108 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



We need to make a more profitable use of what are at present 

 waste products on the farm. On this subject, as on that of raising 

 larger crops per acre, there has been much nonsense talked and written. 

 Speaking economically, an article which has in it the possibility of use- 

 fulness is not wasted when it is not used, if the cost of using it would 

 be greater than the value obtained from it. From the farmer's point 

 of view it is not waste to use corn, or even wheat, for fuel if he can 

 get his heat per unit at less cost in this way than by buying coal and 

 there is at the time no more profitable use open to him. It is not 

 waste from the producer's point of view to let the apples rot on the 

 trees or the oats remain uncut, if it would cost more to put them on the 

 market than the value that would be received from them. There are 

 technical and economic problems in this question of waste that are 

 waiting for solution. We are not yet making profitable use of our 

 cornstalks or probably of some other products that are commonly 

 thought of as waste. 



Agriculture in Illinois in the next twenty-five years needs, as in- 

 deed all other businesses and industries do, an improved system of 

 taxation. There is a great lack of knowledge of the real incidents of 

 our taxes as they are at present, and there is undoubtedly a good deal 

 of inequity in our present system of taxation. It is due in large 

 measure to the retention of the old general property tax under which 

 it is possible, and indeed necessary, to place the heaviest burden on 

 property that can be seen and therefore found. 



Our next quarter-century of agricultural progress calls also for 

 a simpler and less expensive system of land transfer. As some one has 

 remarked, "I can buy a bond or a thousand bushels of wheat in ten 

 seconds by the clock ; but to buy a small tract of land involves an un- 

 reasonable amount of time, expense, uncertainty, risk, and vexation." 



Still again, on the economic side there is doubtless some room 

 for improvement in the banking and credit facilities open to the 

 farmer. As everybody knows, the farmer requires both short-time 

 credit and long-time credit. His short-time credit is in general char- 

 acter similar to that called for by the manufacturer. It depends on his 

 personal reputation, his evident ability as a business man, and the prob- 

 able value of his season's output. When a man borrows on the basis 

 of security of this character, he must expect to be able to borrow only 

 a part of the total valuation of that security in the mind of the banker. 

 Yet I cannot help thinking that the part which the farmer is able to 

 borrow is ordinarily less than the proportion which the business man 

 in town is able to get. A somewhat parallel criticism could be made 

 of credit facilities open to the farmer for long-time loans. 



