9 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Approximately one-fourth of this crop was sent abroad. So bountiful was 

 the 1915 yield, not only in the United States but also throughout the 

 world, that the price of wheat dropped to the prewar level of less than 

 a dollar a bushel and remained low until the spring of I9i6. 10 



Naturally this slump in price affected the acreage devoted to wheat 

 in 1916. That year only 52,000,000 acres of wheat were harvested, and 

 the yield partly because of an epidemic of black rust dropped to 

 636,000,000 bushels. But the war demands continued, and the price 

 responded. By December, 1916, wheat was bringing the American farmer 

 $1.60 a bushel, and predictions were made that if there should be another 

 short crop the price would rise to $3.00. The effect of German resumption 

 of submarine warfare early in 1917 caused a tremendous break in most 

 American prices, including wheat, which dropped as much as fifteen cents 

 a bushel; but the drop was not to last. 11 By April i wheat was up to $1.80, 

 and following the entrance of the United States into the war a few days 

 later, the rise was precipitate. Early in May, 1917, cash wheat touched the 

 fantastic figure of $3.48 a bushel. It should be noted, however, that this 

 sudden rise in price netted the actual dirt farmer very little, since at the 

 time it occurred most available grain was already in the hands of specula- 

 tors and distributors. 12 



The 1917 wheat yield was little or no better than that of 1916. Under 

 authority of a sweeping Food Control Act, signed on August 10, 1917, the 

 President set $2.20 as the minimum price for the 1917 crop. The law itself 

 set a price of $2.00 a bushel on wheat for the 1918 crop, but gave the Presi- 

 dent authority to guarantee for a period not to exceed eighteen months 

 whatever price he deemed necessary to ensure producers a reasonable 

 profit. It was under the terms of this act that Herbert Hoover became 

 Food Administrator and devoted himself assiduously to the encourage- 

 ment of food production. But neither legislation nor presidential price 



10. Ibid., pp. 280-81. 



11. Ibid., pp. 281-84; Wallaces' Farmer, XL (July 9, 1915), p. 960; (November 

 12, 1915), p. 1505; XLII (February 9, 1917), p. 236; (May 25, 1917), p. 836; (August 



3> I 9 I 7)> P- 10 9 6 - 



12. F. M. Surface, The Stabilization of the Price of Wheat During the War and 



its Effect upon the Returns to the Producer (Washington, 1925), p. 12; B. H. Hib- 

 bard, Effects of the Great War upon Agriculture in the United States and Great 

 Britain (New York, 1919), p. 27. 



