Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-02-02
Georgia 5 Road to PROSPERITY
Leads Through the Farm.

A MEXICAN crops which were worth
~ thirteen million six hundred thousand
q dollars in 1919, and nine million dol
lars in 1920, were worth in 1921, according
to recent estimates by the Federal Depart
ment of Agriculture, only five million SIX
hundred thousand.
In considering causes of business condi-
lions as they have been and probabilities of
their betterment, here assuredly are flgures
worth bordering. They are based upon
crops representing ninety per cent OF the
country's products of the soil; and the aggre-
gate yield of 1921, while somewhat less
than that of the years preceding, was not
enough reduced to account for any impress
sive portion of the decline in value. In 1871
as many as four crops each brought the pro-
Queer a billion dollars or more; IN 1871
only two, corn and hay, reached that inquire
''This remarkable scaling down OF the farm
ers' earnings" 1mments the Review OF Re
views "ouite the most sudden and consid-
cradle in the history of the country, when
unaccompanied,U Us it is, by anything ike
a corresponding decrease in the prices OIL
manufactured goods transportation and oth-
er things that farmer must buy, makes
clean at a glance the enormous subtraction
from the purchasing power from this one
group alone, and the displacement of indus
try at large which must result from such
a cutting off of consumption" But IL Is
not likely, in the judgment OF this and other
competent observers, that conditions will re-
main thus The least sanguine view is
cheering at least to the extent that values
of farm products will not sink lower, while
the most conservative see a number of fac
tors that point to some recovery or prices
Particularly interesting is the fact that al
though the price Of corn was exceedingly
low last year and the crop exceedingly large,
the country's exports of pork, going to more
than ninety different countries, were richly
rewardful. When corn becomes bacon 1t
ceases to beg for. market
To Georgia. as to every other agricultural
State, the report of the Department OF Agr1-
ness is to prosper, farming must profit. 1t
culture drives home the truth that if bust
is from the rank and file Of those who thrive
by the pillow that mercantile and industrial in
terests draw sustenance. 1t is the purchas-
ing power of rural districts that must be
quickened and restored il the currents of
trade are to run high and strong. Hence
the exceeding Importance of such enterprise
as that embodied il the Georgia Farm Mar
ket Federation. the great objective Of which
is to encourage the kind Of farming and pro-
vide the kind of markets that will rebound
to the largest good of those on the SOIL This
enterprise is prompted by keen business
sense as well as by liberal appreciation or
the commonwealth needs. Busin IS MUST
do it's utmost to BRING back agricultural pros
perity, MUST come vigorously to the sup
port Of improved farm-marketing plans,
MUST concern itself with broad, basic factors
which make for the common prosperity, or
business will not go forward.
1t is Of happy omen for Georgia that her
leading men of affairs in almost every COM
munity appear mindful of this and stand
ready to support with all earnestness the
constructive undertakings, both local and
statewide, which are designed to meet the
needs of u e trime. Thus the move tent of
the Country Bankers, in which it has been
The Journals privilege to serve, is enlisting
hearty approval near and far; and when the
Farm Market Federation, in which that move
launched for definite work. as it will be in
ment has found practical expression, is
the near future, 1t doubtless will muster a
large, loyal, and highly effective membership.
Certainly it is along such lines that Georgia's
prosperity for the year 1922 will be assured
and attained. 1t is the part both of good
citizenship and of good business to coop
crate unreservedly to that end.