PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 533 



and I have found that among those commission men there is an 

 advantage in getting the early buyer. 



The President: This is an interesting question, but we will 

 have to close our discussion at this time and proceed w^ith our pro- 

 gram. I think we all appreciate the remarks of Mr. McKerrow 

 in regard to this co-operative marketing business, which is some- 

 thing that we should give careful consideration to. 



The next number on the program is an address by Prof. E. G. 

 Nourse, of Ames, on "The Economic Outlook." I am sure we are 

 all interested in the economic outlook, and I don't know of any- 

 body that is better qualified to give this to us than Prof. Nourse. 

 (Applause.) So that at this time I take pleasure in introducing 

 Prof. Nourse. 



THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK 



by E. G. Nourse. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: It is said that variety is the spice of 

 life— each speech is a little different. Your president started with a manu- 

 script; the next man spoke without manuscript, hut referred occasionally 

 to notes; the next speaker came with a sheaf of papers in his hand and 

 referred to none of them, and I come on with a little picture. (Laughter.) 

 I am not going to say very much about it, because I know you are getting 

 tired now. 



I don't know that there is much use of drawing a picture of this kind, 

 because that is a picture representing what has been happening to us, and 

 we all know what has happened to us. And yet there are some things 

 which, perhaps, will be brought out in this manner a little more clearly 

 than you may have seen them presented without the use of figures, which 

 are now becoming available. We hear a good many comments on the fact 

 that the farmer's very sad economic outlook at the present time is because 

 of the maladjustment of his industry with other industries. We think and 

 feel — and this chart bears it out — that prior to the war our agricultural 

 industry was pretty well adjusted to other industries, so that while prices 

 may go up a little bit in one year or down in another, that differences of 

 a few per cent were not such as to spill the beans, so far as the farmer 

 was concerned, and that is the position that obtained here in 1910-11-12-13. 

 We have four lines — the upper one representing the price of the ten prin- 

 cipal crops; the lower line here representing the prices of the principal 

 classes of live stock. You see that they move in somewhat the same way, 

 from that start going down and coming up again, and then converging, 

 live stock prices going up and crop prices coming down in 1913, and that 

 is taken as the base year, or 100 per cent. That is the base year, being 

 the year before the war broke out. Thii3 yellow line here represents the 

 general commodity price index number, omitting farm crops and food 

 products. Now, if you take a percentage and ratio of those things to one 

 another, the ratio between the farmers' products and those other products, 



