U.S. FARMING.

Wairarapa Age, 11 March 1922, Page 3

U.S. FARMING.

A CRISIS TN AG I.’lt TiLTURE. The national agricultural conference held in Washington has proved conclusively, says a San Francisco correspondent, that the American farmers are the reverse of being the proverbial “hayseeds," and arc among the most level-headed people the whole of

the United States. President Harding was the first to declare that the agricultural fraternity was one of the most intelligent phases of American national life.

The President, in opening the conference, outlined a comprehensive programme for meeting “the grim reality of the present crisis in agriculture,'' and he warned that if the nation failed to aid the farmer it would “precipitate a disaster that will affect every industrial and commercial activity." The President made seven specific recommendations to the 325 leaders of agriculture and related lines represented at the conference, viz:—

1. Extension of farmers' co-operative marketing organisations, he endorsed, indirectly, legislation now pending in Congress to exempt these organisations from the working of the AntiTrust laws, long held to be one of the principal barriers to their growth. Provision must be made for much greater “working capital" for farmers.

3. The Government must place more essential and scientific information at the disposal of the farmers and their marketing organisation. 4. Io aid both the farmer and the consumer, measures must be taken to prevent violent price fluctuations which result “from unorganised and haphazard production.''

•). The farmers will be benefited by farseeing and wise transportation policies. The President recommended a greater use of waterways and suggested that eventually nearly all of the railways of the country be electrified. 6. The fullest development of national resources through increased reclamation of arid, cut-over and swamp lands. 7. The nation must obtain a new conception of the farmer's place “in our social and economic scheme," and must realise that the farmer to day is a combination of the expert scientist, the business man and the worker. To Avert Crash. President Harding said American agriculture would have to be lifted from the chaotic depths of imminent disaster and be placed firmly on a thriving basis by governmental aid, if industrial and commercial America were to survive. The farmer, “in his hour of disaster," was entitled to every support and assistance the Government could give him. “If we fail him," added the President, “we will precipitate a disaster that will affect every industry and. commercial activity of the nation. Concerning the grim reality of the present crisis in agriculture, there can be no difference of opinion among informed peoples. The depressions and discouragements. are not peculiar to agriculture and I think it fair to say there could have been on avoidance of a great slump from wartime excesses to the hardships of readjustment. ‘ ‘ Both the mechanism of finance and the preconceptions of the country are united in creating the impression that easy access to ample capital is a disadvantage to the farmer; and an evidence of his decay in prosperity; while precisely the same circumstances are construed, in other industries,, as evidence of prosperity and of desirable business expansion.' ’ The President advised the farmers of America to learn organisation and the practical procedure of co-operation. Co-operative marketing organisations could advise the farmers as to the probable demand for staples, and propose measures for proper limitation of acreages in particular crops. The certainty that such scientific distribution of production was to be observed would strengthen the credit of agri cut *ure and increase the security on which financial advances could he made to it. The disastrous effects which arose from over-production were notorious. It was apparent that the interest of consumers, quite equally with that of the producer, demanded measures to prevent the violent fluctuations which arose from unorganised and haphazard production. The time was long past when farming might be regarded as an occupation fitting for the man who was not equipped for or had somehow failed at some other line of endeavour.