394 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol.48 



sion includes urban and rural credit unions and Federal cooperative farm loan 

 credit, the latter outlining briefly the Federal Farm Loan Act and describing 

 Federal land banks and joint stock land banks as instruments for encouraging 

 agriculture, promoting thrift, and extending credit 



The Federal farm loan system, A. C. Wiprud {St, Paul, Minn.: Virtue Print- 

 ing Co., 1919, pp. 30). — This paper presents particularly some of the cooperative 

 aspects of the Federal farm loan system, its organization, the appraisal of farm 

 land values, nature and benefits of loans, and method of financing. 



Agricultural prices, H. A, Wallace (Des Moines, Iowa: Wallace Puh. Co.. 

 pp. 22-i, flf/'f- 19). — In Part I of this statistical study are found discussions of the 

 price registering system on the Chicago Board of Trade, of three prominent 

 agricultural price-making forces— cost of production, supply and demand, and 

 strategic causes, and particularly of the ratio method of determining cost of 

 production. The latter is applied to hog prices, illustrating the determination 

 by corn-hog ratios of the production cost of pork and variations between this 

 and the actual price in short-time periods, showing on the other hand the close 

 agreement between actual price and supply and demand price. This method is 

 also applied, although less in detail, to cattle prices, packer prices, and milk 

 and crop prices. Chapters are included on consumers' ratios, technique and 

 limitations of the ratio method, retail and wholesale prices, pork exports the 

 barometer of corn belt prosperity, corn belt land values in relation to cost of 

 producing corn, price stability and soil fertility, and measuring total crop pro- 

 duction. 



Part II covers the mathematical study of supply and demand in the hog 

 market, predicting the future of hog prices, and limitations of the mathematical 

 method. The author urges that farmers unite to insure to themselves a price 

 represening ratio or cost of production by regulating the supply, educating 

 consumers to seasonal vagaries and emergencies, and cooperating with capital 

 and labor in order that fluctuations in supply and demand may be reduced to a 

 minimum and excessive profit or loss on temporary situations eliminated. Edu- 

 cation in price judging with the practical use of coefficients and lines of regres- 

 sion in determining prices from business conditions and the supply as well as 

 adequate research in the statistical method in the agricultural world are also 

 urged. In the appendix are given tabulations of agi-icultural prices for pre- 

 war years as suggestive study material. 



Government control over [food] prices, P. W. Gabeett et al. {War Indus. 

 Bd. [U. -S.] Price Bui. 3 {1920), pp. 1^150, 565-639. figs. 15).— These sections of 

 a bulletin, which is one of a series previously noted (E. S. R., 42, p. 191), give 

 a brief historical survey of the war-time rise of prices, together with conditions 

 which threatened further increases, various agencies of price control, policies, 

 and control systems. An analysis of license control is made with reference to 

 distinct groups of foods under the main divisions of wheat, flour, and bread; 

 sugar ; live stock and meats ; poultry and dairy products ; oleomargarin ; cotton 

 seed and cottonseed products ; canned and dried foods ; rice and rice flour ; 

 coarse grains and feedstuff s ; coffee ; and the collateral commodities, ammonia, 

 ice, and arsenic. The substance of all formal and informal regulations is also 

 presented in compact form. 



Farmers' Market Bulletin {North Carolina Sta., Faiiners' Market Bui., 7 

 {1920), No. 35, pp. 12, fig. 1). — In this number is the usual list of products which 

 farmers have for sale, together with an outline of a proposed plan for con- 

 ducting cooperative wool auction sales, and a description of the food products 

 inspection service of the Federal Bureau of Markets. 



