Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: The farmers' indemnity / Alvin S. Johnson

Collection:: Economics Books

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

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