TYPES OF FARMING 



87 



With potatoes, high prices are usually followed by in- 

 creased acreage, but if the increase is too great, the farmers 

 are told of the fact by the prices the next fall. They do 

 not go on for ten or twenty years, as in the case of apples, 

 before the wisdom of the acreage is put to test. 



Hogs usually rise in price for two to three years and 

 then drop for two to three years. A very abnormal corn 



FIG. 22. Solid line average farm prices of horses. Dotted line average 

 farm prices of hogs. Periods of over- and under-production last about 

 10 years for horses and 3 years for hogs. 



crop shifts the hog curve. Since 1866 the curve has 

 been very regular until 1901, when the very short corn 

 crop checked hog production, so that the drop in hog 

 prices did not come until two years later. (See Figure 

 22.) It takes about two to three years of low prices to 

 check hog production and get rid of the extra pigs that 

 are coming on, and about two to three years to get pro- 

 duction started and the pigs raised to marketable age so 

 as to again cause overproduction. Those who have 

 lived in the corn-belt know of this cycle of high and low 

 prices. If a farmer in the corn-belt changes his produc- 



