BETTER BUSINESS FOR FARMERS 9 



ducer, he has been aided by the government. "Our attention has 

 been concentrated almost exclusively/' says the introduction of 

 the report of the Country Life Commission, "on getting better 

 farming. . . . Practically the whole of this effort has hitherto 

 been directed towards increasing the production of crops. In the 

 beginning this was unquestionably the right thing to do. The 

 farmer must first of all grow good crops in order to support himself 

 and his family. But when this has been secured, the effort for 

 better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be accom- 

 panied by the effort for better business and better living on the 

 farm." Thus the cotton growers of the South were taught how 

 to increase the production of cotton, upon the theory that it is a 

 blessing to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew 

 before. But the report of the Secretary of the New Orleans Cotton 

 Exchange states that while the cotton crop of 1911-12 increased 

 by four million bales over the 1910-11 crop, the price received by 

 the planter was over one hundred million dollars less. On the 

 other hand, the crop of 1909-10 showed a falling off in production 

 over 1908-09 by over three million bales, but an increase in value 

 of a hundred million dollars. Thus in 1911 the energies of the 

 Southern planters, devoted to cotton production, resulted in over- 

 production of this one crop and an under-production of other crops 

 which the South needed, such as corn and hay, and also swine. In 

 various important public meetings and congresses in the South, 

 the farmers there have sought to stabilize their net returns by 

 limiting the output of cotton to regular trade demands, while at 

 the same time increasing their output of food crops and other 

 crops needed by the South. This move for "limitation of output" 

 has been misunderstood by the public since the practice itself has 

 been associated with some of the methods of industrial warfare 

 used by some radical labor unionists. In the case of the Southern 

 planters, however, the agitation has been to produce a different 

 output, not a smaller output different crops, not smaller crops. 

 It signifies a groping after a method of coordinating supply and 

 demand. Lack of a balanced production is true for all the great 

 staple crops, such as wheat and oats, for instance. 



The wheat farmers produced a bumper crop in 1906, seven 

 hundred and thirty-five million bushels. In 1907 they produced a 

 hundred million bushels less, but got sixty million dollars more for it. 



The farmers in 1910 produced the enormous quantity of 

 1,186,000,000 bushels of oats with a farm value of $408,000,000. 

 Next year they produced a crop of two hundred million bushels less, 



