and is adding more and more of value every year. 
It is merely how to move the farmer to apply to 
his own profit and the rescue of the nation the 
better methods that are a familiar story. 
It should appeal to him that the modern sys- 
tem is both a money-maker and a labor-saver. 
The cost of rent and production for continuous 
wheat cropping averages $7.50 per acre. When, 
therefore, the farmer obtains, as so many of those 
in the Northwest do, a yield of eight or ten bush- 
els per acre, it just about meets, at average farm 
prices, the cost of production, leaving him either 
nothing at all for his year’s toil or else a margin 
of debt. For the same amount of labor, covering 
the same time but intelligently applied to a small- 
er area, he might easily produce by improved 
methods twenty bushels per acre, leaving him a 
profit of over $12. The not unreasonable yield 
of 28 bushels would net him $20, which is ten per 
cent on a valuation of $200 per acre for his land. 
This gigantic waste, applying the same measure 
to the production of the entire country, is going 
on every year. If such associations as this Con- 
gress can stop it, it will pay for building two 
Panama canals every year; it will in two years 
more than pay the estimated expenses of improv- 
ing every available waterway in the United States; 
it will save more money to the farmer than the 
railroads could if they carried all his grain to 
market free of charge. 
16 
