The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1907-12-06
Total Value of the Products OF
The Soil For a Year.
Secretary Wilson Gives Out the
Figures Anent Crop.
Increase of Ten Per Cent Is
Shown; One Sad Note.

Washington, Dee. 1.-The American
farmer is more than seven billion dol
lars above and beyond being to blame
for the tight money situation which
has been bothering everybody else.
While the business of the United
States has been checked because the
banks of New York have held a bill
lion dollars of the country's money
tied up in marginal speculative securi-
ties, and have declined to release the
money until they could do so without
loss, the secretary of agriculture has
been preparing figures to show that
during the past year the farmers OF
the United States have brought into
the country more than a billion dollars
of foreign money.
Farmer Has Produced.
While the parasitical Spectator has
been paving usurious rates for money
and has produced nothing, the farmer
has done nothing but produce. In the
first place the farmer has during the
past wear raised $7,4l2, 100000 worth
of farm produce. A large share OF
this has been sold, a billion dollars
worth of it abroad, and the money
placed in the banks all over the coun-
try. Then these banks, attracted by
the interest rates in New York, have
sent the money there and it has been
loaned out on securities which have
since so faded in value that if collec-
ton were forced good many people
who are not used to it would have to
90 to work for a living. .,.. -.
The figures about the farmers cited
are from Secretary Wilson's annual
report, made public today. The report
has other statements revealing with
equal eloquence the desirabiity OF the
farmer as a citizen, but offering no
arguments in favor of the desirablllty
of the stock gambler, Thus it is shown
that eight such corn crops as that
raised in the United States this year
and sold at the price this one is bring
ing. would build every foot of steam
railroad in the country, including all
the expensive terminals, and pay for
every article of property OF what
ever name or nature owned by these
roads, but nothing is cited to prove
that the original productiveness OF
stock market would or could build
railroad in a million years.
Value of the Products.
The total value of all that the
farms of the United States produced in
1907 is 10 per cent more than the
value of the total production of 1906,
although the crops this year have not
been quite as good as last year. The
total value for 1907 is also II per cent
more than in 1905, 20 per cent above
that of 1904, 25 per cent in excess
of that of 1903 and 81 per cent greater
than the total value for 1899. The
total farm exports for the year have
been $l,O55 100000, or $4,000, 900 above
the highest previous record.
Corn is king, according to the Sec
retarv. 1t is the chief crop of the
United States, whether measured in
money value or in variety of services
performed The value of the 1907
crop is 26 per cent greater than the
average for the past five years. The
next best crop, from financial point
of view, is hay, although it may be
that the final estimates will give sec
ond place to cotton, which is coming
strong. Cotton raised in 1907 is valued
at S675 zoo, 600 and it is the most val
liable crop ever produced in the coun-
try. The wheat crop for the year is
valued at $5OOOOO,OO0, which is 5h
per cent more than the average for the
last five years.
Other crops have also done well in
the way of making the mere specu-
lator look like the unnecessary dead
beat on the national band wagon,
which he is. Thus the alfalfa crop
amounted to $lOO,OOO,OOO. Sugar, mo-
lasses and syrup brought in almost as
much more; oats, $360,O00,OO0; pota
toes, $l9O,OOO,OOO; barley, $ll5OO0,OO0;
tobacco, $67,OO0,OOO but this would
have been at least $lOO,OOO,OOO if the
tobacco trust were in the bottom of