Evening star., 1932-03-06
TRACTOR REDUCES
FARM CROP COSTS
Production of Foodstuffs Has
Now Exceeded Consumer
Demand.
BY FRANK /. WELLER,
Associated Press Farm Editor.

&hoSNNAoNS0 100 aih
Many years ago one of the owners of
the "101 Ranch" in Oklahoma, pre-
dicted that, given time, the tractor
would break every farmer In America.
In the light Of current economies and
the myriad factors responsible for the
world agricultural surplus, there is a
question whether the tractor now must
rot make every farmer.
The early prophecy saw the tractor
as an instrument Of overproduction +;
the latter sees it as the key to a chang
ing agriculture in which low-cost pro-
auction is the first law
Records on the agricultural occupa-
| tion of the world confirm the ranch
mans theory of expansion Most of the
crop area added in the last IS years is
in the prairies and plains of North
America. the Russian steppes, the Ar
geEtine pampaS and the semiarid lands
of Australia, where modern farm ma
chinery allows one man to do the work
of five.
The expansion Of low-cost areas has
SO far outrun the contraction of the
high-cost that transition presently gives
the world more food and fiber than it
can consume.
Production Exceeds Demand.
Two-thirds of the crop expansion of
the last century-which economists fig
ure to have put as much land under the
ploW as all other centuries combined
has occurred within the last 80 years.
Such tremendous increase in such
relatively little time has given the world
for the last seven years, an average an
nual production of 100000 900 bushels
more wheat than it used, and for the
last five years an average production
of 2,400.000 bales more cotton than
consumed
exceeded 500 900, 900 bushels on August
/, and the cotton carryover was esti-
mated at 13,948,000 bales on July 81
These figures do not include Russia
and China.
The worlds wheat area Is AZ 900 ,00C
acres larger than before the World War
IA 900 900 acres of which has been con-
tributed by the United States. In the
last 10 years the world has added 16,-
900 900 acres to its cotton area, 5000 00(
Of which is in this country.
A contributing factor in mounting
crop production is tractor and automo-
bile replacement of mules and horses
There is an estimate that the 8,000,-
000-head decrease since the war has re-
leased about 25,000,000 acres to the
production Of food and cotton in this
country.
1t is said also that the increased
efficiency" with which the Nation S
better-b bred live stock transforms feed
into food probably is as important a
factor as mechanical power in adding to
farm production.
There are fewer hogs on farms than
a decade ago, but the production of pork
and lard apparently is 70 per cent
greater. There are only a few more
dairy cows, and yet milk production has
increased more rapidly than human
population.
Likewise, the total consumption per
person of wheat, corn, oats, rye, buck
wheat and barley has declined 100
pounds year, or nearly 80 per cent
| under prewar consumption.
Exportable Surplus.
Combining all the major agricultural
products consumed by the American
people on the basis of crop land re-
qCired to produce them, it appears that,
| we're a stationary yield per acre as
sumed, the net land requirements per
capita would be about the same as 80
years ago. In the meantime, agricul-
| tural production has increased about II
per cent.
The increase, theoretically, is export
able surplus.
| However. in Northwestern Europe
where most of American exports go
the birth rate has been declining for
| so years, agricultural technique advanc-
| ing to where some acre-yields are twice
as high as in the United States, and
governments, by tariffs and food laws,
encourage pre-war and even better pro-
duction of native crops, principally
wheat
At present trends it is predicted these
importing countries will have a sta
tionary population within 20 to 80 years
If not sooner.
Meantime, the United States has not
contracted the acreage it developed to
feed them during the war. and the same
estimates indicate stationary popula-
ton in this country in so to so years
or sooner