CROP YIELDS AND PRICES 113 



The comparative prices for 73 years are shown also in the chart 

 on page 112. The average price of each product was considered 

 as 100 per cent. The percentages for each product for each year 

 were then calculated. The average of the percentages for a given 

 year represents the comparative price for that year. 



Prices of farm products on New York farms. The average 

 prices of some of the important products on New York farms on 

 December 1 are given in Table 7. Of late years wheat has been 

 lower than the average for 47 years. Other crops are generally 

 higher. The period of low prices resulted in the low yields of the 

 same period. 



Reasons for former low prices. During the eighties and the 

 early nineties there was a period of such serious overproduction of 

 farm products that farmers received almost nothing for their work. 

 The Year Book of the Department of Agriculture gave the aver- 

 age farm price of corn in 1 896 as 2 1 1 cents per bushel of shelled 

 corn. The average price in Nebraska in that year was 1 3 cents 

 and in 1897 it was 17 cents. 1 The corn from a farm that the 

 writer helped to operate, in eastern Nebraska, sold in 1896 for 

 8 cents per bushel of shelled corn, so that the above prices appear 

 to be sufficiently high. 



If efficient methods of farming are used, an acre of corn in the 

 Corn Belt can be grown, harvested, and marketed with 20 to 25 

 hours of man labor and 40 to 50 hours of horse labor. The Year 

 Book reports the average yield of corn in Nebraska in 1896 as 

 37.5 bushels of shelled corn per acre. At 13 cents a bushel this 

 was worth $4.88. This is the amount of money that the farmer 

 received for two days' work of himself and team, use of an acre 

 of land, use of machinery, use of corncrib, and to pay the corn- 

 shelling bill. This amount of money left the farmer less than 

 no pay for his own labor. He paid for the privilege of working. 



The prices of farm products in 1896 were the lowest for the 

 past 73 years. Yet it is that year, 1896, with which present prices 

 are almost invariably compared in order to show how high prices 

 now are. Why not take 1846, 1856, 1866, 1876, 1886? Or, 

 better yet, why not use a long enough period to tell whether we 

 1 U. S. Dept. Agr., Year Book, 1S98, p. 692. 



