Hogs and Hominy 159 



breaking your backs pulling a plow that has a stubborn mule 

 hitched to the other end of it. The world can't wait for mules 

 and horses any more. They're too slow. Speed's the thing, 

 today. Speed's cheaper, too. Your time's worth dollars, isn't 

 it? Modern farm machinery lets you get your work done in half 

 the time. And you've got some time to live in. Time to spend 

 with your family enjoying yourselves. Life oughtn't to be all 

 work; it ought to have some play in it. 



"Listen, farmers, the farm has got to have motor power. You 

 ought to have tractors like that fellow Thomas Campbell uses 

 out in Hardin, Montana, where he's growing wheat the way 

 the United States Steel Corporation makes steel. . . ." 



With the money from their hogs they bought tractors. And 

 corn drillers and corn huskers. They bought large motor trucks, 

 useful to carry hogs to the stockyards, and corn to the eleva- 

 tors. They did not foresee that their sons would soon find it 

 easier to use the truck to haul fodder to mules in pasture than 

 to harness up those mules and make them haul their own feed. 



In 1921, the price of hogs collapsed. The market was glutted. 

 And, incredible as it seemed, it went on falling. There was a 

 loss of 83 cents on every live hundredweight in 1920. In 1933 

 the loss was $4.28. 



Twelve years in the red. Twelve years when it cost more to 

 raise corn than pigs were worth. Twelve years while motor 

 power reduced the number of horses and mules which had 

 eaten part of the corn raised. Twelve years meeting install- 

 ments on plows and tractors; paying for gasoline to run these; 

 paying for commercial fertilizers. Farms that had never had a 

 mortgage on them were put up at the banks to pay for aids to 

 prosperity which had failed to bring prosperity. 



Between 1920 and 1933 one farm in four in this country was 

 sold for debt or taxes. Tenancies increased by more than two 

 hundred thousand. The value of farm property declined by 

 $20,000,000 in the first ten years after the War. In the next 

 three years it was to drop lower, until the value in 1933 was 

 57 percent of the pre-war worth. 



