FOREWORD 



This publication is one of a series under the general 

 title "What Peace Can Mean To American Farmers." 

 It is a sequel to an earlier one in the series, called "Post- 

 War Agriculture and Employment," which contains an 

 analysis of the possible significance to agriculture of 

 various levels of nonagricultural employment. The gen- 

 eral conclusion drawn from that analysis was that under 

 full employment, post-war adjustments required in agri- 

 culture would be manageable, but that the difficulties 

 would multiply as the number of unemployed is increased. 



How to maintain a full-employment economy, there- 

 fore, is a matter of great interest to farmers, even though 

 most of the action required lies outside areas usually 

 covered by agricultural programs as such. Even though 

 the present analysis as submitted to me deals with numer- 

 ous problems that are not strictly within the agricultural 

 field, the action taken by the American people in meeting 

 these problems will have such a profound effect on all 

 agriculture that I am having this study printed so that 

 agricultural agencies dealing with post-war problems, 

 and farm people generally, may have a better under- 

 standing of the more important elements of the whole 

 problem. This publication does not necessarily present 

 Department policy but is offered primarily as an analysis 

 for purposes of discussion and further study. 



Many members of the Department staff have made im- 

 portant contributions to this work. It was done under 

 the leadership of James G. Maddox and Bushrod W. 

 Allin, with special assistance from Willard W. Cochrane, 

 J. P. Cavin, Mordecai Ezekiel, and Tyler F. Haygood. 



5&4 



Secretary of Agriculture 



Washington, D. C. 



Issued July 194i 



