FARMERS TO THE FRONT 91 



how to get a good price for a large crop as well as 

 for a small one. 



The farmer is more interested in the question of 

 price now than in quantity of crop. However, with 

 the ability to fix profitable prices on the farm, and 

 prevent a surplus from appearing on the market at 

 any one time, it will be practically impossible to 

 raise a surplus of any of our crops for many years. 

 As we have shown, profitable prices will curtail pro- 

 duction at first, rather than stimulate it, while pop- 

 ulation and consumption will go on increasing. 

 Those who advise the farmer to raise larger crops 

 and to make his land more fruitful, without the 

 ability to fix prices, are, therefore, unsafe advisers, 

 and unconsciously have been playing into the hands 

 of the transportation companies, middlemen, and 

 speculators. 



By all means the farmer should adopt scientific, 

 up-to-date methods, but he should apply them to the 

 marketing of his crops, as well as to the raising of 

 them. Scientific business as well as scientific agri- 

 culture is needed. The crop in which the farmer is 

 most interested is the crop of money. It is for that 

 that he works. He does not want to raise crops 

 simply for the sake of raising them. He raises 

 them to sell. The money that he gets for them is 

 his living. The bigger the crop the better, of course, 

 provided the price be right. But, and here is the 

 point, the bigger the crop, the greater is the neces- 

 sity that the farmer should control the sale of it. 



