RATIO METHOD or DETERMINING COST OF PRODUCING HOGS 35 



Pood Administration in this matter, were not well educated along 

 statistical or economic lines, and they went down to defeat in Sep- 

 tember, 1918, scarcely realizing just what the Food Administra- 

 tion had done to them. Only two members of this committee had 

 served on the original commission, and it was impossible for them 

 to give the other members a full comprehension of what the ratio 

 meant. When the facts became known, widespread indignation 

 among the farmers of the corn belt compelled the Food Administra- 

 tion to abandon the hypocritical pretense of living up to the thir- 

 teen-bushel ratio and come out flatly for a $17.50 minimum, which 

 was really a ratio of 10.8 bushels. The Food Administration was 

 able to thus repudiate in part its definite obligation to hog pro- 

 ducers, because there were no thoroly organized farmers with lead- 

 ers trained to think in terms of statistics and economics. 



The author does not care to create a prejudice against the 

 Food Administration. It probably did its work as efficiently as 

 any branch of the government during the war. The sole purpose 

 is to point out to agricultural students the extreme disadvantage 

 under which farmers labor in bargaining with other classes of 

 society. It is hoped that as farmers learn to follow the example of 

 keen business men and employ trained experts to look after their 

 interests, and as farm leaders become better trained in statistics, 

 economics and business principles, this disadvantage will disappear. 



