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securing accurate statistics on the cost of producing an agricultural 

 commodity. Corn, for instance, is produced by perhaps 6,000,000 

 farmers over a continental area. It is difficult enough to acsertain 

 the cost of producing corn on a single farm where there are complex 

 operations. It is equally difficult to secure averages in a given area 

 that are helpful guides. It is even more difficult where a tenant is 

 involved. Still, averages are the best that we can get. A prerequisite, 

 however, is that they shall be based on actual and distinct studies on 

 many individual farms and that the facts shall be tabulated, carefully 

 interpreted, and set out under the proper limitations. This is not 

 true with reference to the studies recently much discussed. Com- 

 petent, impartial economists and students of the subject, after careful 

 investigation, reported that the studies were little more than expres- 

 sions of opinion based on impressions received from conversations 

 with farmers, that the interpretations and expositions were highly 

 unsatisfactory, and that the conculsions as given were misleading. 



I have the whole problem actively in mind. I am calling into 

 conference the best students of farm economics in the Nation, includ- 

 ing the heads of state farm management departments, some of which 

 have developed programs superior to parts of ours, and I shall hope, 

 at the proper time, to lay before Congress a carefully considered 

 series of projects for an enlarged Office of Farm Management. I shall 

 ask for sufficient authority and funds to secure the services of the 

 best staff available and shall plan to work in close cooperation with 

 well-equipped departments in state colleges and universities. It is 

 my hope that the Nation shall not again be caught without adequate 

 and reliable cost of production data as a basis for its thinking and 

 acting. Of course, I realize that farm management is much more 

 than mere studies of costs. It involves land settlement, studies of 

 ownership and tenancy, of the relation of crops, of domestic and 

 foreign supplies in relation to domestic and foreign demand, and 

 many other things. 



I have in mind, I trust, not only further concrete principles for 

 the improvement of the agriculture and rural life of the Nation, but 

 a vision of rural life towards the realization of which I hope to see 

 the Department, the colleges, agricultural organizations, farm papers, 

 and all other agencies in the country steadily work. 



