FARMERS’ INCOME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 11

FARMERS’ INCOME.

TO THE EDITOR. SlE,y—l have followed with interest the remarks of your correspondents concerning the position of the- farmer now, before the war, and 30 years ggo, etc. The statement that farmers were better off years ago, when costs were lower and their products were lower, will not stand investigation. The farmers certainly were better off, but not because costs: were lower in proportion to production. The real reason of their prosperity from 1895 to 1913 was that there was a steady increment on the value of their holdings over this period, and, as 99 per cent, of them know nothing of accounting, they swell their chests out and imagine their ability and (thrift put them where they are. The writer has worked on a number of farms and has been engaged in a business that has enabled him to examine and. analyse the position of hundreds of farmers, and can state without fear of contradiction that for the last 35 years the price of land has always stood, at any given time (excepting short periods of stress and boom) at a figure that left very little ior the average farmer as only the exceptional farmer could make money. The money made by the average, man was derived from the gradual rise in the price of our products, the value of the land following the produce up the grade. To prove this, put any retired farmer in the witness box, ask him where he was in 1895 or 1900, and what capital he started with, and then find what the rise in value of his property or properties was, and deduct that from what he is worth to-day, and you will find there is very little left. The writer found in a number of cases which he investigated that retired farmers were worth approximately the amount their farms had appreciated in value, proving that they had only lived off their farming income. The reason that the pinch is being felt to-day is that there is no increment to help them out, and farmers are facing the hard, cold facts of producing their income from their produce.—l am, etc., John Blunt.