FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 1^ 



I oftentimes wonder if we as farmers, and I am talking 

 to you as one of them, if it is because we have not looked at 

 ourselves as manufacturers that is the reason that, instead 

 of doing these little things that mean so much to us, we 

 have excused ourselves on the plea that we haven't time. I 

 do not know of anyone who ever got very far in attaining 

 success who resorted to excuses instead of going after re- 

 sults. 



When you stop to think of it, there is, no more import- 

 ant business on the face of the earth than agriculture. Six 

 million farmers in the United States! They represent the 

 greatest manufacturing industry perhaps in the world. An- 

 nually we receive from agriculture something like nine or 

 ten billion dollars. That is something which men of the 

 city should know and realize just as much as should the men 

 of the land. 



Farmers are very important people. There are not a 

 great many businesses along the city streets that represent 

 as large an investment as the farm and its equipment and 

 live stock represent. There are very few businesses that 

 require the judgment and versatility the farming business 

 does. 



If I were to be asked what I believed to be the hole in 

 agriculture, I do not think I would say it was a lack of co- 

 operative marketing. I don't think of anything I would say 

 other than that the farmer in the main never has brought 

 himself to realize that he is just as much a business man as 

 anv other business man in the world can be. 



Now we fully recognize the fact, every one of us. We 

 know that there is not a bank in this country that could run 

 for a year if they failed to keep books and analyze the 

 results as set forth by the figures. We know also that mer- 

 chants and manufacturers could not remain in business if 

 they kept no closer check on their operations than the 

 farmer. 



I believe we have reached the point in American agri- 

 culture when we are going to have just as much competition 

 with each other as bankers or manufacturers or merchants. 

 It has come out that prices of agricultural commodities and 



