66 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



price of wheat continued to fall. One reason for this was the 

 fact that, since the limitation of surpluses was purely volun 

 tary, the high prices brought about by; the Corporation only 

 encouraged the farmers to sow more grain. In 1931-32 there 

 were 14,000,000 bushels more of wheat produced than there 

 were in 1930-31. The other. Stabilization Corporation of the 

 Farm Board dealing in cotton had the same troubles. 



After two years of operation the books of the Farm Board 

 showed a loss of $185,000,000, which was 50 per cent of the 

 money originally given to it by the federal government. The 

 cotton it had bought for 16 cents a pound was selling for 6%. 

 cents a pound; wheat which it had bought at $1.18 and later at 

 82 cents a bushel was selling at 61 cents a bushel. And it had 

 to pay $7.20 a bale storage costs a year for keeping the surplus 

 cotton it had bought. The storage of wheat was costing 18 

 cents per bushel a year. 64 



AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENTS 



When Mr. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, the 

 farmers in many parts of the country were in open revolt. 

 On March 16, 1933, less than two weeks after he was in 

 augurated, Mr. Roosevelt presented to Congress his plan for 

 farm relief. This was the Agricultural Adjustment Act. In 

 explaining his recovery policies, Mr. Roosevelt said, "What 

 we seek is balance in our economic system balance between 

 agriculture and industry and balance between the wage earner, 

 the employer, and the consumer;" 65 For the farmer this meant 

 a balance between what he received for his crops and what he 

 paid for the things he bought. The Agricultural Adjustment 

 Act was designed to raise the price of farm products so that 

 the farmer would have more purchasing power. 



When you pare the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the 



64 Ibid., p. 650. 



65 Ibid., p. 742. 



