®l)c Commontoealtl) of itlas^acliuaetts 



FmsT Annual Eeport of the Department 

 OF Agriculture. 



REPORT OF WILFRID WHEELER, COMMISSIONER, 



1919. 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of 



Massachusetts. 



Since the close of the war the spirit of unrest which has been 

 world-wide has to a certain degree been communicated to the 

 farmers, not to the extent of drawing the agricultural people to 

 the various forms of radicalism which have been sweeping over 

 the world, but has rather reflected itself in a decreased produc- 

 tion, due not alone to the labor situation and the cost of doing 

 business but rather to the uncertainty of a profitable market. 

 Many farmers rather looked for a speedy resumption of normal 

 conditions and a rapid return to pre-war conditions, not realiz- 

 ing, perhaps, the world-wide extent of the upheaval. We have 

 looked, also, to a quicker return to the normal transportation 

 conditions to equalize the distribution of agricultural products, 

 not realizing the enormous losses sustained in the shipping of 

 the world. 



Food stored in many out-of-the-way places and predicted to 

 be available as soon as the war w^as over has not been forth- 

 coming. Labor conditions, which w^ere thought to become more 

 normal, have gone to the extreme of scarcity, and plans of 

 farmers who looked forward to normal production have not 

 materialized. Production has been on an increasing cost basis, 

 and this in face of the fact that influences have been at work to 

 depress prices to the farmer without any attempt to consider 

 the cost of production. Such efforts, while they serve to satisfy 



