Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1925-07-02
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bumper corn crop of 1923 was sold at a price
which did not cover the cost of production If
corn growers had been organized and found that
the market would not receive their corn at what
1t cost them to produce it they would not have
dumped the larger part of the crop upon the mar
ket in few brief months. They would have sold
sparingy. They would have stored the remainder,
knowing full well that seasons of bountifu produc-
tion are always followed by seasons of low pro-
duction, and that at no distant day they would
celve profitable price for their corn. AS it was,
only few Of the corn farmers were able to hold
their corn for the higher prices which they had
rightly anticipated and which were later received
OF course, even if organized, they could not
have expected to receive as much per bushel for a
3,OOOOO0,000-bushel crop as for 2,4OO0OO0OO-
bushel crop. They would doubtless have asked
somewhat smaller price, but they certainly would
have asked price-and have received it-which
would have made the 300O,OOOOOO bushels Of corn
worth more to them than the very next year 24OO,-
100000 bushels of poor actually brought In
the market.
In other words the farmers, If organized,
would have adjusted the supply to the actual de-
mand. And they would have made this adjust
ment before the price became demoralized In
fact, the adjustment made later, but only
after the great bulk of the crop had left the farm
ers hands. 1t cannot too often be stated that the
supply of any commodity which affects the price
is not the entire stock Of the commodity in exist
for sale at given price.
And so, If the dairy farmers had some way bv
which they could have taken last year the incubus
Of 100000, at the outside 1O0OOOOOO, pounds
of butter off the market, it is almost certain In
the opinion of experts that this depression in the
great dairy industry would not have occurred IT,
in other words, this added 5O,O00OOO-or If Won
please 0O,00O-pounds of butter had been
purchased at cost, say. of $5O,0OOOOO and stored
by the farmers themselves, awaiting a season of
less luscious grasses the dairy farmers Of America
would have received as a return upon their large
investment and their labors many million dollars
more than they actually did receive.
And so say this report from the Department
OF Agriculture discloses very perplexing facts
Now, produce both corn and milk upon nv farm
feed the larger part of my corn in the form of
silage to my cows. / sell it, therefore, in the form
of milk. / receive considerably less for II than
did year ago. And so these glowing figures of
the increased value of the corn crop over which
the financial writer's of the great METROPOLITAN
dailies goat do not comfort me much am in
deed puzzled to know what to do have been
taught that to produce 60 bushels of corn to the
acre is finer achievement than to produce AZ
like to see the milk pail trimming full with sweet
pure milk But when see 40 bushels of corn
worth more than go bushels of corn and when T
see the milk pail but twothrds full worth more
than the brimming pail of another year, / become
confused and hardly know what to do
Last summer the cotton crop particularly in tbe
Southwest, was suffering severely for lack of rain
And then one day the heavens opened and the
rains descended. AS result, the government which
before had estimated the crop at II, 100000 bales
increased the estimate to 100000 bales This
was increase Of less than per cent In the Weld
and yet because of this estimated increase tbe
price declined in the market 20 per cent This
meant that the total crop of the larger estimate
was worth less in the market by $500 100000 than
the crop by the lesser estimate And yet at that
very time the world needed cotton as it had not
needed it before since the Civil war And this
paradox was the result Of a timely rain.
Now there is no music sweeter to nv ears than
the patter Of raindrops upon the roof breaking a
drought in the summer time, and yet, to save nv
life cannot tell whether that rain Is sweet and
fragrant bearer of beneft-or bankruptcy When
the hot summer winds scorch the fields do NOT
know whether to pray for rain to thank the AL
mighty for the unbroken drought.
Something is wrong with our methods of mar
keting when the aggregate money value Of a larger
crop of prime necessity is smaller than the value
of a smaller crop. There are untold thousands Of
men and women and children who need more cot
ton to clothe them than is produced in the world
today To say, therefore, that 12,4OO0OO bales of
cotton are worth more than 100000 bales Is to
condemn a system of marketing which so meas
value.