ORGANIZATION OF THE FARM 



the distribution of wealth, it has been proposed 1 

 that "Farming Corporations" be organized, and 

 that these corporations make it their business to 

 produce for themselves everything they want to 

 use. It is proposed that no attention shall be 

 paid to the commercial world nor to commercial 

 values, but simply to the wants of the farmers and 

 their families. Every kind of agricultural prod- 

 uct which may be desired for use by the members 

 of this corporation is to be produced by them. 

 Wool is to be produced and converted into cloth- 

 ing, beef is to be produced for home use, and the 

 hides of the animals converted into shoes for 

 home use. Thus to avoid unjust treatment it is 

 proposed to throw away the advantages of the 

 commercial system and revert to the old self- 

 sufficing system in agricultural production. 



Mr. L. H. Kerrick, of Bloomington, Illinois, 

 a leading and successful farmer of that state, 

 delivered an address at the Iowa Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Ames, Iowa, a year or more ago, in which 

 he said in part : 



The farmer has, in my region certainly, become too 

 much imbued with the spirit of commercialism. He has 

 gone too far, I think, in the way of producing things to 

 "sell." He raises big crops of corn and oats to sell, or feeds 

 many cattle and hogs for the market. He sells these at the 

 other fellow's prices. Then he turns about and buys at the 

 other fellow's prices, supplies of various kinds that he 

 might easily have produced on his own farm. By this prac- 

 tise, he puts himself twice in the enemy's hands once when 



1 Wilbur Aldrich, Farming Corporations, p. 169. 

 43 



