The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-08-16
THE FARM MUST
SHOW PROFIT
American Falls Farmer
Tells Why City Popu-
lation Increases.

(By J. T. Fisher, president of the
Rockland State bank, state mana
ger for the Wheat Growers asso-
citation. and Republican candidate
for senator from Power county. re-
printed from August IA issue OF
The Country Gentlemen and en-
titled Famine, Farmers and Fl
nance).
The press and periodicals of the
country are today full of information
relative to the desertion of the farm
by the farmers and the impending
threatened famine with which we
are confronted. They all recognize
the facts as shown by the question
aires and close observers and there
is no question that the conditions
they portray are true; but they
have been missing the fact that the
present condition, is the result OF
years of failure ON the part of the
financiers and economists to recog-
nize the condition which is the in
evitable result of a wrong econom-
ic principle. 1t is not directly due
to the recent war and labor condi-
tiOns.
The farm situation is not phase
of our postwar readjustments; it is
the result of years Of unconscious abb
sorption of facts by farmers and ed
ucation of the farmers themselves.
All of which shall try to show, to-
gether with the things that brought
the condition about, and to sug-
gest to those thinking persons who
care to follow this line of thought
few of the things that must be
done to rectify this condition.
For the past twenty-five years l
have been closely associated with
farmers; their interests and my own
have been identical and l have had
an opportunity to observe and study
the farmers problems and the way
he works them out. For fifteen
years l managed large farm prop
erty in the central west and dealt
with tenants who worked these
farms. During this period saw land
values in this section rise from forty
dollars to one hundred dollars an
acre, yet / never could bring the re-
turn on the valuation of the proper
ty to over per cent for any five
year, period.
Loath to Move
You will ask, if the return did
not rise, why did the price of land
advance? My observation showed
me two things: the farmer is loath
to move; he wants to live in the
same place and he wants his sons
and his daughters about him, so
when the son becomes of age and
wants to work for himself or the
daughter marries the neighbor's boy,
that farmer wants them close to him,
and he wants to buy place as close
as possible and put the boy on it.
Usually he does not have the money
to buy, or only small amount to
pay down ,and he mortgages the
home place and the new place, and
then he and the boy through a series
of years, gradually pay it out.
Thus in the past, as the children
Of community became old enough
to do for themselves, part of the
land went off the market, and this
tended to raise the price Of the rest
of it. When the land in communi-
ty reached high price and the
farmer could not figure that he
could buy land for the boys and pay
out, he would sell and move west to
cheaper land, where he could buy
from two to four acres for what he
had received for one of his own
acres.
During the reconstruction period
following the civil war, we had a
vast undeveloped west which abb
sorbed the restless and adventurous
spirits whose home ties the war had
broken, thereby creating in a few
years wonderful increase in agri-
cultural products. In the late nine
ties, the land values in Illinois and
Iowa reached and passed sale val
ue of one hundred dollars an acre.
Many farmers sold at those prices
and came to Nebraska, South Dako-
ia and Kansas, where they could
buy land from a quarter to half the
price they had sold theirs for. The
farmers that they bought out went
on west looking for cheaper land
that they could buy for themselves
and their sons.
So after close calculation, having
figured that I could not make my
land pay more than three per cent or
fair valuation of the land, and be.
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