220 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK
more acres of corn ground, and the fields have mounted the stiff
slopes that were formerly reserved for pasture. Thus the tilled
area has been doubled since the time of the original settler.
At first glance one would infer that this was merely an instance
of the worn-out farm. But on closer inspection the inference
proves misleading. The fields on the level show splendid yields
of wheat and corn, and even the slopes are productive, in spite
of yellow streaks betokening erosion, which becomes more serious
year by year. Since the nineties agricultural practice has made
notable progress. On soils of equal fertility the Marquis wheat
of to-day yields two bushels more per acre than the Minnesota
Fife of the nineties. The present strains of yellow dent corn are
more prolific, perhaps by three or four bushels, than the hard
kernelled varieties of thirty years ago. The introduction of
alfalfa has simplified the problems of pasturage and hay: the use
of the silo has added greatly to the value of the roughage from the
cornfields. The breeds of cattle and swine have been much
improved; hog cholera has been stamped out and the risks from
bovine tuberculosis are steadily diminishing. These gains in farm
practice certainly outweigh any loss through the exhaustion of the
elements of fertility in the soil. And if more care and labor are
required to reap the benefits of improved practise, the progress
in the efficiency and ease of operation of agricultural machinery
is more than a sufficient offset.
As a fact, except for a small part of the acreage that has been
spoiled by water logging and erosion, every acre yields a larger
physical product than it did in the nineties. Moreover, every
day’s labor on it accomplishes more, measured in physical
product, than in the nineties.
It is not, however, physical product as such that makes for
prosperity, but value product, or physical product in terms of
price. And the whole farming population is clamoring that the
prices of agricultural products are too low. This may be true. It
is not an easy matter to determine at just what level agricultural
prices are fair and just. But for the sake of the argument we will
admit that they are now unfairly and unjustly low. So they were
in the eighties and nineties too. 'The farmer of that period did
not buy so many things as the farmer of today. He raised his
horses and hay for them, where the farmer of today buys cars
and tractors, and the gasoline and oil they require. In the