Evening star., 1922-04-16

far as he can. he adapts his opera
tions to conditions. The farmer is
encouraged by the sympathetic legis-
lation Congress has advanced. He is
generally pleased also with the re-
suit Of the international conference
on Limitation Of ar1naments and has
a brighter outlook on world affairs"
Now a general bird's-eye view of
tho titled fields of the country gives
q picture something like this: The
, farmer has only one business. He
Is likely to put his land into crops
because he has land, machinery, seed.
and is accustomed to work. There is
no appreciable reduction in the total
amount of land put into crops. but
there is evidence that there will come
considerable change in the percent
ages that go to certain crops. The
farmer changes his crops in much the
same way that manufacturer
changes his output. If he finds he
Is producing too much of one thing
and the price OF that commodity drops
he will produce more of something
duce the output of that which pays
him least.
HOW PRICES FOR CORN
WILL AFFECT ACREAGE.
So. there will be a smaller acre
age of corn this year than there
yOr,11 ho6 6nff
! dropped SO low. and larger than
there would have been but t'for the
! recent bulge in the corn market. En-
| couraged by the recovery, the farmer
, will SOW to corn some of the land
that he might have seeded down or
put to small grain.
Assistant Secretary Pugsley has
just returned from a trip to South
Dakota and Nebraska. He found the
farmers much more optimistic than
six months ago. He says: THE
farmer isn't going to strike as long
| as he sees any indication of his
| ability to sell at a fairly reasonable
| sore, sour and pessimistic and may
shift his crops around to the detri-
ment OF the consuming public. il the
law of supply and demand doesn't
| have fair play, but he isn't going to
close his factory. He knows that
he'll eat at the first table, and has
first choice at eggs, chickens. milk,
cream, butter. pork and porterhouse-
| likewise wheat and corn
The experts in the Department of
Agriculture, who have the real facts
before them, FAY there is no doubt
at all that the farmers have been
hard hit-many OF them have gone
bankrupt. and unless prices pick up
many more will go bankrupt. The
business man doesn't entirely re-
alize that all industry aside from ag-
| riculture exists on the surpluses of
agriculture. Many do not realize
either that the wheels of industry
! are entirely dependent upon the re-
lation in prices which exist between
farm products and the things the
farmer has to buy If we could
clear our minds of the fact that a
suit of clothes costs 80 many dol
lars and a bushel of corn brings 50
many cents. and think of trading corn
for clothing, we could see the reason
for a reasonably fair exchange ra-
tio, particularly as about 40 per cent
Of everything made in a factory is
sold to the farmer. and. if it is not
sold to the farmer the factory is over
stocked. and when the factory is over
stocked hands must be laid off.
VALUES ARE APPROACHING
[ A NATURAL LEVEL.
II the farmer trades corn or what
ever he grows for protection OF the
government in the form of taxes. or
on money he borrows in the form of
interest, and has nothing left. then
there is no industry and he can't buy.