LARGER ASPECTS OF FARMING 97 



the advantages of buying by wholesale or of selling in large quantities 

 so as to be able to advertise and attract buyers, there is not and never 

 can be any valid objection to it. It is only when it reaches the stage 

 where it is able to keep the entire supply off the market and thus "hold 

 up" the buying or consuming public that it becomes uneconomical and 

 dangerous. As suggested above, so long as this extreme method is 

 used by the very poorest members of society who are obviously not able 

 to get a decent income otherwise, the world is very tolerant; but the 

 minute it begins to be used by people who are already as prosperous 

 as, or more prosperous than, the average of those of whom they are 

 taking advantage, the latter will rebel or will launch a counter attack. 



EFFECT ON LAND VALUES OF FLUCTUATIONS IN AGRICUL- 

 TURAL PROSPERITY 



I have suggested already that the present depression of agricul- 

 ture is abnormal, and that there are better times ahead for all our 

 farmers. It does not take a very long memory to convince one that 

 for several years before the outbreak of the war, agriculture was on the 

 up-grade. The rise in prices was very general, but the rise in agri- 

 cultural prices was a little more rapid than the rise in the general 

 price level. As soon as this present aftermath of the war is over, 

 there is every reason to think that the pre-war tendency will reestab- 

 lish itself. 



These extreme fluctuations in agricultural prosperity furnish an 

 interesting problem. Contrary to a very general impression that ag- 

 riculture is the most stable of all industries, there is one important 

 sense in which it is the least stable of them all. Perhaps it would be 

 clearer to say that in some respects agriculture is a relatively stable 

 industry, but in other respects it is one of the most unstable of all. 

 The instability is associated with the price of farm land and its rela- 

 tion to the price of farm products. This relationship can be ex- 

 pressed generally by the proposition that a relatively slight change in 

 the price of farm products is normally and logically followed by a 

 vast change in the price of farm land. 



This may be illustrated as follows. Let us suppose that for a 

 considerable area of the lands of the corn belt it costs, one year with 

 another, fifty cents to grow a bushel of corn, figuring in every element 

 of cost, including the farmer's wages of superintendence and interest 

 on his equipment. If the price of corn, one year with another, is ex- 

 actly fifty cents a bushel and is not expected to go any higher, corn land 

 is worth exactly nothing. That is to say, the average corn farmer 



