DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



99 



"The strength of the pack is the wolf, 

 And the strength of the wolf is the pack." 



Every aspect of our present agricultural problem is a problem of 

 organization. The problem of securing a larger agricultural product is, 

 at bottom, a problem of securing a higher profit in what the farmer grows. 

 That, in turn, is the problem of securing him a better price on what he has 

 to sell, and a lower price on what he has to buy. Farmers are the only 

 large class who uniformly sell at wholesale and buy at retail. Intelligent 

 organization is the one thing which can reverse that process. 



How many people are there, outside of the farming classes, who real- 

 ize how definitely the volume of agricultural production depends upon the 

 prices which the farmers get for their products ? During the closing years 

 of the last century, England was suffering from agricultural depression.' 

 In 1897 a Parliamentary commission was conducting inquiries into the state 

 of agriculture and the reasons therefor. A great deal has been said about 

 intensive agriculture and the increase of crop yields as an offset to the 

 low prices which products were bringing. The sublime intelligences which 

 set forth this theory did not seem to be blessed with even a sense of humor. 

 Otherwise, they would have seen the absurdity of trying to increase the 

 supply of farm products as a remedy for low prices. 



Sir John Lawes, probably the greatest promoter of agricultural 

 sciences in modern times, was called before the commission and was able 

 to prove conclusively that, as you increase your yield beyond a moderate 

 amount, each bushel added to the yield costs you more and more, and that 

 the last bushel so added always costs you more than any of the others. 

 He also showed that, when prices were low, the individual farmer must 

 reduce, rather than increase his yield because, under such intensive cul- 

 tivation as will force a high yield, the last bushels would then be produced 

 at a loss. 



Nothing but high prices will justify the farmer in trying to force a 

 high yield from each acre cultivated, since, as he clearly showed, the extra 

 bushels added to make the high yield were always produced at an extra 

 cost. 



Not only does it take an increased cost to increase the yield per acre, 

 but, normally, an increased acreage involves increased cost. Land differs 

 in its productivity, and the cost of production per bushel is greater on one 

 acre than on another. When prices are low it only pays to cultivate the 

 better acres, or those on which the cost of production can be kept below 

 the price at which the product will sell. But when prices rise, it then pays 

 to cultivate inferior acres, and it pays under no other condition whatsoever. 



Here we have, therefore, one of the most important laws of agricul- 

 tural economics. As prices fall, not only must the farmer reduce his yield 

 per acre, but he must reduce his acreage, if he would avoid bankruptcy. 

 He must reduce his yield per acre to the point where the last bushel forced 

 from the soil costs no more than the price which he gets for it, and he 

 must reduce his acreage, keeping the better acres in cultivation and re- 



