io6 



AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



learned to eat less or differently, and the per capita consumption of some 

 staples after the war refused to rise. Strained credit relations, mounting 

 tariff barriers, and the almost universal aim among nations for economic 

 self-sufficiency each played a part in holding American exports to Europe 



* " s 



at a minimum. 



Nor was the American market all that it might have been. The per 

 capita consumption of cereals in the United States, with the exception of 

 rice, had long been on the decline. During the first quarter of the twen- 

 tieth century the consumption of wheat flour had diminished by 20 per 

 cent; corn meal over 60 per cent; rye flour about 60 per cent; and barley, 

 which had been used chiefly in the manufacture of beer, nearly 90 per cent. 

 The eating habits of the people seemed in some respects to be permanently 

 changed by the war, although there was probably little or no actual 

 decline in calorie consumption. With many the substitution of other foods 

 for bread and meat "Hooverizing" had become a habit. Restrictions 

 on the use of wheat flour were lifted by 1919, but public eating places did 

 not always return to the practices of serving extra slices of bread free of 

 charge, nor housewives to their earlier recipes. The per capita consumption 

 of meat and meat products had likewise declined, although after the war 

 ended there was a considerable rise in the use of pork and milk. Sugar, 

 and to a lesser degree vegetables, also showed increases. For this condi- 

 tion inflationary prices the high cost of living bore some responsibility; 

 so also did the brief industrial depression of the early twenties which, 

 while it lasted, seriously curbed the purchasing power of city laborers. 

 Dieting, particularly by women interested in achieving more stream-lined 

 figures, was sometimes blamed, but could hardly have had much effect. 

 Altogether, according to one economist, "Instead of population pressing 

 upon food supply, food supply is pressing upon population." 39 



The American farmer had other troubles in addition to a limited mar- 

 ket. Taxes continued to rise at an alarming rate all through the postwar 

 decade. For the country as a whole the farmer in 1913 had paid 55 cents 



38. C. A. Wiley, Agriculture and the Business Cycle (Madison, Wis., 1930), 

 pp. 128, 168-78; Nourse, Government in Relation to Agriculture, pp. 881-82. 



39. O. E. Baker, "Changes in Production and Consumption of our Farm Products 

 and the Trend in Population," Annals of the American Academy of Political and 

 Social Science, CXLII (March, 1929), pp. 117, 123, 127, 131; Wiley, Agriculture 

 and the Business Cycle, pp. 114-15, 165; Seligman, Economics of Farm Relief, p. 24. 



