The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1921-12-22
DAWN OF A new ERA
Now In Deepest Depression,
American Farming Chang. IL
Ing for the Better
BY II. c. Taylor
chief of the Bureau of Markets "
partment of Agriculture

ohlet OF the Bureau of Markets. L. S. De.
partment of Agriculture.
EDITORS Note-H. c. Taylor. chief
OF the Bureau of Markets for the
United States Department of Agricul.
ture, Is both a scientific and "old-fash.
Toned" farmer. While his years of
specialization and intensive study have
given him a wide background on
winch TO base theory and practice, he
a also undertaken the ask of under.
standing the actual conditions which
confront the American farmer. He is
recognized as n of the men who will
light the way for the American agri-
culturist to a future of greater produc-
ton and ever reducing overhead
The American farmer is now pass
ing through a barren and inhospitable
waste. a sort of Death Valley among
his landmarks. Having been through
such experiences before, we may con-
fdently count on coming through, as
We always have in the past, but we
are living in a fools paradise if by
that token we hope to come out at
the same place we went in. We might
as well admit once for all that the
good old times" of American agricul-
ture, the free and easy times of cheap
land, continually advancing in price,
are gone forever.
The change of base was inevitable
Henceforth, instead Of an agriculture
conducted loosely, with one eye on the
increment in land value, we must
have a tight and rational agriculture,
based upon sound agronomy and ami
NAL husbandry, and a knowledge OF
the cost of production and of market
conditions. Henceforth we must con-
duct our farming operations so that
they will yield profits on a farming
basis, rather than as a side line in a
speculative deal in real estate.
This being the situation, what Of
the outlook?
outlook is dark enough, though there
is reason to believe that the worst is
now past. The consuming public seems
to have no conception of the plight
in which the farmer has been left by
the slump in farm prices. All that
the nsu knows is that retail
prices have not come down to any
where near the pre-war level, and he
may assume that the farmer is still
getting high prices, when, as a matter
of fact, he is getting smaller net re-
turns for his products than he got in
1913, and in dollars that will buy only
about half as much per dollar as
would his 1913 dollars.
Take a concrete example. The u.
S. Department of Agriculture has made
an annual analysis of the business of
100 representative farms in central
Indiana for the past eight years. In
1913 the average net income of these
farms, the return for both labor and
capital, was $1,5O3. In 1920 the net
income was only $1,269. However,
this falling off does not measure the
actual decline in the farmers income,
for in 1920 wholesale prices of com
modities other than farm products
averaged more than two and a half
times as high as the corresponding
prices in 1913. That is, it took at
least $3.50 of this 1920 income to buy
what a dollars would have bought in
1913. Consequently, with a total smaller
by over 5000, and a dollar shrunk to
40 cents, the average 1920 income of
the group of farms in question would
buy not more than one-third as much
as would the average for 1913. On
this basis, the situation looks some
thing like this:
1913: