Our country has a well defined policy of reclamation established under
statutory authority. This policy should be continued and made a
self-sustaining activity administered in a manner that will meet local
requirements and bring our and lands into a profitable state of cultivation
as fast as there is a market for their products. Legislation is pending
based on the report of the Fact Finding Commission for the proper relief of
those needing extension of time in which to meet their payments on
irrigated land, and for additional amendments and reforms of our
reclamation laws, which are all exceedingly important and should be enacted
at once.
No more important development has taken place in the last year than the
beginning of a restoration of agriculture to a prosperous condition. We
must permit no division of classes in this country, with one occupation
striving to secure advantage over another. Each must proceed under open
opportunities and with a fair prospect of economic equality. The Government
can not successfully insure prosperity or fix prices by legislative fiat.
Every business has its risk and its times of depression. It is well known
that in the long run there will be a more even prosperity and a more
satisfactory range of prices under the natural working out of economic laws
than when the Government undertakes the artificial support of markets and
industries. Still we can so order our affairs, so protect our own people
from foreign competition, so arrange our national finances, so administer
our monetary system, so provide for the extension of credits, so improve
methods of distribution, as to provide a better working machinery for the
transaction of the business of the Nation with the least possible friction
and loss. The Government has been constantly increasing its efforts in
these directions for the relief and permanent establishment of agriculture
on a sound and equal basis with other business.
It is estimated that the value of the crops for this harvest year may reach
$13,000,000,000, which is an increase of over $3,000,000,000 in three
years. It compares with $7,100,000,000 in 1913, and if we make deduction
from the figures of 1924 for the comparatively decreased value of the
dollar, the yield this year still exceeds 1913 in purchasing power by over
$1,000,000,000, and in this interval there has been no increase in the
number of farmers. Mostly by his own effort the farmer has decreased the
cost of production. A marked increase in the price of his products and some
decrease in the price of his supplies has brought him about to a parity
with the rest of the Nation. The crop area of this season is estimated at
370,000,000 acres, which is a decline of 3,000,000 acres from last year,
and 6,000,000 acres from 1919. This has been a normal and natural
application of economic laws, which has placed agriculture on a foundation
which is undeniably sound and beginning to be satisfactory.
A decrease in the world supply of wheat has resulted in a very large
increase in the price of that commodity. The position of all agricultural
products indicates a better balanced supply, but we can not yet conclude
that agriculture is recovered from the effects of the war period or that it
is permanently on a prosperous basis. The cattle industry has not yet
recovered and in some sections has been suffering from dry weather. Every
effort must be made both by Government activity and by private agencies to
restore and maintain agriculture to a complete normal relationship with
other industries.
It was on account of past depression, and in spite of present more
encouraging conditions, that I have assembled an Agricultural Conference
made up of those who are representative of this great industry in both its
operating and economic sides. Everyone knows that the great need of the
farmers is markets. The country is not suffering on the side of production.
Almost the entire difficulty is on the side of distribution. This reaches
back, of course, to unit costs and diversification, and many allied
subjects. It is exceedingly intricate, for our domestic and foreign trade,
transportation and banking, and in fact our entire economic system, are
closely related to it. In time for action at this session, I hope to report
to the Congress such legislative remedies as the conference may recommend.
An appropriation should be made to defray their necessary expenses.