GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 141 



Altogether the American farmer has lately been a $30,000,000,000 

 customer of American business. 



Even so, rural people represent a vast untapped market for all 

 sorts of goods. For example, half of the commercial family farms in 

 this country are small, and in this group only 22 out: of 100 homes 

 have running >\'ater. Foi- most of the other family farms, the com- 

 parable rate is 38 per 100, and, in the top group, 58 per 100 have 

 running water. 



Farm people want to buy industrial goods, but when their prices 

 go down in relation to the prices they have to pay, they have to cut 

 their buying. Again let me illustrate: 



A farmer on route 2, Defiance, Ohio, ordered a tractor last year 

 priced at $1,550. When it arrived at his dealer's, the price was 

 $1,950. His soybeans went down from $3.47 in September to $2.18 

 in March, and his corn went down in the same months from $2 to 

 $1.23. He canceled his tractor order. 



A farmer who lives on route 1, Crane Hill, Ala., ordered a tractor 

 in 1945 at a price of $1,500. It arrived last summer priced at $2,450. 

 He felt uncertain at that time about the future of cotton prices and 

 so, for the combination of reasons, turned down the tractor. 



A farmer on route 1, Gettysburg, Pa., fed 40 steers for 157 days 

 and lost $3,000. He gave up buying a hay baler worth $2,150 and 

 building a machine shed on which he had planned to spend $1,000. 



It is important to all of us to maintain balance between farm and 

 industrial prices. A program that helps to stabilize farm prices and 

 incomes will help to stabilize markets for factory goods and will 

 keep thousands and thousands of "Mam Streets" busy. 



3. Stable farm prices and incomes encourage high-level production 

 with the greatest assurance of reasonable prices to consumers. This 

 is one of the most significant lessons from our wartime experience. 

 Without the cost-plus contracts and guaranties enjoyed by many in- 

 dustries, and with only reasonable price protection, farmers quickly 

 made great shifts in the use of their productive resources to meet 

 war needs. They supplied civilians \\'ith a fourth to a third more 

 milk and a fifth more meat than prewar while the}^ were meeting the 

 needs of the armed force's and also sending large amounts of food to our 

 allies. Farmers, like manufacturers, want to produce what their 

 customers want. But usually it is only with advance* knowledge of 

 minimum prices that small, individual producers, planning separately, 

 can unify their efforts efficiently to increase the total supply of a 

 particular commodity. 



Furthermore, we know that American business depends on agri- 

 culture for raw materials, and business is starved if farm production 

 goes down. About half of all the business done with United States 

 consumers last year was based, in one way or another, on American 

 farm commodities. 



Price supports should be available at all times to assure the mainte- 

 nance of this supply. Tf prices are allowed to remain too low too 

 long farmers are unable to buy the machinery, fertilizer, and other 

 materials which they must have to maintain high-level production. 



4. A program that helps maintain farm income helps to maintain 

 agricultural resources. City people, just as much as farm people, are 

 concerned with the problem of conservation. Our soil, water, and 



