The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-19


 By W. r. C. HARDING
 Governor of the Federal Reserve Board
 The crying need of the hour every where is more production This an phes with equal force to the product, or the farm, the forest, the mine and the factory
 The factors which regulate produo- non on the farm are essentially dif- ferent from those which govern in ether fields of activity. The mine operator. the lumberman and the manufacturer can in ordinary circam- stances make good q diminished out put covering certain periods bv an acceleration of energy at other times but the farmer must operate under natural laws and his work in it's various stages must be done at the proper season. Other producers can, generally speaking, regulate their op- eratlons and adjust the volume of their output according to conditions which develop from time to time. With an increasing demand the volume can be augmented and it can be curtailed when the trend of the market points to an oversupply.
 Certain elements which enter into Troduction, such as the supply af la- her and the financial ability to pay labor, apply to all classes of producers, but as the farmers activities are seasonal he is unable to gauge as accurately and from a close a view roint as other producers can the con- ditions which will affect the mar ket for his product. Certain crops must be planted at certain seasons or not at all, and as the growing crops are cultivated and brought to matur- ity. advantage must be taken of chang ing climatic conditions, otherwise the capital and energy expended in plant ing is lost. ,
 As. the crops mature they must be Harvested within the time limit pre- scribed by nature or else permitted to go to waste. When the crops are harvested farmers are confronted with serious problems which call for the exercise of energies totally different from those which are brought into rlay during the periods of planting, cultivation anal harvesting. In the sttree stages preliminary to marketing the farmers problems are largely phy- sical conditions. In marketing how ever. while he still has physical diff f:culties to overcome in the matter of storage and transportation, the suc- cessful farmer must develop the qual- ities of merchant under conditions fsr more perplexing than those which confront the average merchant His own product is but a small part of the large volume of similar products grown by other farmers all of which are ready for market at the same time. In the case of small crops and where transportation facilities are available, the problem is solved by making ship nents to other sections where the sea- son is late, but my remarks this morn iLg will relate more particularly to the larger crops and especially to the great staple in which this body is interested
 EXTENT OF COTTON BELT
 The cotton belt of the United States extends from the southern counties of Virginia through the South Atlantic and gulf states, Tennessee, Arkansas 5nd Oklahoma, through the states on the Mexican border to the imperial valley of California. The cotton pro- duced in these states each year is grown not by a few corporations un- der centralized control with ample capital and with every facility for learning what market conditions are and with the financial ability to take the best advantage of these conditions, but by several millions of individuals. The American crop has no longer a 1n0uon0lV. if Q with