228 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



THE FARMER'S HANDICAPS 



The chief complaint of the American, farmer is that 

 his class as a whole does not receive an adequate finan- 

 cial return for capital used and labor expended. In 

 every farming community there are prosperous farm- 

 ers; and there are entire regions in which, at least dur- 

 ing the past two decades, probably a substantial major- 

 ity of the farmers have made a reasonable profit. But 

 the net income of perhaps five millions of the seven mil- 

 lions of farmers of the country is pitifully inadequate 

 for meeting even the minimum needs of a family in civ- 

 ilized society. This is not all. There exists a uni- 

 versal belief among our farmers, a conviction sub- 

 stantiated by economists, that few farmers receive for 

 their products that share of the retail price which a 

 sound and economical system of distribution would give 

 them. This lack of due reward is not the whole of 

 the rural problem, but it is the most serious specific 

 defect in agricultural affairs. 



Some of the farmer's difficulties are chargeable to 

 the nature of the industry. Nature furnishes the essen- 

 tials of crop and animal production soil, moisture, 

 air, light, heat, fertilizing materials. But from the 

 same source come flood, drought, extreme heat and un- 

 timely frost, pests and diseases of plant and animal, 

 hail, lightning, and tornado. It is true that in those 

 areas which men have found immediately adaptable to 

 agriculture, through a series of years and with respect 

 to most crops at all suitable for given regions, " fair 

 crops " are quite certain. But for the individual 

 farmer or for whole groups of farmers or for specified 

 crops, the uncertainties of yield are not only proverbial 

 but disconcerting, if not serious. Farmers do business 



