The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-27

NeW Cih, october 26.--(Speclal.)-A the time of one of the latest visits O James J. Hill to New York, he was asked . whether he still held his belief expressed in an address delivered some years age in the northwest, that the farm products of the United States should be of suffi cient quantity and value to yield eacf year at least $50 COG, 0oo In reply MT. IIil said that when he thus spoke the prices for farm products were low and in some cases abnormally low, so that the aggre- gate money value of the farm products of the year preceding the address was
 about s9, ,000,0 ,0o0,00o. Low prices and small
 production explained the comparatively
 small aggregate received by the farmers
 in that year and in the preceding years
 for these products. Nevertheless he was
 confident that with improved farming
 methods, with the cultivation of virgin
 soil and the opening up of new and read
 fly available tracts of land to cultiva-
 ton, there was no reason why the Amer
 ican farmers should not harvest in sim
 gle year crops of the aggregate value of
 s15, ,ooO, ,OOo,oO
 MT. Hill then went on to say that it is
 vital that the wheat harvests of the
 United States be greatly. increased be-
 cause unless wheat production advances
 simultaneously with the growth of the
 poulation the time is not distant, per-
 haps not more than 20 years away, when
 the people of the United States will need and use all the wheat that is harvested increased and the soil is persuaded to yield larger crops
 Were MT. Hill alive he perhaps would read the meaning behind the almost in conceivabiy great aggregate of the money value of the farm products of the United agriculture at Washington and the gov ernment reports which refer to farm products up to October 1 make public. Were the liberty loan, or, as some are beginning to call it, the victory loan, to be increased four times so that the aggre- gate which the government asked the peo- pie to lend was 20,ooo. .0oo, GOO, nevertheless the money value of the farm products harvested in this calendar year would be a billion and half in excess of that loan of s20 00oO, ,000,00o
 Of course, these stupendous figures. un- matched by the reports made by the farmers of any other nation of the aggre- gate money value of their product for a single year, reflect in part high prices. But high prices alone would not com pletely explain this enormous new wealth which the soil is yielding in this year. For there has been a considerable .in- crease in the cultivation of farm land and in many cases the soil has yielded larger crops than ever before. Some of it is due to the foresight of railway managers, Mir. Hill's Great Northern railway sys- tenn, with it's intricate branches and feed CTS stretching far away into remote wheat lands, made increased cultivation possible, although weather conditions which the farmers could not control caused falling off in the aggregate of the wheat. So. too. A. J. Earling, when president of the St. Paul railroad sys- tenn and while he was perfecting the Puget Sound extension. made possible greatly increased production of grains, especially wheat in Montana, which has now become one of the great wheat pro- ducing states.
 Agriculture was speeded up all over the United States so that both quantity. the abnormal price, and the certainty of a ready market, explain why the depart ment of agriculture at Washington was able to report few days ago that s21.- 500, ,00o,0o0 was the money value of the farm products.
 The effect of this collosal aggregate product of the soil, all of it being new wealth, upon business conditions and probably by and by upon security market values. is inevitably to be very impor- tant. Upon this production basis will stand much of the commercial and indus- trial activity of the United States in 1918. High prices and an enormous increase in the quantity of all the products of the soil, excepting wheat and hay. made it possible for the department of agricui- ture to report that the money value Of food and cotton harvested this year Is about ssooo.0 100000 greater than the money value of the harvest of last year.
 The year 1915 was banner year for grain production. especially wheat. in the United Staten Had the prices which farm products now command prevailed in < 1915, then the aggregate money value ot