110 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



THE PROBLEM OF FARM FINANCE IN ITS RELATION 

 TO PERMANENT AGRICULTURE. 



(Byron McFarland, Monroe City, Mo.) 



It seems to be the policy of those in charge of arranging the 

 programme for these meetings, to enlist the services of all the 

 talent available; but sometimes they are a little short on talent 

 and a little long on time, and then it is that they are compelled to 

 call in a few time-killers. That explains why I am here today. I 

 have come over to help you while away your time, and to try to 

 vv^het your appetite for the more weighty mental problems to which 

 you shall be treated; and if I can serve you to no other purpose 

 than to create in you such a hungering and thirsting after knowl- 

 edge that you will be able to digest and assimilate all the good 

 things in the feast to follow, without an acute attack of intellectual 

 indigestion, I can not feel that I have spoken in vain. 



Now, I have been asked to speak upon the Finance of Farm- 

 ing, but as I am not on very intimate terms with finance in any 

 form, I have thought it well to make the mystery more complete 

 by adding a little to the subject. In this way I hope to be better 

 able to fulfill my mission as a time-killer. I have decided, there- 

 fore, to try to talk to you a while upon "The Problem of Farm 

 Finance in its Relation to Permanent Agriculture." 



It is with considerable hesitation that I undertake to address 

 you upon this subject, because I feel that what I shall have to say 

 will prove a disappointment — that I shall not be able to say what 

 you have a right to expect me to say ; and greater is my hesitation, 

 because I feel that what I shall say will not only not be accepted, 

 but may subject me to general, perhaps severe criticism. And 

 while I do not expect, or even desire, you to accept a new doctrine 

 too readily, yet I have thought a presentation of the subject, as I 

 see it, might not prove amiss at this time. 



The conclusions at which I have arrived are, with me, at 

 least, strictly original; and, I may add, they may be just as strictly 

 erroneous. So that all I ask of you tonight is to lay aside your 

 own views for the present, and to try to look at the subject from 

 my point of view for a few minutes. 



The fundamental facts upon which the problem of farm 

 fmance rests, are the cost and the selling-price of farm products; 

 and all of our investigations so far, have been in the direction of 

 reducing the cost by improved methods of production, or of increas- 



