HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 161 



ness. Just by way of an illustration, corn will 

 serve about as well as any of the lot. 



For the years from 1866 to 1910, the corn 

 crop of the United States has had an average 

 farm value per acre on December first of each 

 year of eleven dollars. That takes the lean 

 years with the fat ones, the districts of low 

 prices with those of top prices. Only eleven 

 dollars an acre, on an average, over a period 

 of forty-five years! You'll agree there's not 

 much guesswork in saying that during those 

 forty-five years the average cost of plowing, 

 harrowing, planting, cultivating and harvest- 

 ing an acre of corn, together with the items 

 of seed, interest, taxes, depreciation of ma- 

 chinery, and such-like, amounted to more 

 than any man's eleven dollars. And that 

 list of costs includes only fixed charges; it 

 takes no account of extraordinary items of any 

 sort. There's no getting away from the propo- 

 sition that in those forty-five years of corn- 

 growing the average farmer suffered a net loss 

 on every acre of corn grown and sold from his 

 farm. That's just another way of saying that 

 the total crop of those forty-five years brought 

 the farmers less than it cost them to produce it. 



There's just one thing that's kept all those 



