CIRCULAR NO. 118, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



our cave-dwelling ancestors there has been continuous progress in 

 this direction. Yet we are not really many generations from the 

 times of alternating feasts and famines, and there are to-day large 

 sections, particularly in the Old World, where famines recur with 

 cruel frequency. 



NEED OF UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. 



"With very few exceptions, food scarcities are due rather to inade- 

 quate facilities for distribution than to actual lack of supply. In 

 a majority of cases there is plenty of food in one country when there 

 is a shortage in another. In a country as large as ours this is often 

 true of its different parts. Something of the same sort applies with 

 reference to the distribution of supplies throughout the year. 



So much for the demand. Those who make.it their business to 

 produce supplies of food and clothing have the same desire for a 

 uniform demand that the consumer has for a uniform supply. The 

 greatest risks of agricultural production are the market risks. A 

 uniform demand for any agricultural product at a price that in the 

 average of seasons gives reasonable profits for production would 

 relieve the farmer of one of his most perplexing problems. 



The sugar-beet industry is a case in point. The price of this crop 

 fluctuates but little from year to year, and the demand is never satis- 

 fied. A farmer may feel certain of a ready market and he knows 

 about how much he will receive per ton, regardless of whether the 

 country's acreage is large or small. Were it not for this one fact, 

 the area devoted to sugar beets in this country would doubtless be 

 much smaller than it is, for even under the most favorable conditions 

 the profits from the production of sugar beets are not large. 



In the Irish-potato industry a very different condition obtains. In 

 this case the price fluctuates between wide limits. Every two or 

 three years the crop is larger than the market can absorb and prices 

 go so low that there is little or no profit to the producer. Thereupon 

 the acreage is reduced, the supply runs short, and prices advance to 

 a point at which the consumer comes to regard the potato as a luxury 

 and stops buying it for daily use. And what is true of potatoes is 

 true in a large measure of many other perishable crops. 



The net result of this condition is a great economic waste. In 

 times of plenty we are compelled to throw away great quantities of 

 foodstuffs that at other times we would be glad to have. A glut in 

 the market is of but temporary advantage to the consumer and a 

 scarcity is of small advantage to the producer. It is true that wide 

 price fluctuations may yield small profits one way or another to a 

 few individuals, but in the long run such fluctuations result in large 

 aggregate losses. 



[Cir. 118.] 



