery had all been closed out before the delivery month was reached. Since then, however, the Board has been less liberal. But future trading is still allowed so far ahead that available knowledge upon which even a speculative opinion might be based is lacking. Some of the corn had been planted, however, by May 1.

The principle involved is implied in a statement by the secretary of the Board in referring to the Board being subjected "to criticism at Washington and elsewhere for trading in commodities before they are produced and especially before the crop conditions can be known definitely enough to even indicate the probable yield." The object of discussion was the July option. The secretary further says: "July wheat is in a new crop future in the last analysis, and speaking for the market reports committee, I think it would prefer to not openly quote it before January 1."

It is now stated that it is not the custom to trade in an option until its corresponding predecessor has expired. The Chicago Board will not now provide for the publication of quotations, for example, of two May options of different years, at the same time. Such coincident trading in two Mays or two Decembers was, at one time, practiced.

Section 6.-News service in general.

BLACKBOARD AND TICKER.--The means of making quotations known to active traders not in the pit is chiefly the blackboard. This and the ticker are the distinctive items of equipment of every

1 Letter dated Nov. 12, 1914, to the president of the Board.

speculative broker's office, whether for stock-exchange or grainfuture transactions. Of course the two sorts of business are usually combined, and the blackboard usually provides space for both sets of quotations, as well as for fundamental grain statistics of visible supply, etc. Quotations are entered on the blackboard as received from tickers or from the wires. The room with the blackboard contains seats facing the board for the accommodation of customers and is universally labeled and known as the "Customers' Room.". Retired business men with a speculative bent frequently spend most of the morning in the customers' room. Others come and go. A partner or employee is usually present or within reach ready to answer questions and give advice.

The blackboard quotations for futures of other markets are not so available to a trader in the pits at Chicago as are Chicago quotations elsewhere, largely because of the extent and variety of interests to be served. On other exchanges the blackboards are placed where more legible from the pit, so that the Chicago quotations, among others, can be easily read. This fact has an important bearing on the source of intermarket spreading operations.

MARKET LETTERS.-For grain traders and others who are interested in the futures market but are situated some distance from the office of the brokers there is the mail circulation of certain important sources of information on prices, such as the Daily Trade Bulletin, published by Howard, Bartels & Co., of Chicago, and similar journals for other important terminal centers and exchanges; also, market letters, which are now printed in newspapers to a large extent as well as otherwise circulated by the house sending them out. The Chicago Evening Post prints a special market edition containing letters from a large number of commission and wire houses, together with other grain exchange news, for circulation in the country. This edition is mailed at night, while bearing the date of the following day. Both the Daily Trade Bulletin and the Chicago Evening Post are mainly circulated by commission houses instead of on the basis of subscriptions paid by those who receive them. All specialized sources of information transmitted through the mails had their origin in the needs of the cash grain trade and still serve that purpose rather than future trading. The circulation of the mails is not quick enough for future-trading use, at least when there is something better at hand, whether the trade in question be hedging or speculation.

TELEPHONING FROM BRANCH OFFICES.-Active traders are, of course, reached by telephone from the offices of brokers and commission houses. Such use is not infrequent in the large cities, but is doubtless much more important as practiced by branch-office managers

and correspondents of private wire systems located in small towns, who thus reach a considerable circle of cash-grain and hedging customers, as well as any active speculators. A small-town wire office manager may reach as many as 40 country elevators by telephone at 5 cents, and as many as 40 more in the 10-cent zone. The telephone is regularly used for confirmations of orders executed, for requests for additional margin, and to obtain needed explanation of instructions.

PRIVATE WIRES.-The great means of spreading information and general news as to conditions affecting the futures market is the private-wire systems. By means of the private wire news is telegraphed from head offices in Chicago to branch offices and correspondents throughout the country. Such news itself may be received from New York, similarly over private wires. Information is thus made available practically instantaneously throughout the country. Such news, whether sent by mail or telegraph, consists largely of statistical items-figures of world shipments or port clearances of grain, grain afloat in transit, receipts and shipments at various primary markets, visible supply of the United States, world's visible supply, etc.; also cabled quotations, spot prices at Chicago and elsewhere, Government crop reports and private estimates, demands for milling, for export, etc. Extracts from market letters and other statements of specialists in one or another line are often included. Information gathered on the exchange, perhaps by the pit trader of the house, is included. Interspersed with such matter are informal items, some merely of the nature of spice.

WIRE " GOSSIP."-The ephemeral news sent out over the wires is appropriately called "gossip." There is no time for careful consideration and little inclination to hold back anything interesting, since the desire is to beat somebody else on the news. Naturally much that is sent over the wires is of the nature of rumor, some is doubtless sheer invention, and often dishonest invention to influence prices to some one's advantage. The volume of news or gossip sent out in the course of a year is, of course, very great. Therefore no file is kept. Some of the rumors relate to foreign political conditions. One staple subject of gossip is as to who is buying and who is selling heavily in the various futures markets. Crop conditions are, of course, regularly included, also weather reports, where anything special seems to be developing. Sometimes the matter sent over the wire is, or has been, directly of the nature of advice to customers and prospective customers as to when the market is a "good buy." Some houses have "gossip makers" to keep up the supply and make the matter interesting, who often stimulate interest in the market by mixing facts with imagination.

Information sent out over a private wire may be mimeographed at the correspondents office or branch office of the wire system and further circulated by mail from there.

TRANSMISSION OF ORDERS AND REPORTS BY PRIVATE WIRE.-The private wire is also, of course, used for transmitting orders, confirmations, etc. It is impossible to say whether the purpose of a private wire is fundamentally to transmit news and develop trade through a special news service or rather to convey orders as promptly as possible from the customer to the exchange floor and also to notify the customer promptly of the execution of his order. Presumably, the use of the private wire for such direct business purposes is primary. The news and gossip service was probably developed largely as a means of keeping the wire busy when not needed for direct business matters.1

Gossip is said to be sent "in between orders and reports," and to vary in amount inversely as the latter. This fact helps largely toward an understanding of the extent to which ephemeral news and rumors, or mere gossip, is sent. If there were more important business a great deal of such matter would be crowded off the wires. NEWS TICKER COMPANIES.-Much of the news sent out by the private wires is in turn received from ticker companies. Some ticker companies confine themselves to price quotations. Others supply general news. Of course, they serve stock exchange as well as the grain exchange brokers and commission houses, and perhaps especially the former. Many clubs and the more expensive hotels have news tickers available for the use of their customers. The important ticker services drawn upon by the Chicago grain wire houses are the Raymond News Bureau, the Chicago News Bureau, and the Illinois Telegraph news service.

SERVICE OF THE PRIVATE WIRES TO SHIPPERS.--It is claimed, on behalf of the private wires that cover so comprehensively the grain territory tributary to Chicago, that they keep the farmer informed of prices at terminal markets in a way to make it impossible for the elevator manager with more recent information to exploit the farmer's dependence upon newspapers that are a day or two old and

1 The opinion in the Private Wire case regarding these various uses says: "The private wires of bankers and brokers were used primarily for the transmission of orders and reports of sales incident to exchange trading and of communications relating to such orders and sales. Next in importance was the transmission of exchange quotations. When the wire was not in service for any of the foregoing classes of matter, the operators filled in with news and gossip. This included information concerning the state of the market, items from the morning newspapers, weather reports, political news, exchange rumors, sporting news, and other miscellaneous items which the broker posted in his office for public information to stimulate trade directly or indirectly. This gossip reached the surrounding country by telephone and some of it eventually found its way into the newspapers. The order of precedence which placed orders first, quotations next, and gossip last was apparently based upon the financial return to the lessee." (50 I. C. C., p. 740.)