Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1922-01-27
From the talk given by County
Agent Gibson at the annual ban
quet Of the Eagle River Develop
ment Association last week.

of agriculture products ran about
81, 5000 In 1917 this rose to $4,000
900 and in 1919 amounted to S8,O0O,-
100000 a performance in foreign trade
such as no other nation has ever even
approached. 1t was altogether abnor-
mai. Europe and the u. S. were in a
hectic postwar initiation and very
important part of those huge exports
were sold on time to debtors who
were exhausting their credit. The infa
ton continued well into 1920 then the
gas began to go out of the balloon.
Export demand broke down and buy
ing power was drying up just at a
time when our agricultural overrun
was the largest in five years.
Commodity prices had been steadily
advancing for a year and half, going
far above the war time level. The
Department of Agriculture's index
number, compounded of the price of
81 farm products, stood at 246 in June
as the big crops were approaching
harvested fell to ~ in July, 225 in
August, 207 in Sept. and 191 in Octo-
Der the movement gathering momen-
tum as the general situation was more
clearly revealed and the size Of the
crops more definately known. / want
you to note particularly that the high
peak of prices was never reached at
a time when the farmer was market
ing his crops but at time when the
food speculator was unloading. We are
prone to remember the fact that pota-
toes for example once sold for six or
seven dollars a bushel, but do not
forget that the crop selling for this
price was sold by the farmers for
something less than one third of that
amount
But to get back, the boom was col
lapsing; we had far more farm goods
than there we're buyers for and the
price was bound to fall By December
the index No. for agricultural prices
had fallen to 143, by March to 122, by
June 1921 to 106, or decidedly less
than half what it had been a year be-
fore. So a collapsing boom, big crops
and the breakdown of European buy
ing caused the fall in 1920 and 1921
Defation hit agriculture hardest be-
cause it was most exposed. When the
demand for wooden products falls off
the mill at onre cut down production.
Wooden mills in the summer Of 1921,
were producing hardly one fourth of
their capacity; but the farms, not
withstanding last years ruinous drop
in prices, produced substantially the
same amount as in 1918 and 1919 The
farmer is tied to his job of producing
whether it ruins him or not.
AS prices fell the first thought of
many farmers was, quite naturally, to
carry along on borrowed money in the
hope that prices for farm products
would rise or that the prices of other
commodities would come down to a
CORRESPONDENCE low level, but we are
rapidly approaching the planting sea-
son Of 1922 and as yet the retail prices
of commodities other than agricultural
have not reached the same level.
These are the principle phases of
world wide conditions which combined
to bring about the situation which we
are facing at the present time. These
are some of the main reasons for our
present predicament in Eagle River,
and Villas County, Wisconsin
Our farmers have fallen down in the
past because they are unorganized and
adequate long time credit is not avail
able to any large extent. They have
fallen down then thru lack of co-opera-
ton. Not because, as James Whitcomb
Riley once said, "The only thing some
people use their heads for is to keep
their neck-tie from slipping off,.
As new conner among you I am
forced to the conclusion that here in
cur own community our greatest need
is cooperation, not alone among our
farmers but among our Business Men