Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-15
EVOLUTION OF FARMING
ADDS TO TARIFF TANCLE
Tendency Is Toward Larger Units Of
Land, Though Best Informed Are
Reticent in Predicting Future.

1925. per cent
Here is a striking change, farreaching
in its social and economic consequences.
Accompanying 1t is the familiar story
Of farmers going away from the home
acres and seeking employment In cities
the position taken by some western
Senators about the pending tariff.
City Drift Is Large.
To take only a small period Of the
cityward drift during the five years
from 1920 to 1925. really vast farm
population-2,6 $3.50, 600 persons-left the
farms to take up city occupations.
This is regarded by the Western Sem
stopped. Wishing to stop it, they argue
as follows:
The reasons why farmer or a farm
er's son leaves the homestead to live
in the cities can all be summed up in
one reason. That reason is higher In
come-larger wages in the city than
the income he can hope to make as
farmer. One cause Of higher wages
in cities is the protective tariff on
manufacturers. Therefore, II we really
mean what We say about keeping the
boys on the farm. let lis stop using the
tariff to stimulate manufacturing in
the cities. From now on let us use the
tariff not to stimulate manufacturing,
but to stimulate farming, and farming
only.
History Is Cited.
The same argument, stated histor-
ically by those who believe in it. runs
thus Sixty years ago, farming was the
great American occupation. More than
half of all our people were engaged in
it. 1t was regarded as more desirable
and elevated than any city occupation
in which men received wages. Farmers
hired men wages that would hold them.
With that condition existing we
adopted a protective tariff to stimulate
manufacturing as an Infant industry"
Now the condition is reversed. Manu-
featuring is no longer an infant indus
try, and therefore, no longer in need Of
further tariff stimulation.
In the meantime land for the same
reason as the farm leaders in the Senate
believe) farming has become a sick
industry" Let us now, therefore, use
the protective tariff to stimulate our
sick industry" and for that purpose
only.
Machinery Is Omitted.
This may not be the whole picture
of the change in farming. Indeed. it
certainly is not the whole picture.
Among other things it omits the infiu-
ence of machinery in bringing about
larger units of farming. Twenty to so
acres might be an appropriate unit
when wheat was reaped with a scythe
or cradle" and threshed with a fail
or an old-fashioned "thresher." And
several hundred acres may be an ap-
proximate unit when wheat is reaped
and threshed in single operation by
an immense. costly and intricate ma
chine of 50-horsepower or more.
But the competition between farm and
city for the farmers son and the rela-
ton of the tariff to that competition lies
at the bottom of the present controversy
in the Senate. And we are going to
have eloquent and Illuminating argu-
ment about it.
Radical Capitalization Is Seen.
The argument for combining tariff
benefits to the farm may or may not
prevail. If it prevails it may or may
not arrest or profoundly influence the
evolution that is going on in agricul-
ture. One thoughtful person so situated
as to have had a long range view of
farming all his life, says the present
evolution will go farther than we now
dream. He thinks that in a decade or
two all the farming in the United States
will be done within limited number
of States best adapted to it-that great
areas which are now farm land in the
Fest, for example, will become forests,
or will be bought up by the States for
parks
Is such an evolution desirable? If we
could command the future by legisla-
ton, would we decree that fate? Can
we fully command the future by legis-
lation? Can the Western Senators and
their Democratic allies from the South
change the ultimate destination of
agriculture? They think. most earnestly,
that they can, and that whether they
can or not public interest in the broad
est sense demands that they make the
effort,