Milford chronicle., 1956-12-28
FARMERS ARE PROSPEROUS


toner, The Farmer"
Mr.. Duffy does not subscribe to certain
statements made during this political year
q. that the farmer is bankrupt, that farm
auctions dot the agricultural landscape like
measles, that he is over-SubSidiZed, that he is
the forgotten man, that his excessive profits
have skyrocketed food prices" He recog-
nizes that economic conditions in farming
are far from ideal But they are far from
being desperate too.
He spoke of Georgia farmer named
Wesley Patrick who, at the age of 21, has
operated his 130-acre farm so efficiently that
he has assets totaling $28,6OO. and has been
voted the Star Farmer of An erica for 1866
an honor bestowed each year by the near
ly 100000 members of the Future Farmers
of America on one young farmer. There are,
as Mr.. Duffy put II, :. many Wesley Pat
ricks throughout our land today
1t should not be thought that Mr.. Duffy
is an unreconstructed optimist He isn't
and he can't afford to be-the farm machin-
cry business is heavily dependent on accur-
ate assessments of the farmers economic
outlook, on which production goals for COM
ing seasons are based. The best available in
formation indicates that gross farm income
next year will total $34.5 billion, represent
ing four per cent gain over 1856. And the
importance of that four per cent may be
judged from the fact that it just about
equals the total value of all the farm equip
ment the farmers bought in 1856.
Next year, Mr.. DOFv went on the farm
equipment industry lock. for a substantial
improvement in saleS-abOut II per cent
over this year, for a total of S1.35 billion.
He quoted Wheeler McMillen of Farm Jour-
nal on the future of agriculture: "The solid
values are still in the land. The demand for
food will never cease. Every new baby brings
into the world an appetite and a pair of hands
to earn food-but does not bring new acre
on which to raise the food. We are adding
appetites at the rate of million year."
This certainly means that in the future far
mers will have to take full advantage of new
techniques, new machine tools, and new
seeds and fertilizers.
Mr.. Duffy also had something to say on
a subject of top importance-the family
type farm. Far from being a dying institu-
tion, he thinks it g. /. . is here to stay, indeed
to grow and strengthen its Importance in the
overall picture" That isn't Just hope
the facts back it up. While the total number
of farms in the United States has dropped
steadily since 1885, the proportion of family
farms to the total has held steady. In late
year they produced roughly twO-thirds of all
agricultural output, about the same share as
in 1910. Many family farms now represent
a capital investment of $4,000 or more. To
quote him again, "This growth in size and
productivity of our family farms is one of
the most significant factors in our nations
rising standard of living
CAN RUSSIA HOLD HER SATELLITES?
Back in 1945, George Kennan, then a lit
tle-known Foreign Service officer, forecast
that Russia would not be able to maintain its
hold on the Eastern and Central European
satellite nations. Few paid much attention
to him then But in the subsequent years Mr..
Kennan became a recognized authority on
Russia our Ambassador to the Soviet Union
and is now Professor of the Institute for
Advanced Study at Princeton. Writing in
the Saturday Evening Post of November "a,
Mr.. Kennan forecasts that ''The Soviet will
never recover" from the late upheavals in
Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere.
The Kennan article takes the form of
tape-recorded interview with Joseph AlsOp.
He begins by pointing out that Russian
statesmen long before the Soviet era tried
to dominate the people of Eastern Europe
and always ran into trouble. One reason for
that is these people have had higher stand
ards of living than the Russians and have
been further advanced in constitutional lib
critics and personal freedom. But there is, in
Mr.. Remnants view, second and more pro-
found reason: 8. the Soviet communist
system is deeply wrong-wrOng about human
nature, wrong about how the world really
works, wrong about the Importance of moral
forces, wrong in its whole outlook"
He believes that breakdown would have
occurred even if a full Stalinist system of
dictatorship had been maintained after Stall
ms death He doubts if there will or can be
a return to Stalinist repression throughout
Central Europe and within Russia herself.
AS Mr. Kennan puts it, a.. the physical
problem has become almost insoluble
The satellite armies and police have been
shown to be unreliable. :. So what are the
Soviets to do-place a tank in every street
in every satellite country?"
Mr.. Kennan certainly does not rule out
the possibility that the Russians may take
extreme measures in an attempt to perpetu-
ate their rule-as they did in Hungary But
he clearly feels that this will not alter the
ultimate result. To quote him again, 81 think
regardless of the way the dust finally settles
this whole sequence of events really