180 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



prices of farm products, long previous to these recent years, have 

 fallen too near the full economic cost of production, which is con- 

 siderably larger than the immediate cost of production and includes 

 many items generally overlooked by farmers. Indeed, it is quite 

 certain that the price has at times fallen below the full economic 

 cost of production, of which the most conspicuous illustration was 

 afforded some years ago, when the price of cotton fell to 4^2 cents 

 per pound, or even lower, at the plantation. At the end of the five- 

 year period covered by this investigation, the prices of farm products 

 had risen out of the depths to which various causes had previously 

 sunk them, so that the i'armer is at last getting a fair net return for 

 his labor and farming operations in most products. This is naturally 

 reflected in the higher capitalization of agricultural land. This con- 

 elusion is not advanced theoretically, but is amply sustained by the 

 reports of many thousands of correspondents in all parts of the 

 country and for all classes of farms for which there has been a con- 

 siderable increase in price of products. 



One can well realize how directly the availability of cheap public 

 land suitable for farming has depressed the value of old agricultural 

 land and kept from rising to its otherwise natural level the value of 

 the newer land taken into cultivation, upon reading the statements 

 of many correspondents, particularly in the agricultural margin near 

 the land recently acquired from nation, state, or railroad. The na- 

 tional land that can be utilized agriculturally is now reduced to about 

 300,000,000 acres, but nearly all of this is suitable only for grazing, 

 since it can not be used in dry farming nor under irrigation. 



Much cultivable land, however, especially in the Southwest, has 

 passed into private ownership during the five years under review, 

 and there is striking testimony from many correspondents that until 

 it passed into private ownership it held down the value of the ac- 

 quired farms in near-by regions. This effect has extended backward 

 upon the farms farther and farther away, even to the Atlantic coast, 

 where the direct cause has not been as apparent as in the neighbor- 

 hood where its effect is closely associated with it. 



While the public land suitable for farming has been reaching 

 exhaustion the flow of immigration from foreign countries and from 

 the older parts of this country has been continuing in its direction, 

 and where no farming land could be obtained from nation, state, 

 or railroad the influx of agricultural people was halted in regions 

 where farms had been established in more recent years, and the con- 

 sequent pressure of new demand upon a fixed area increased the 

 value per acre often as much as 50 to 100 per cent. 



Along with the general causes that have elevated the price of 

 farm land should be mentioned the diminishing rate of interest. So 

 great in the aggregate have been the savings of the farmers and per- 

 sons in other occupations in the north central states and in other 

 sections that a large amount of these savings has sought investment 

 in farms, even to the extent of raising farm values and diminishing 

 the rate of interest, so that an advance of the price has followed often 

 with no increased net profit per acre. 



