76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept., 



weather, or affect the habits of a sheep or a horse, or the re- 

 quirements of a herd of swine. To say that a biUion dollars 

 is to be added to the income of farmers by war prices means 

 nothing unless we have at the same time a statement of 

 outgo. To say that the increased gross value of farm prod- 

 ucts of 191T over 1914 represents war profits is to state only 

 one factor in a transaction and to state it looselv. To advise 

 the use of less milk in order to save it does not take the cow 

 into consideration ; the cow is not a machine that can be 

 stopped by turning oiT the steam and discharging the operator. 



To establish any regulation touching production on a basis 

 of compromise or agreement between contending parties, does 

 not take into consideration any of the fundamental problems 

 on which the regulation must rest for its operation. This is 

 well expressed in ^^^arren's recent statement following a long 

 hearing on the cost of milk, that there is no known way of 

 making a cow produce milk by argument. 



The political method, which is the method of compromise 

 or expediency, cannot change a single fundamental fact in 

 agriculture. 



You understand that I am not defending the farmer: his 

 acts are as much open to review as those of any other citizen : 

 I am merely stating his natural situation. As illustration, 

 let me refer to the recent charge that he is profiteering. The 

 farmer does not make profit in the commercial sense, but 

 only a labor-income. Xow and then a farmer may buy and 

 sell without producing or even speculate, but this is not 

 farming. The producing farmer does not become ''rich" in 

 the commercial sense. His occupation yields only the returns 

 from his work. His overplus is likely to go back into the 

 land, and the next generation has the benefit. 



One of the most amusing statements I have heard is that 

 reported of an influential financier to the efTect that we must 

 now take the farmer in hand and control him. The idea is 

 that the farmer is becoming too powerful and m^akes too 

 many demands. For the last ten years and more, public 

 men have been advising the farmers to organize for pro- 

 tection, and the farming people have been shown the results 

 that have been won by organized labor and industry ; yet as 



