The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-03
FARM SECRETARY
 ISSUES WARNINGS
 INDETA|L SURVEY
American Nation, He Declares, Cannot Prosper Unless the Planters Get Value Re- Ceived for Their Crops
 and Live Stock
By HARDEN CoLFAx Special Correspondent of Tie Age Herald Copyright, 1891, by The Age-Herald

Special Correspondent of Tie Age Herald
 Copyright, 1891, by The Age-Herald
 Washington, April 2.-Food prices must rise again-and rise soon-be- fore the coming of real prosperity. All the farmer raises is sold for too little; he is receiving. 50 to 60-cent dollars for what he sells and paying 100-cent dollars for what he buys. The pendulum of price readjustment has swung too violently and too far in his direction.
 One or two things must happen, Secretary of Agriculture Wallace be- lieves before She country can be truly prosperous And he sees the dilemma, the horns are described thus:
 l. Farm Products And this
 means all foodstuffs must rise
 approximately 70 per cent in whole
 sale prices to the farmer;
 2. The retail price of everything
 else must drop still further until
 the buyers dollar and the fnrmer's
 dollar are worth exactly the same
 am0unt,
 FARMERS MUST PROSPER
 Present prospects are that both movements will be noticeable within a short while. Increased prices of focdstuffs will be brought about to some extent, 1t is believed, but the enactment of a tariff sufficiently high to prevent the dumping into American markets of farm products raised abroad, these products at present being sold at prices lower than the cost oe producing the commodities on Ameri- can farms. Further price reductions in everything except farm products. it is hoped, will result from the working o' the economic law. whose operation already has resulted in the farmers $ present plight.
 There are about 6.OOO.OO0 farm
 CTS In the United States and about
 35.OO0.OO0 persons engaged in agri-
 cultural pursuits. This group com
 prises far and away the largest
 single industry in the country.
 Farming is n basic industry. Sec
 retnry Wallace points out, and un-
 less the farmer is prosperous, mo-
 body else in the country.
 The present time the farmer is sell ing almost everything he raises at less than cost The price he gets for his products is back on the average to the pre-war standard The price he pays for what he buys, including la bor, averages more than so per cent higher than the pre-war standard. Thus, in relative values. the farmer S income has been cut almost in half He cannot go into the store and spend 80 per cent more than he spent before the war--as he would have to do in order to keep step with the rest of the country because he isn't get ting it.
 INCOME IS SHY
 So long as the farmer can't keep step with the rest of the country in purchasing power, the country will continue to be- beset with industrial and commercial ailments. Mr. Wallace believes. The farmer supports the eastern markets where the great in- dustries of the country center, and one reason why those markets are not now flourishing, according to MT Wal lace's diagnosis. is because the farm ei can't support them on his present income.
 The rise in wholesale prices of farm products which must come to make the farmer and consequently the rest of the country. prosperous will be accom- panied undoubtedly by a rise in the retail prices of goods. As retail prices have not declined to the same extent as wholesale, the rise in retail prices neeu not De so great in percentage. as the rise in wholesale prices, but it VIII be appreciable.
 Unless there is a rise in food
 prices, "we nre smothered in our
 own sweetness,- Secretary Wallace
 fears. Denied relief, the farmer, he
 believes. will gradually sink to the
 level of the peon and the mouJik.
 He will drag the country with him
 -industries, transportation, finance
 all the other component parts of
 our complex commercial Iife--to