and conducted with adequate forces, with zeal and good management. Lord Spencer did not preside over the complete triumph, for he left office when Pitt's first ministry came to an end. But it was largely due to him-to his steady temper and prevailing good sense, to his capacity for seeing what advice was good, and to his firmness in adhering to what he saw to be right.

It has not been possible to speak here of more than a small part of the contents of these four volumes of letters. We can only try to take out the great points which carry the little ones with them. The essential is that Lord Spencer found the navy much pestered by defects, and ill employed. He left it reformed, thoroughly sound, and greatly working to worthy ends. The execution of the work was necessarily much in the hands of the men on the spot-of St. Vincent more than of any other; but Lord Spencer chose and directed. Had a weak man been in his place, the subordinates could not have contributed their shares.

DAVID HANNAY

MARKETING

PROBLEMS

OF AMERICAN

FARMERS

1. Agriculture Year Book, 1923. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington. 1924.

2. Agricultural Co-operation. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington. Published fortnightly. 3. Plans for Marketing Dairy Products co-operatively. American Farm Bureau Federation, Chicago. 1924.

4. The Grain Trade: a Brief.

Toledo, Ohio. 1925.

Grain Dealers' National Association.

5. Introduction to Agricultural Economics. By L. C. GRAY. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1924.

"

IN 1923 the total value of the products of agricultural land in the United States was about 16 billion dollars. Deducting the value of crops fed to stock, the amount was about 12 billion dollars, which therefore may be taken to represent approximately the value of marketable produce. A considerable proportion of this produce was consumed by the farmers and their families. According to the census of 1920, the "farm population numbered 31 millions, or 20 per cent. of the total population. The term "farm population " includes all persons actually living on farms, without regard to occupation, and also those farm. labourers (and their families) who, not living on a farm, nevertheless live in strictly rural territory, outside the limits of any village or other "incorporated place." All who are engaged in agriculture together with their families are thus included in the farm population, except those workers who do not live on the farm but in a city or village away from the farm on which they work. It is stated in the Census Report that these are too few to be of any great significance.

If it is assumed that one-fifth of the marketable farm produce is consumed on the farms, or by the farm population, the value of the products actually sold is approximately 10 billion dollars. The total value of farm produce exported from the United States in the fiscal year 1922-23 was 1 billion dollars. The values are not on the same basis. In the one case they are the values at the point of production, i.e., on the farm; and in the other at the port of exportation, with profit, freight and other distributing

charges added. It would probably be not very far from the mark to estimate the value of the exports at farm prices as not exceeding 1 billion dollars. On this assumption it would follow that nine-tenths of the produce sold off the farms is absorbed by the home market, and one-tenth is sent to oversea markets.

In the year-book of the United States Department of Agriculture for 1923 an analysis is made of the acreage employed respectively for domestic uses and for net exports of twelve principal crops. From this calculation it appears that in the years 1919-22 about 12 per cent. of the acreage was devoted to production for export. It is stated that the area per capita devoted to export production was less in the 1919-22 period than in 1909-13, but that in the 1919-22 period" the export acreage per capita was a considerably larger proportion of the total per capita acreage than in any period since 1899-1903." It is added :

-

The expansion in the acreage devoted to export production, in spite of the downward trend of per capita crop acreage and the slight decrease in average yield per crop acre, took the form of increase in the area of cereals, especially wheat, at the expense of other crops. Of the 23,000,000 acres by which the average area of the five cereals for 1919-22 exceeded that of 1909-13, wheat accounted for more than 18,000,000 acres. Most of the remainder is accounted for by the increase in the acreage of rye, amounting to more than 100 per cent., together with a slight increase in the acreage of oats. On the other hand this is partly offset by slight decreases in the acreage of barley and of corn.

Since there has been neither an increase in the per capita area of crop land nor, as compared with the average for 1903-07, any increase in the yield per acre either of all the land devoted to crops or of the land devoted to the cereals, it is evident that the expansion in acreage devoted to production for export must have been made possible by a reduction in the acreage employed in producing for domestic uses. After subtracting the acreage devoted to direct exportation of crops from the total crop acreage, the remaining area per capita decreased from 3.15 acres in 1909-13 to 3.02 acres in 1919-22, or about 4 per cent. When the crop acreage required for the production of livestock and livestock products exported is also subtracted, the per capita area employed in producing for domestic uses decreased from 3.09 to 2.92 between these periods; and, finally, when allowance is made for the acreage used to support the horses and mules required to produce the crops and livestock products for export, the per capita acreage employed for domestic consumption declined from 2.99 to 2.82, or nearly 6 per cent.

The chief explanation of this apparent anomaly lies probably

in the dislocation of the normal process of agricultural development by war conditions. The extension of the area under cereals, and especially wheat, during the war, ceased in 1919, and in 1920 wheat was reduced by nearly 11 million acres. Notwithstanding the fall in prices there was little further reduction in the ensuing three years and in 1923 the wheat acreage was still 27 per cent. larger than the average of the five years before the war. It was in fact not easy for farmers who had suddenly embarked upon wheatgrowing to revert to their former practice. "After the range was broken up, houses built, live stock and implements purchased, and heavy debts incurred, it has meant bankruptcy to let the land go back to pasture, and it has been difficult to shift to other crops."

The deflection of American agriculture from its ordinary course by the violent disturbance of the war, resulted in widespread hardship to farmers and injury to the land, as was indicated in the January issue of this REVIEW. But the swing of the economic pendulum is inevitable. In the present crop-year— 1924-25-the reaction has taken place and re-adjustment to an equilibrium has begun. When the world's agriculture gets gradually back, after the oscillations of a decade, to an even keel, and the secular trend of economic forces again asserts sway, it is certain that agricultural production in the United States will be increasingly dominated by the demands of the home market, and that oversea markets will gradually cease to exert any appreciable influence on the use of American land.

At the present time the influence of the export demand for agricultural products affects only a few crops-mainly wheat, cotton, tobacco, and rice. Its direct influence on maize is smallthe exports representing only about 4 per cent. of the crop-but its indirect influence is expressed in a considerable exportation of pig-meat.

In the agitated discussions of the agricultural situation which took place under the stress of extreme agricultural depression a protective nostrum which became widely popular was to impose an embargo on the exportation of wheat. The argument was based on the incontestable fact that the price of wheat in the United States is governed by the world price. It was contended that if no wheat were exported it would be possible to fix an internal price on a basis which would be remunerative to the growers. The objections to this proposal were fairly obvious,

and at the end of 1923 the Secretary for Agriculture was able to report: "The idea that the Government can arbitrarily fix a price that will cover cost of production and by this means restore prosperity to the wheat grower is no longer entertained by any considerable number." Mr. Wallace, writing as an official, but also as an economist, added :

It is clear that such a course would simply stimulate production, not alone in the wheat country proper but in the great humid sections which can produce large crops of winter wheat, and will if the price is more attractive than the prices of corn and oats. A Government fixed price would make it necessary for the Government to be prepared to buy at that price, and without some means of disposing of the surplus bought our last state would be worse than the present.

It was nevertheless, seriously contemplated to set up a Government commission to monopolise the export trade in wheat and other agricultural produce, with a working capital of £10,000,000-the profit which the Government made by dealing in wheat at controlled prices during the war and selling it to the Allies. It was proposed that the commission should dispose of the exportable surplus and that the domestic price might rise "behind an adequate tariff barrier" to the point of restoring "the pre-war purchasing power of wheat in the domestic market." Any losses incurred were to be made good by an excise tax on the wheat crop. Although suggested primarily for wheat it was claimed that the same system might be applied to other products, such as pig-meat, in which there is an important external trade.

The natural rise in the level of prices last year came in time to prevent any such experiments in Government trading, but the general interest which, under stress of adversity, had been aroused in the sale and distribution of agricultural produce has stimulated farmers to examine more carefully the possibility of improving the methods by which it is marketed. The result has been seen in a rapid and remarkable multiplication of the number and intensification of the activities of farmers' co-operative marketing associations.

Agricultural co-operation is no novelty in the United States. Fifty years ago there was an extensive movement in this direction, but it was not sustained. A certain amount of activity developed in a few localities at the end of the last century, but the modern development may be said to have begun after 1900. Progress