Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 113 



terest on the investment. If the burdens of which the consumer 

 complains are to be lightened by compelling the farmer to take 

 less than he now receives for what he produces, land values must 

 be reduced or the land-owning farmer will become bankrupt. 



Indeed, if the farmer is to build up a good system of rural 

 schools, including a rural high school within riding distance of all 

 the country children; if he is to build and maintain good roads; 

 if he is to provide in the country home comforts and conveniences 

 equal to those in the town home; if he is to build in the country 

 wholesome recreation, and if he properly supports his rural church 

 — in short, if he is to develop in the country a type of civilization 

 that will grip and hold on the farm a fair share of the best people 

 born there, he will have to have larger returns than he now 

 receives. 



A part of this increased return must come through increased 

 efficiency in production. The farmer must not attempt to shift 

 the burdens that are strictly his own to the shoulders of others. 

 He must see that his methods of farming are such as to bring the 

 largest returns at the least cost. In a word, he must do his best 

 to become an hundred per cent farmer. Then he must employ 

 modern business methods in marketing his wares. 



Already the farmer is more successful as a producer than he 

 is as a buyer or a seller. He has not had and is not now getting a 

 fair share of what the consumer pays for the products of his farm, 

 but for this the farmer chiefly is to blame. 



According to the investigations of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, it costs approximately 55 per cent of what 

 the consumer pays for his food to get it from the farmer's side- 

 track to the consumer's kitchen. 



Mr. Yoakum of the Frisco railroad has pointed out that the 

 American farmer produced last year, in round numbers, nine bil- 

 lions of wealth. Assuming that the farmer sold two-thirds of 

 what he produced and kept at home for his own consumption one- 

 third, then the material he sold was worth at his door six billions 

 and the consumer paid for it at his door thirteen billions. In other 

 words, it cost more to get this material from the farm to the con- 

 sumer than the farmer received for producing it. 



Unfortunately, it is true that when the farmer is most pros- 

 perous he is least interested in co-operation, because he gets along 

 very well without it. Practically all successful co-operation has 

 been, born of dire necessity. The California fruit growers were 



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