The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 15, 1920, Page 7

_.meet the food demands of the age, “living. , is one in which all farmers are in- . stir the reader as ‘to'the needs of other peoples, let us. consider the BY ORIN CROOKER FEW weeks ago an editorial writer in a Boston paper proceeded to take stock of the agricultural, situation of the country as he viewed it from the close proximity of the gilded dome of the Massachusetts statehouse, which every 'school child in New England knows full well marks the exact center of the solar universe. ‘“Nothing can be plainer,” he wrote, “than that farming, to must become fnore intensive.” s From the standpoint of the unthinking this sug- gestion offers a ‘most plausible solution of those economic ills which are related to the high cost of Just let the farmer speed up a bit—raise more wheat, more potatoes, more milk, more beef and pork—and the trick is turned! Supply and de- mand, it is argued, will adjust prices after this is accomplished, so that living costs.will tumble and ' ‘a dollar at the market place will do the work of two : or three at present prices. : It is easy to give advice of this kind from the comfortable shelter of a swivel chair. Out on the farms the situation appears quite different. Side by side with this bit of editorial wisdom should be placed a little incident reported recently in the “Voice of the People” in the Chicago Tribune. A Michigan fruit grower reported that he sent some splendid Astrakhan apples to Chicago, for which the- commission house remitted him 35 cents a bushel. .The freight charge on the shipment, together with the cost of the baskets which carried the fruit, total- ed 36 cents a bushel—a net loss of 1 cent on each bushel ‘without reference to the cost of production, such as spraying trees, picking fruit, interest on in- vestment and so on. : If farming is to be made more intensive, perhaps " editorial writers on city papers will advise how the farmer is to be sufficiently enthused in the face of such returns to undertake the speeding up processes which such intensification implies. Agriculture can not function without receiving a fair profit. FRENZIED FINANCE WITH ASTRAKHAN APPLES This little incident, however, -does not tell the . whole story by any means.: Astrakhan apples have been selling in ‘Chicago fruit stores at from 10 to 18 cents a pound, with scarcely any reduction to the consumer in amounts’ of a peck or more. Some- where between the Michigan producer and the Chicago consumer various middlemen absorbed profits represented by the difference between 85 cents and from $6 %o $10 a bushel. The day of frenzied finance has not passed. The one-time busy pen of Tom Lawson could find plenty of material to remew its vouth by simply following the trail to market of almost any' of the products of the farm. 3 The matter of larger production terested, because in the natural order of things larger production means larger profits. But these are not “natural” times. It is true that the world, taken as a whole, is short of food. _Produc— “tion is paralyzed in many quar- ters and reserve food stocks have been exhausted.- Actual starva- tion appears to be the sad lot this coming winter of certain peoples - on the other side of the globe., Leaving out of consideration any . - humanitarian impulses that may condition as we find it at home. , tt has been charged that under- production on our farms is re- sponsible for the high prices which the American consumer pays for food. It is true that food stocks, considered on the per capita basis of population, are not as great as was the case back in - “the '80s and early '90s. The author of this article is a well- .known writer on agricultural subjects. He has come to learn, however, that “better farming’ alone, important as it is, will not end all the farmers’ ills. Hand in hand with the individual ef-. forts of the farmer to:settle his indi- vidual problems, must go co-operative action, both political and. economic; to settle the many problems which are common to all producers. We hope to present a number of other articles by Mr. Crooker dealing with other angles . of the questions confronfing the American farmer today. The sharpest increase in food prices, however, has come in the last dozen years. It is not true that in this period underproduction has been so marked as to account wholly for what the consumer must pay for food, To be sure, production of s‘i}e commodi- ties shows a decrease in thiseperiod. The lessened number of gallons of milk produced per: capita of population over that of 10, 15 and 20 years ago has been viewed with alarm for a considerable time by those who realize how important a place milk holds in the food ration of the nation. But this decrease, amounting to between 20 and 25 per cent, we be- lieye, has been spread over a period of two decades and the few cents & bottle increase in the price of milk that has come in the past few years is propor- tionately insignificant to that which has occurred with many other food staples, some of which have experienced no slackening in production as compar- ed with pre-war conditions. ‘ The writer does not happen to have seen any re- cent figures covering the entire crop production of the country for 1920°as compared with, say 10 years ago—save in the case of a single state. Michigan, however, is perhaps sufficiently typical in this re- gard of most of the other north central states, to serve as a means of illustration. Michigan has grown substantial increases this year in corn, oats, wheat, barley and rye over what she produced in 1910. In beans, this state shows a falling off of about 22 per cent, while in potatoes her production will be less by about 27 per cent. Taken-on the whole, however, Michigan farmers have actually in- creased production this year over that of 10 years . ago and in face of a 10 per cent smaller rural popu- ~ lation. It 1s nét to be doubted that the complete figures of "TRACTORS AS POWER PLANTS The modern tractor will do pretty much of everything about the farm—except to solve the farmer’s marketing problems. The tractor’s twin brother—tRe farm truck—is one * aid in the marketing problem. But marketing ‘questions can not be settled for all farmers until they work together in the fields of economics PAGE SEVEN L g \ and politics. - More Production or Better Marketing? : Which Road Shall Be Taken to Better the Conditions of the Farmer and - of the Common People Generally? the country will show thdt the cause of high food prices in this country must be found elsewhere than in the single fact of underproduction on American farms. This, however, should not encourage us to feel that the 1930 balance sheet may show so favor- able a condition. : } Owing to the high cost of farm labor, large in- crease in the price of seed, fertilizer and machinery, farm crops have cost more to grow this past year than ever has been the case before. But even this dces not account for the startling difference between what the producer receives for his products and what the consumer pays for them. The middlemen’s profits on Astrakhan apples offers, perhaps, as sig- nificant a commentary on high living costs as.one could find. It is as eloquent as it is brief and tells a story that could be duplicated many times in one form or another from coast to coast. ' Much of the present high cost of foodstuffs com- plained of by the consumer originates from a com- bination of three causes. These do not bear the awhole responsibility, it is true, but they must share a large part of it. These are (1) an expensive sys- tem of marketing, carrying too many middlemen and “distributors” of one kind or another; (2) prof- iteering in food products after these have left the farm; and (3) the uncertain transportation of the past few years which has operated oftentimes not only to produce actual shortages of commodities in certain localities, when in reality there was an abundance elsewhere, but which has also discourag- ed growers of perishable products in making ship- ments to distant markets. . i UNCERTAIN TRANSPORTATION A BIG LIABILITY An instance of this sort came to the writei’s at- - tention last winter through a friend who spent the season in the South. A Florida grower sent two carloads of grapefruit to the Chicago market. The shipment was delayed beyond reason and ‘it was necessary for the Florida man to send transporta- tion charges to close the account with the Chicago commission house. The fruit arrived in a condition wholly unfit for sale. The balance of this man’s crop was not marketed. J That grapefruit in northern markets was scarce and high in price last winter was due in a measure, probably, to the failure of transportation to func- tion properly. How serious a matter this factor haz ° become, agriculturally speaking, is seen from the ™ fact that as late as July many wheat growers still were carrying a portion of their 1919 crop because of inability to move it. . There is little enthusiasm in the farmer’s heart for speeding up production under conditions such as he has had to face the past two years. Where marketing must be done, as has been the case for the most part, through the medium of several “distributors,” the pro- ducer finds himself at a serious disadvantage in realizing a profit that shall compensate him ade- quately for his labor and give him The uncertainties centering in transportation are so. discourag- the producer to hold back in hope of better things along this line. But more than this, perhaps, is the fact that farm labor has be- come of itself a limiting factor in thousands of cases where direct ‘marketing is possible and where figure. : ; A farmer in Illinois whose ders: spoke eloquently of close con- tact with the soil, stated recently to the writer of these paragraphs: : “This talk about .increasing the s size of our crops is pretty mearly an impossibility with most of us. Farmers went the limit during the war. They felt the call’ of pa- (Continued Qfiv page 17) a just return upon his investment.« ing in so@ne instances as to cause bronzed face and stooped shoul-" railroad transportation does not DEGIR N s B O A S DA R SN AT T R NGET SRS e - <