Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1912-06-07
PRODUCTION AND BET
TER MARKETING
The Worlds Buying Power, Rather
Than the Size Of the Crop, Deter
mines Prices

The fact that large crop OF grain
or potatoes sometimes nets the farm
Ter a smaller return that he may have
received from a smaller crop in a pre-
vious year, occasionally prompts some
writer to a protest against the in
crease Of production, to bring about
which has been the great aim of agri-
cultural instruction ever since such in
struction became a factor in the educa-
.tional work Of our era. Justification
is even sought, in the low price which
sometimes accompanies q large produc-
ton, for such action as that of the
:cotton-planters of the South in agree
ing together to limit the production Of
cotton to figure far below the worlds
necessities, and even in burning up a
portion Of the gathered crop, in order
to effect an advance in price. The ad-
vance obtained by their recent agree
ment, by the way, is given as from Sc
cents in 1909 to AS cents in 191I 1t
meant the temporary shutting down
Of mills in Europe and America, with
semi-starvation and distress to many
thousands of people.
If it could be shown that the large
crop and the low price always 60 to-
gether, the agreemen t for limitation Of
production would be- somewhat better.
But it has not infrequently ha opened
that comparatively high prices have
the largest production ever known.
This has in several recent years been
the case with the wheat crop, and also
with the corn crop. It may easily hap
pen, therefore, that when, in the pres
ence of low price, farmers yield to
a temptation to lessen production,
conditions may so change, before the
smaller crop natures, that much
larger crop might have been marketed
at high figure.
The fact is that the consuming
power of the world g sixteen hundred
millions Of people is equal to the reg
ular absorption Of any and all the
products Of the cultivated lands, year
after year: Purchasing ability does
not, however always. coincide :R6
consuming power; hence many impor;s
tant and varying factors, aside from
the size of crops, enter into the fixing
of prices. Among these factors are
climatic influences, political disturb
ances, industrial activities or disar-
rangements, the cost Of transportation
and the combinations of middlemen.
The last two factors, especially the
cost Of transportation, make them
selves very active in reducing prices
when crops are large. If cargoes are
more abundant than ships or trains,
transportation scars, and the excess in
charges above the normal figure is
taken off the price of the products
carried.
The remedy for low prices then
would seem to lie rather in the better
ment of conditions and methods which
affect marketing than in discouraging
the increase of production. Market
ing is bettered when industrial popu-
lations, abroad as we'll as at home, are
busy and happy: when transportation
agencies are hindered from charging
to business ethics-F't tie
highest price for the largest order''z-
as occurs when they advance their fig
ures in the presence Of multitudinous
cargoes;-an when producers learn
to cooperate in placing their products
in the hands Of consumers without the
Intervention of superfuous middlemen.
They do we'll who, seek. to improve the
conditions and methods of marketing;
but they are none. the less doing wAll
who seek to win from every acre the
largest possible yield at the lowest
cOst.-C. r. Barns. &