March, 1922. 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



231 



Economics of Production and Marketing of Farm 



Products in Canada' 



By A. LEITCH, 



Ontario Agricultural College, Gueli)li. 



All will agree that the subject allotted 



to this paper is quite broad and compre-. 

 hensive, that it offers a wide field for 

 academie discussion and a narrow range 

 of unanimous agreement on rule and fact. 

 One may therefore be pardoned for limit- 

 ing the discussion of this subject on this 

 occasion to a very few outstanding feat- 

 ures, which, though tlhey may permit of 

 considerable argument, have yielded to 

 practical solution on the application of re- 

 search and experience in the science of 

 agricultural economics. 



Before entering into a, discussion on 

 these specific matters, let us candidly ad- 

 mit that economic science is the last and 

 latest of the sciences allied with agricul- 

 ture to be applied to the solution of agri- 

 cultural problems. The chemist, the physi- 

 cist, the botanist, the entomologist, and the 

 geneticist have each expanded and made to 

 flourish their own separate provinces. 

 These separate provinces have been held 

 together in that greater federation or 

 dominion, the farm, not by a conscious and 

 deliberate application of the governing 

 and guiding force — economics, but by the 

 unconscious and instinctive workings of 

 experience. The final result in the main 

 is just as happy as though an exact know- 

 ledge of economies had been applied to the 

 development of our farm business organiz- 

 ation of to-day, for there is nothing on 

 earth safer as a guide to proper organiza- 

 tion than an instinct developed through 

 eentu] ies of experience in a business like 

 farming, which, no matter how methods 

 and technique may have changed, no mat- 

 ter how wonderful and world wide has be- 

 come the distribution of his products, with- 

 in the past century has always been and 

 still is being conducted under the same 

 basic organization, as a family owned and 

 operated proposition to which the family 

 supplies all of the supervision, the great 

 proportion of the labor, the tools of produc- 



* Paper read before Section (Agri- 

 culture) of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, Toronto, De- 

 cember 28, 1921. 



tion, in this country the ownership of the 

 land, and to which the farm supplies the 

 home, a great part of the necessaries for 

 subsistence and continuous employment 

 whether times be good or bad. 



This brings us to a consideration of one 

 of the features indicated in the opening 

 sentences of this paper. The business ol 

 production and the business of marketing, 

 each with its social ramifications, are the 

 two reasonably Avell defined fields of ap- 

 plied agricultural economics. Both fields 

 are as yet comprised of practically virgin 

 soil. It is plain that both fields need im- 

 mediate cultivation. It is well therefore 

 to decide as to which field contains the best 

 possibilities for an early and abundant har- 

 vest of practical benefits to the operating 

 farmer. This problem confronts all who 

 are interested in seeing that the science of 

 economics takes its proper place with its 

 sister sciences in the guidance of agricul- 

 tural development. To take its proper 

 place economics must show by its works, by 

 a volume of good practical results accom- 

 plished, that it justifies the faith of its 

 supporters that it is the centre round 

 which other applied sciences revolve. 



In what field therefore lie the greatest 

 possibilities for immediate good .^ In pro- 

 duction or marketing? It would appear 

 that the answer is partly indicated in a 

 previous paragraph where it is intimated 

 that we have reached a large degree of 

 economic efficiency in farm production 

 without conscious and deliberate applica- 

 tion of economic science. So far this is 

 quite true but it is obvious that the agricul- 

 tural world is always undergoing economic 

 change, and that such change can be more 

 accurately guided by known economic 

 principles without waiting for experience, 

 with its delays, disappointments and ex- 

 penses to -the individual, the community 

 and the state, to work out the new basis of 

 organization. Instances may be enumerat- 

 ed of schemes inaugurated by governments, 

 other public bodies and even private indi- 

 viduals for assisting land settlement and 

 other farming enterprises, during the war 

 and reconstruction periods. Most of these 



