AN OPEN LETTER. 



To John Williams, Esq., St. Louis, Mo. 



Df.\r Sir : IlefeiTiriR to your letter of July 12tli, I beg leavo to say that my rea- 

 sons for believing that good lands anywhere in tlie United States will be worth $100 an 

 acre within tive years, are as follows : 



No matter how much or how little land there may be under wheat, we must have 

 a given C|naiitity under each of the other stai)les, as is succinctly set forth in the follow- 

 ing exhibit as is the manner of- arriving at such quantities. 



ExiirBiT showing the acreage re(]iiired per capita to furnish staples consumed in the U, 

 S. and cotton exported, as coin[>uted from (last) ten years acreage and production as 

 set forth in the reports of the Department of Agriculture, first deducting the pro- 

 portion of tobaci'o and grain — including the secondary form of auimals and animal 

 products — exported. 



Acres. 



Wheat 0.48 



Corn 1.19 



Oats 0.39 



Hay 0.64 



Barley, Rye, ] 

 Buckwheat, I n ,, 



Potatoes I "'^^ 



and Tobacco, J 

 Cotton 0.31 



Total of 3.16 



Just as soon as we lessen the quantity of hay or any other staple (needed for domestic 

 consumption) below the current requirements, the price of that product will advance out 

 of all proportion to the price of other staples, and land will at once revert to the growth 

 of the high-priced product and there will be a lessened production of one or more o) 

 the other staples, the price of which will rise if the quantity produced is less than 

 current needs. 



There is an exact and ascL-rtaiuable ratio between population and the production ol 

 each and all of the farm staples entering into general consumption, and my investiga- 

 tions have been directed to the determination of this relationship. 



With a surplus of land in cultivation, the product of which must be marketed 

 abroad, it has not been as easy to determine this matter as it will be when this surplus 

 has been eliminated, as the elimination of this surplus will enable us to see the more 

 clearly the inexorable character of the law of demand and supi)ly, and when our people 

 shall require all our products he who runs may read the proportions of such relationship. 

 That we have not seen it before is probably due to the fact that we have had too much 

 land in cultivation, and could increase any one }j}oducl at ivill without diminishing the 

 domestic supply of any other. This is, however, about to change— and by ^ about" I mean 

 within five years— and such desir.able change as is coming will be greatly hastened if we 

 can deprive the short-sellers, o,n the "Boards-of-Trade," of their baleful power over prices 



We cannot, us you suggest, take the pasture lands to grow wheat and other cereals 

 as the moment we reduce the number of cuttle (other than milk cows) below 530 to 1,000 

 people, just that moment beef will become the most profitable product of the farm and 

 great multitudes will rush into the cattle business, as they did in the earlier part of the 

 ninth decade, when the immense amount of unoccupied lands, existing in the plain and 

 raounlaia regions, enabled them to swamp ihe cattle business and bury its devotees undei 

 an avalanche of low-priced animals. Such conditions, however, can never again obtain 

 as unoccupied areas do not exist permitting any such increase in the relative number ol 

 cattle. Indeed, from this day forward there is abundant reason to believe that the ratio 

 sf cattle to people will constantly lessen and the cattle business become very profitable to 

 the farmer. 



Nor can you take tlie dairy pastures and convert them into grain fields, as the mo- 

 ment you do, and reduce the number of milk cows to less than 230 to 1,000 people, that 

 moment the price of milk, butter and olieese will mbunt skyward and grain fields will b« 

 converted into meadows and dairy farms. 



