AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 733 



^20,000,000 less. Again, a large increase of acreage, accompanied 

 by favorable weather for the growth of the crop, sometimes results 

 in such an enormous yield as to deluge the market and kill the 

 price. Thus, in 1889 favorable weather, in connection with an 

 acreage 6,600,000 greater than in the following year, resulted in 

 an unprecedented crop of some 650,000,000 more bushels than 

 in 1890, but so flooded the market as to net the producers 

 1^150,000,000 less. Further, for each of the four years preced- 

 ing 1889 the acreage of oats was less than for that year, and the 

 yield also was considerably less ; but the total value of the crop 

 was invariably greater. The acreage of cotton in 1 891 -1892 was 

 2.3 per cent less than in the preceding year, the yield 379,800 

 bales greater, and the total money value of the crop 1^37,000,000 

 less. The acreage in 1893- 1894 was only slightly in excess of 

 that of 1 892- 1 893, yet the yield was 849,500 bales greater, 

 while the aggregate value to the producer was $4,143,000 less. 



4. The extent to which agriculture is carried on in modemi 

 industrial society, with the purpose of supplying the market, fre-i 

 quently results in production ill adjusted to existing conditions, i 

 The farmer expects to consume only a small part of the products 

 of his labor, and to exchange the remainder for articles suited to 

 his wants. Each agricultural producer, proceeding without an 

 intelligent knowledge" of what his fellows are doing, endeavors ^ 

 to create a maximum product. The result is that the wealth- 

 producing energies of the farmer are not properly distributed, 

 and the products of his labor are not adjusted in the proper 

 proportion to the wants of society. Consequently, the producers 

 of such food products as exist in relative over-abundance are 

 injured in the process of exchange by receiving less than an 

 economic equivalent for the product of their toil. 



Four of the unfavorable conditions under which the business 

 of the farmer is conducted have now been considered. To the 

 extent that population multiplies under the stimulus of a bounti- 

 ful food supply, the increasing abundance of farm products tends 

 to correct itself. Any measure capable of promoting the per 

 capita consuming power of the masses or of diverting energy 

 now expended in food production to some more profitable field 



