New-York tribune., 1918-04-21
By Julius H. Barnes
president Barmes-Ames Company,
Duluth; Minn.; President U. S.
Food Administration Grain

tffesadent bd1neS-AmeS Company,
Duluth; MIMI; President U. S.
Food Administration Grain
Corporation)
tAn address before the Fifth National
Foreign Trade Conuention)
T HOWEVER much one may extol the
tt industrial development of Amer
ica, and however highly one may
prize its economic influence, l think
every student of American history will
feel that the sound underlying basis
OF Americas remarkable prosperity
and development has been it's agri-
cultural wealth. Even to-day, during
the crop development season, the
weather record (Which influences crop
development) forms a most important
part of the commercial news for each
week. Good crops are Immediately re-
fected in quickened industry, and poor
crops are reflected at once in curtailed
credits and in the general trimming of
the Ship of Commerce.
Perhaps we do not yet realize how
large part this has played in the
marvellously quick development of
Americas resources, and perhaps we
do not yet realize what a sound, sus-
tanning basis it is for the great income
of the United States, an income esti-
mated at s4o,oOO,o0O,ooo per year,
against the aggregate income of Ger
many, Great Britain and France of
$4,000. 100000. But when one does
grasp the great. part which agricult-
ural development has played in our
history the student is still forced to
seek further for the underlying cause
which wrings from agriculture the ex-
panded prosperity of this country.
Competing With
The World
Remember that for fifty years we
have been an exporter of agricultural
products, that the exportable surplus
and the price it brings fix the do
mestic price level, and therefore that
our growers must secure their pros
perity while competing with sur
plus in the markets of the world. Re-
member that this competition is in
agricultural products produced on the
cheap lands and with the pauper labor
of India, the Argentine and Russia.
Remember that our great grain pro-
ducing areas lie thousand miles west
OF seaport, which is not true of Rus
sia nor of Argentina-the latter coun-
try particularly, in almost all of it's
great area, reaching a seaport in twen-
ty-four hours rail transportation.
There must be very potent influ-
ence Cor several of them) which has
enabled the American producer to meet
this competition and prosper until the
home market of the United States is
to-day the most valuable commercial
field perhaps in the world.
In my own opinion the causes which
have contributed most largely to this
prosperous development have been
three:
First, there is the influence of the
cheap water transportation of the
Great Lakes, reaching fifteen hundred
miles into the continent, and influ-
encing also by its cheap water car
riage the railroad rate structure. that
must more or less compete with it.
Second, the adaptability Of Amer
lean ingenuity and resourcefulness to
the use of mechanical appliances, re-
placing human labor, and the Ameri-
can genius Gin farming as in every
thing else) to conduct business on
large scale in such manner that
the margin of operation is on the profit
side. American reapers and binders
and harvesters and thrashing machines
and cleanings mills, American elevators
and cars and ships, handling grain in
bulk ut the lowest cost for labor and
the smallest expense for delay, have
all entered into this second potent
factor, enabling worldwide competi-
ton to bring profit to the producer.
Third (and l do not rank it the
leasD, Is the great terminal market
system OF America, which, by making
credit secure, by enabling a large turn
over OF value to be done safely on a
small capital investment, and by en-
couraging the competition Of energy
and brains, though still without large
accumulated capital, has marketed the
American grain crop from western
farm to European mill, prior to the
war, with trade burden Of probably
not over / per cent.
Wheat the Backbone
OF Our Trade Balance
OF all the rrons vh;ah