A Permanently Larger Farm Income 



Apparently agriculture has permanently passed to 

 a position in which it will yield a larger net income to 

 the farmer. The basic economic forces affecting agri- 

 culture seem to assure the maintenance of relatively 

 high prices for farm products and the maintenance 

 of a larger margin of profit in farming. As food prices 

 and land values rise, there will naturally be a stronger 

 incentive to bring additional land under cultivation. 

 Something can be done in this line. It is estimated 

 that there are still some thirty million acres of land 

 that can be irrigated, sixty million that can be made 

 fertile by drainage, and roughly about two hundred 

 million acres of fertile cut-over timberland. On great 

 numbers of farms there is still waste land, some of 

 which can be made productive. In the aggregate this 

 is a large acreage. But these increases in acreage re- 

 quire capital, effort and time. The era of free land is 

 practically past. 



Nowhere does there exist land which as in the 

 earlier days can be rapidly thrown under cultivation 

 in a way to break food prices and make farming un- 

 profitable. 



Factors Promoting Agricultural Progress 



Not only has agricultural income permanently 

 reached a new and a higher level, but many factors 

 are promoting further agricultural progress. In other 

 words, agricultural incomes and farm standards of 

 living seem destined in the near future to reach a still 

 higher level. 



Apparently the fundamental problem is to increase 

 the yield per acre and the output per domestic 

 animal, and at the same time to increase the net in- 

 come per farmer: 



[29] 



