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DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



jecting the poorer, to the point where the poorest acre cultivated can be 

 made to yield some bushels at a cost no greater than the price which they 

 will bring. 



When farmers generally do this, and they who do not will speedily 

 be eliminated through bankruptcy, the result is not only a reduction in the 

 yield per acre, throughout the country, but also a reduction in the acreage 

 in all old and well-settled communities. New communities where there is 

 virgin land to be had for the asking, may still attract settlers. In fact, 

 the presence of vast acres of this virgin land, rapidly settled and reduced 

 to cultivation, has been, during the last half of the Nineteenth century, a 

 cause of the low price of farm products. The settlers were not farming 

 for profit, but farming to make a living. Their profits came through a 

 rise in the value of the land which cost them nothing. This frontier con- 

 dition, however, we must now begin to regard as temporary and abnormal. 

 We must henceforth base our calculations and our agricultural policy on 

 the permanent and normal conditions of old settled communities. 



Inquiries made by Secretary Houston show that, even within the humid 

 belt, only a fraction of the tillable land is under cultivation, and of that 

 which is under cultivation, only a fraction is yielding satisfactory returns. 

 This is easily explained by the fact of low prices for farm products, in the 

 past, which low prices were due in large part to the rapid settlement of 

 virgin land, together with the economic law just explained. Prices have 

 been so low that farmers did not find it profitable to try to force a higher 

 yield per acre, which, as shown above, involved high cost of production. 

 Moreover they have found it profitable only to cultivate the more pro- 

 ductive acres, the acres where the cost of cultivation was lowest, leaving 

 the less productive acres untilled. 



Now that prices are rising, we may expect these conditions to be 

 cured automatically, provided hindrances be removed, and provided time 

 be given. The habits of 50 years can not be quickly changed by any 

 farming community. As prices rise, however, not only can each farmer 

 afford to cultivate his land more intensely, thus forcing a larger product 

 per acre, but acres which were formerly unprofitable will become profit- 

 able to cultivate. Several difficulties will retard progress in this direc- 

 tion. In the first place, the scarcity of good farmers is a hindrance. Per- 

 haps it ought to have been mentioned earlier in this discussion that, not 

 only does land differ in productivity, but farmers as well. 



The effect of low prices is not only to force the poorer acres out of 

 cultivation, but also the poorer farmers out of business. Only the men 

 who can produce at lowest cost, will remain in business. If then, things 

 start upward, the supply of good farmers is scarce, prices must rise until 

 poor farmers can succeed, before agricultural production can expand very 

 rapidly. 



In the second place, in order that the farmers of the present may 

 expand their operations, both by cultivating their land more intensively and 

 by cultivating lands which were formerly unprofitable, and in order that 

 new farmers who could not succeed before may now succeed in the busi- 



