Seventy-Tiiiki) Annual Report 1207 



LAND AND AGRICULTURAL CREDITS 

 CllAKLES A. CONANT 



The problem of agricultural credit is perhaps \]w most import- 

 ant which confronts the country to-daj. Agriculture is the l)a.sis 

 of all life, and the pressure of population upon the food supply 

 is beainnine- to he felt from the highest to the humhlest home. 

 "We have something to learn from Europe in this respect. We 

 have sailed along rather well under the impression that every- 

 thing in our country is superior to anything in other countries; 

 and in man}^ respects this is true. Our breadth of ideas, our 

 freedom of speech, our great natural resources, have enabled us 

 to do things without injury, or without serious disaster, which 

 could not be done by a country where the margin of subsistence 

 is narrow and where the struggle for life is more keen. But we 

 are beginning to realize that we have played rather fast and loose 

 with our great natural resources, and that we are in danger, if 

 not of falling behind our European competitors, at least of rais- 

 ing the cost of living to a point very hazardous to the continuous 

 development of a healthy and efficient population. We are al- 

 ready reaching out to foreign lands for our food supplies. We 

 are sending a hundred ships to Central and South America to 

 bring us bananas, oranges and other fruits. We are sending our 

 capital to Argentina, Paraguay and Uraguay to find cattle ranges 

 to supply our demand for meat products. 



Inevitably, as these conditions have intensified, there has been 

 an effort in this country to study the reasons why our soil is less 

 productive than that of some other countries and why the price 

 of living is so steadily rising. The problem of the cost of living 

 lies largely in this question of the ratio of food production to 

 population and the efficiency of farm methods. We have waked 

 up to the fact that our soil is capable of producing many times 

 the amount of the past, if we apply intensive and intelligent farm- 

 ing methods. You have doubtless heard or will hear from 

 other speakers during this convention, of the great efi'orts being 

 put forth liy the Department of Agriculture at Washington to 

 increase llic })ro(hi('tivity of f'ai'iii lands. I was aniaziHl myself 

 to hear at the convention of the American Bankers' Association 



the statements of one of the representatives of that department 

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