The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-01-16
LAWS FOR FARMERS

For the last fifty years or more farmers have
been tearfully demanding and politicians earnestly
promising some laws tc improve their condition.
Back to the farm, at the same time, has been
the slogan of editors, lecturers and reformers.
Even now, the world is running over with people
who honestly believe that if the fellows who can
not make living in the cities would bic them
selves off to scme sylvan retreat they would at once
become children of fortune.
Taken altogether this agitation is the sorriest
example of false logic which we as nation have
yet produced.
The farmers situation doubtless needs mprov
ing as does that of all other classes, including that
of the idle rich; but SO far human ingenuity has
not been able to devise any practical means of
improving it.
What is the matter with the farmer, anyway?
Taking the country over the capital which our
farmers have invested in lands has increased at a
rate which, in any other nation, would be deemed
impossible. Lands which generation ago sold for
doll.r and quarter an acre now bring a thou
sand Farms picked up by free homeseaders
me today worth hundreds of dollars an acre, not
= in few places. but throughout practically the
whole agricultural belt The sum that has accrued
to the farmers from this source is measurable by
tens of billions Of dollars.
But what has this to do with the farm problem9
1t is the key to it. The average farmer looks
to the enhancement of the value of his farm as
just as reliable source Of profit the sale of
his crops If he can buy this year for a thousand
dollars and sell ten years hence for twenty thou
sand, he is making money the transaction, even
though he may never more than break even on his
crops.
Now, it is an economic rule that capital in
vested in all the different kinds OF business has
tendency to produce about an equal percentage of
profit There temporary exceptions. of course,
but always the tendency toward equalization is
operating
It's effect on farming is that. if there is a high
profit on the price of the land itself there is
corresponding low return its cultivation. If
man feels su1e that by holding the land for a
certain number Of years he can make big advance
over the amount invested in its purchase he can
afford to farm it, even at a slight loss. And the
result that many attracted into the business
by the prospect of making money on land price
enhancement; that they are not now, as whole,
and perhaps never have been, producing and sell
ing farm products at profit And it is clear
that they never will SO long as this sort of specula
ton is a factor in the business.
If land prices could be held level for a long
period, farmers would then have to look solely
to production for their profits. Those who could
not produce at profit would quit. Returns from
agriculture would thus eventually become esta5-
lshed upon exactly the same basis as returns from
manufacturing. The farmer would simply be-
come manufacturer, and the farm problem as
such would cease to exist.
But none of the laws proposed fer helping the
rural population are based upon these principles
They are mere temporary makeshfts. designed to
fill him with the notion that he is going to get
something for nothing They are pretended at
tempts to achieve the impossible.