The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1942-05-21
WNU Service, l343 H Street, NV,
Washington, d. c.

WIN u SeEVICe, 1910 H N"f
Washington, d. c.
AS Washington takes a look ahead
across the fields and pastures and
dairy farms of the nation, the pros
poets for the farmer seem pretty
good. He is going to have some
tough problems but they aren't IN
soluble. And there are good times
ahead. The ceilings on retail prices
still leave room for price rises which
will turn to the farmers advantage.
Congress has yet to decide Wheth-
er the point at which the ceiling on
farm prices is to begin can be low
cred to parity or whether it will be
held at ITO as the law now holds.
Price Administrator Henderson is
firm for the lower figure. Secre-
tary of Agriculture Wickard has en-
dorsed this view which the Presi-
dent set forth in his fireside chat.
But congress will decide.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors
the problem will be threshed out as
to methods to be used when the low
cred retail prices roll back through
the professor right up to the barn
gate.
This will be the point where the
department of agriculture steps in
with its technical knowledge and ex-
p~erience to supplement and proba-
bly, to modify some of Mr. Hender-
sons ideas. For one thing cannot
be forgotten: the farm products OF
the nation have still to be changed
over to some extent from the things
that are not essential to the war eff
fort to the things that are essential
to the war effort. This cannot all
be done by the waving of a big stick;
there must be left for the farmer a
certain price motive for this change
over on his part. And how to keep
prices up for the products needed
and down for what isn't, is a com
plicated problem which cannot be
settled entirely by an arbitrary sys-
tenn Of retail price controls in a mar
ket Of increased demand and limit
ed supply.
One hardship which the farmer
shares with the rest Of the pro-
ducers, is the difficulty of getting
the tools he needs to produce with,
when munitions have the first call.
That is the thing that is causing
the most headaches in Washington
right now.
There is the question of farm ma
chinery; Of fertilizers and sprays,
of transportation from the farm to
the primary market, from there to
the professor and finally into dis
tribution.
And another bottleneck which
backs right up to the barn and the
sly is the lack Of processing facili-
ties. I understand that if the pig
crop now in the making proceeds at
the present rate there will not be
enough square feet Of killing space
in America to handle the hogs when
they come in. Some of you will
recall that in 1924 embargoes had to
be placed on certain slaughterhouses
to keep the pigs from piling up a
their doors.
However, there is more expert
ence stored up in Washington heads
than there was then and greater
ability, equipment and incentive tt
make use of it.
One thing that is being done is t.
get the farmers to begin feeding
their hogs earlier SO that the peal
period of slaughter can be fiattene6
out and all the pigs won't come t.
market at once.
Experts who have studied the stu
alton say that the farm labor prob
lem is by no means insoluble. L
exists but it is going to be licked
with the help of women, school chill
dren and part-time help from men ir
the small towns in rural commu
mites who are willing to close W
shop and help with the peak load a
harvest time. This has already beer
done in some communities-frui'
picking, for instance.
On the whole. the prospects are
that the farmer will be much better
off than he was after the last war
Then he took his extra money, made
down payments on more land, mort
gagged what he had to buy still more
and when the depression came los
everything. There are no signs o
a land-buying boom now. The farm
.er, once bitten is twice shy, he ha!
begun to lay away this extra casl
for the rainy day that he. Of al
people, knows is coming.
Farmers have already made rain,
day payments to the tune Of S., 900,
600. This is the amount reporte'