378 THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 



authentic data, as these concerns do not publish their balance 

 sheets; there is no reason to suppose that even by the rapid 

 robbing of nature by machinery have bonanza farmers been 

 able to reduce average costs below those of ordinary farming; 

 the quantity of grain produced by "extensive" farming is but 

 a small part of the grain produced in the world, and if costs 

 were reduced, the bonanza farmers would be able to save the 

 profit for themselves, since prices, so far as affected by supply, 

 would be regulated by the great bulk of grain produced in 

 the thickly settled and most fertile rural districts, and not by 

 the comparatively small amount produced by machinery on 

 great plains. As to savings by the use of machinery by small 

 farmers, it is an open question whether there are savings; the 

 prices paid by farmers for machinery are usually exorbitant, 

 and for "repairs" still worse; machinery is usually bought 

 "on time," at rates of interest which no industry can afford, 

 and the annual waste by carelessness and neglect is fearful ; it 

 can neither be affirmed nor denied with much assurance that 

 the use of the more expensive machinery has reduced the cost 

 of agricultural products, but conceding that there has been 

 some reduction from this cause, it is not much, nor does the 

 examination of any and all elements of the cost of raw 

 material disclose any possibility of reduction of cost at all 

 corresponding to the ftill in prices, the only considerable 

 saving — the reduction in prices of merchandise — being fully 

 absorbed by the advance in the standard of life, which the 

 farmer seeks to share, and ought to share, with other classes. 

 All agree, however, in assigning either to reduction of cost, or 

 appreciation of money, the reduction of prices; since it is 

 evidently not the former, it must be the latter; but it is 

 absurd to say, and nobody will say, that appreciation of 

 money has reduced prices of agricultural products, and not 

 affected prices of other products. Therefore it is mainly 

 appreciation of money wliich has reduced the prices of all 

 l)roducts. The remedy is therefore the depreciation of money 

 by increasing its volume, not by fiat or irredeemable paper 

 money, but by restoring to its monetary office the metal which 

 has been discarded by so many commercial nations. 



