THE FARMER OF YESTERDAY 17 



of farming. He was a bookkeeper and he 

 knew all about costs of production. 



Jeremiah is the new pioneer. Cheap land, 

 free land, is gone. When there is no more 

 land to give away, land becomes capital, 

 exacts rent. No matter whether the price is 

 too high or too low, it is fixed by culture and 

 sentiment and speculation; by three genera- 

 tions of homesteading, and by a population 

 that has increased fourfold in seventy years. 



Are Jeremiah's fixed charges, his cost of 

 production, too high? Ask yourself, Mr. 

 Farmer, you of the Middle West, of the Rain 

 Belt, you who are producing the surplus for 

 hungry mouths. You say that your land 

 which may happen to be in the door-yard of 

 the Grain Pit and the Stock Yards is worth 

 more than one hundred and fifty dollars an 

 acre. You say that your neighbor's land, land 

 in the next county, in the next State, is worth 

 less than one hundred and fifty dollars. If 



v 



your acre does not exact the same rent as 

 Jeremiah's then the process of distribution 

 makes up the difference. 



What does your labor cost you ? How much 

 does it cost you to grow an acre of corn? You 

 don't know! Hired labor, paid for by the 



