Live Stock Breeders' Association. Ill 



ing the selling-price by indirect methods of selling. But our 

 investigations have been based upon the assumption that the 

 farmers themselves have it in their power to solve the problem 

 in a satisfactory way, and, according to our present popular point 

 of view, if the farmer fails to prosper, the fault is his, and his 

 alone. Now I should like to talk to you a while about whether or 

 not the average Missouri farmer is really prosperous, and if not, 

 whose fault is it. 



The cost of farm products is measured and determined by 

 three factors : (1) interest on the investment; (2) labor incidental 

 to growing, harvesting and marketing the crops; and (3) soil 

 fertility removed by the crops. 



As for interest on the investment, I am of the opinion that it 

 is no more than common-sense and business justice that the man 

 who puts his money in land is entitled to as much interest on it as 

 the man who loans his money on gilt-edged land security. The 

 present rate of interest the farmer has to pay, with ample se- 

 curity, is from 51/2 to 6 per cent; that is, the man who loans money 

 clears about 50 per cent above taxes, and ordinary justice would 

 indicate that the farmer who invests in land should be entitled to 

 50 per cent above taxes. Now this, remember, he is entitled to 

 without labor. The money-lender draws his interest without any 

 special labor, and so should the land owner; he should get the 

 amount of his interest over and above the price of taxes and labor. 



As for the labor part of the proposition, I believe it fair to 

 suppose that the labor of the farmer is worth at least as much as 

 that of his hired man, especially if his head work is thrown in for 

 good measure. This needs no argument, for it is a truth as old 

 as humanity that the laborer is worthy of his hire whether he 

 works for another, or for himself. It is so regarded in other walks 

 of life, and it must be so regarded in agriculture. 



The question of soil fertility removed by a crop is compara- 

 tively new to most of us. It is a question not thoroughly under- 

 stood even by experts. With fresh, fertile fields, the question of 

 lost fertility never arose, but time and failing crop yields have 

 brought the matter home to us ; and the idea of including lost fer- 

 tility in the cost of a crop, is rarely met with. Now, if fertility 

 were inexhaustible, if our soil never could wear out, then, and 

 then only, could this important item be left out of our calculations. 

 But the fact that soil fertility is limited, that a fertile field may 

 be made poor even in a single generation, makes this item, a most 

 important one in our considerations of cost. Indeed, the problem 



