508 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



It is a very different problem to get estimates in Iowa, for example, 

 and estimates in one of the western states, such as Colorado or Texas, 

 or any of those states in that great breeding ground, because there you 

 can not do it by mail so well as you can here. We are putting special 

 men out to cover these areas in the west, to get acquainted with condi- 

 tions, so that these men will make personal reports, and we are trying 

 to strengthen that work in every way so that you can depend upon our 

 live stock estimates. 



The grain estimates have always, or for many years, have been looked 

 upon as very desirable. We hope to make the live stock estimates 

 equally reliable. 



We are strengthening our marketing work. We have men overseas 

 trying to size up the possible future demand for agricultural products. 

 We have men in the south trying to size up the production in those coun- 

 tries which compete with us. In other words, we are trying to build up 

 a machine there that will give any of you exactly the sort of informa- 

 tion you would most like to have if you owned all of the farms of the 

 United States and were trying to put them on a profitable basis. That 

 is the angle from which we are approaching the end, trying to get and 

 present to you just the sort of information that any thoroughly compe- 

 tent, intelligent business man would want if he owned the whole business 

 and was trying to make money at it. 



No one can forecast with any accuracy how long it will take to build 

 up a machine of that kind that functions 100 per cent. In fact, I do not 

 think we ever will get that sort of a machine to function 100 per cent. 

 But we are going to come a whole lot nearer to it than we ever have in 

 times past. 



There has been one development of the past year that is very signifi- 

 cant to me. You know in times past, even before the war, beginning 

 back along in 1900, the business men of the cities were beginning to take 

 an increased interest in agricultural matters. We had the corn trains 

 and the dairy trains, and all sorts of movements coming out of the cities, 

 a sort of benevolent, paternalistic attitude to help the farmer produce 

 more. It was because prices of farm products were gradully increasing. 



Well, business men today are very much more keenly interested in 

 agriculture and are very much more sympathetic toward the condition of 

 the farmers than they ever were in all the history of the country. This 

 time it is not because of any paternalistic attitude but it is because they 

 have come to realize through the experiences of the past two years the 

 truth of the saying that a prosperous business depends upon a prosperous 

 agriculture. You know in times past we have been in the habit of saying 

 that the farmer is the backbone of the nation, and that the farmer is the 

 foundation upon which our nation is built, and that we must have farm 

 prosperity if we are going to have business prosperity, things of that 

 sort. But we said them a good deal as many of us say our prayers, with- 

 out fully realizing what the words meant. 



Now, bankers, railroad men, manufacturers, business men of all kinds, 

 appreciate fully the truth of the sentiment carried in expressions of that 

 sort. We had, for example, the business men of the northwest who are 

 tremendously concerned over that northwest situation come to us and 



