The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1918-07-11
Farm Production Grows
Estimated Gross Value Of Wealth Produced on Farms in 1917 Exceeds
Nineteen Billion Dollars

Following the items of the censuso of 1910 the United States department OF
agriculture has estimated the gross value of the wealth produced o FARMS III
1917 to be S19444OOOOOO. This is divided into a total of $1361lWOO0Uf or all
crops and $5s33OO0O0O for animal products and animals sold off farms anu
slaughtered on farms. Such totals IS these, ever though they represent gross
values, would have been regarded as fabulous before 1910.
The census total of wealth production o farms is $25O0OUoOOO FOL loo9'
S47OOOO 900 for 1899, and $86OOO0O000 for 1903, and the estimate for l9lo IS
S1OSO0OOOOOO. These numbers, being dollars and not quantities Of product
are the resultant of two factors production and price, and hence, as gauges OIL
the produciveness of the agricultural industry, may be above or below tn ACT
products of farms would reach the stupendous aggregate gross value Of 1911
The averagein increase per year from 1889 to 1899 a $226OO0OO0; rom I99
to 1905, S3S4OOOO0O; from 1909 to 1915, $370O00OO0, and from 1899 to 1910, %
years, $379O00OO0. At the average annual rateo Of increase for the 10 years.
not until 1898 would the gross value of 1917 be reached, computed Is a IN
crease over 1915. Mainly due % increase of price since 1915, he calendar has
been anticipated by q years.
In the continuous annual record, extending back 81 years, 1911 is the only
ear with a decline in total gross value of farm products when compared with
the preceding yea and that year was n with low production. A year that
hardly exceeded the preceding me was 1914, when the price CT cotton was
demoraIzed by the var. By the end of 1915 the prices of most farm products
were still nearly IN the plane of 1914, with crop production Z per cent above;
and the total gross value of farm production was S1o175OooOVo a gan u
nearly q billion dollars over either 1913 or 1914.
Then followed a rapid ascent of prices of farm products and the weighted
index for the prices of principal crops in December, 1916, was 56 per cent above
1916, so that, although the crop production. was IA per cent less, thu totalg gross
value of farm production was $3 406O00000, or % per cent above 1915, itself
the topmost year at that time.
The performance of 1916 in farm wealth production, unprecedentedly large
though it was, was a puny precursor of 1917 The price index number Of the
principal crops of this year is 30 per cent above 1916 and Ill per cent above
1915. and complicated with this enormous factor is a crop production that is Il
per cent above 1916. Hence it is that the grand aggregate IF $l36llOO0O0W is
reached Is the gross value of the farm crop production of 1917 and of &c.,
444OO0OO0 as the total IF all production.
Caution is given by the department OF agriculture against accepting this
total of S19444OOOOOOa al the amount of the farmers cash income inc also
against egardfn it as a net income. There are duplication and duplication Of
yaluea md also omitted items; cost of production must be considered, and GER
.ainlvf for 1916 and 1917 a soaring cost has complicated the problem. 1t is a
gross income Elm a vague, undefnable, intangible sense, which cannot be reduced
to- net income, norm let wealth production, by any process.