FARM BOARD TO FARM STRIKE 4 X 3 



sponsors of the rival agency denied that they were out to rule or ruin the 

 Board proposal, yet admitted that they were opposed to it. 26 



The chances of this rival body were slim indeed. The resources of the 

 Farm Board were too great. By mid-November, 1929, the Minnesota 

 Wheat Growers at Minneapolis, the North Dakota Wheat Growers' at 

 Grand Forks, the South Dakota Wheat Growers' representing the larger 

 wheat pools, and the Farmers' Union Terminal Association at St. Paul 

 were to turn over their selling facilities to the Farmers' National. 27 



In other quarters optimism and increased planting appear to have 

 accompanied the unfolding of the Board program. Granted that it would 

 be difficult to separate this optimism from the speculative craze that was 

 characteristic of the times, there still were signs of it in the winter wheat 

 region. In fact, banks in the corn and wheat states remarked about the 

 revived interest in farm properties, and it was reported that chambers of 

 commerce and state immigration commissions were inviting new settlers 

 to take up farms that had been abandoned during the depressed twenties. 

 One story told of "large scale upturning of virgin grazing land in western 

 Kansas by speculative farm corporations using the latest mass production 

 machinery as well as the latest methods of selling stock. This speculative 

 boom in wheat farming is supposed to be banking heavily upon Farm 

 Board aid next year . . . rural banks have complained of withdrawal of 

 deposits not for stock market speculation so much as for investments of 

 this kind." It was difficult to point to tangible proof of these charges at 

 the time, but the fact that the Farm Board did show ever increased 

 acreages during the winter and early spring of 1930 indicated quite 

 strongly that there was more truth than fiction behind reports about 

 increases in the winter wheat acreages. 28 



The first far-reaching step of the Farm Board was taken on October 

 26, as indicated, when it offered loans through the Farmers' National to 

 cooperatives up to stated amounts. This move had been prompted chiefly 

 by the sharp decline in the stock market and the large-scale unloading of 

 wheat. To some this move came as a surprise, especially those who had 

 expected the Board to make outright purchases of corn and wheat. 29 



26. Business Weef( (October 26, 1929), pp. 5-6. 



27. "The Farm Board Shows Its Teeth," ibid. (November 16, 1929), p. 42. 



28. Ibid., October 19, 1929. 29. F.F.B., First Annual Report, p. 27. 



