The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-01-13
LOWDEN CLAIMS
 FARM PROBLEMS MUST BE SOLVED
Says Farmers Believe System Of Distribu- ton Is Wrong.

Lincoln, Neb., Jan. Eff the far mer is Q continue to feed mankind. he must be paid for his services and we must provide warehouses for the surpluses in boUntiful years, Frank O. Lowden, former governor of IIli- nois, told the Nebraska Dairymen' s Association in convention here re- gently.
 ''The farmer believes in the value of what he produces and knows that it is indispensable to the world if civ ilization is to go on," he said. When he sees that the total value of an un- usually large crop is less in the mar kets of the world than the value of 8 small crop, he knows that something is wrong in our methods of distribu- tion. He does not need to be fla niliar with higher mathematics to feel sure that 12,000,000 bales of cot ton ought to be worth more than G. 900, 900 bales; for each of the 12,O00,- 900 bales will be genuinely service able sooner or later in clothing the world.
 "He has seen much improved financial conditions come to one great section of the country because of an abnormally short crop of that staple. He can't persuade himself that the boil weeVil is a beneficent agent of mankind, and yet he is compelled to admit that the cotton states are in debted to that little insect for their imDrovel financial condition.
 ''We know that no commodity will oe long produced below the cost of production, and therefore it ought never be necessary to market any farm commodity below such cost; and held the world will have to pay the cost some day.
 These problems have been met and solved, in a large measure, in Holland and Denmark and among the fruit growers of California, by the organization of farmers cooperative societies. These societies do not at tempt to arbitrarily fix prices. They do study the prob1es demand and at tempt to adjust production to meet that demand.
 Instead of throwing the entire seasons crop upon the market with in a few short weeks, they provide for orderly marketing of their pro- ducts The tendency of this is to stabilize the market. And stabiliz- ing the market of any product Is in the end best for the consumer and the producer alike It is never good thing for anyone when any use fuI commodity is sold for less than the cost, for under the ineXorabie laws of economies curtailed produc- tion Will follow until prices abnor- mally high are the result. Any com nodity that is produced profitably year after year will in a long series of years be produced more cheaply than where there are violent fiuctua- tions.
 When the price of wheat on We'd nesday of one week is ten cents more a buShel than it was on the Tuesday of the week before, this law of sup ply and demand may mean the diff ference between a profit or loss upon a whole years work of the farmer.
 While in every other industry we are abreast of the most advanced na- commerce, in manufacture, in banking and merchandising there is not a nation in the world that cannot teach America some thing about farming. This has been because of the great abundance of fertile lands in this country, so that we could exhaust one field and then fove on West and take up virgin land.
 If our farm is worn out it is our own fault, and if we do not restore 1t within a reasonable time it is not only our fault but it is an act of positive treachery to the generations that shall come after us."