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Show crops were calculated by the department depart-ment of agriculture at eight billion dollars less than two years before. While the farmer's income was ! shrinking the prices of the manufactured manufac-tured articles he needed did not drop In proportion. The farmer could not afford "to sell eight luishels of grain to pay eight dollars for a pair of shoes. He sold the wheat because he had to. But he found he could get along, somehow, without the new shoes. In fact, he got along for a year or so without buying anything. Slowly but surely the wide difference differ-ence between the prices of farm products prod-ucts and of merchandise the farmer buys is being wiped out by the law of supply and demand. The business situation of the nation na-tion is improving. The backbone of our prosperity is found In the fertil- ity of our soil. We are able to produce, pro-duce, more than any other nation, a wide variety of the things the world needs. When our farmers are given a fair return on their investment and labor, they insure to the nation as a whole a fair degree of prosperity. The first and most interesting sign of better business is that prices paid to the farmer are going up. It is now plain to be seen that these prices fell below levels warranted war-ranted by actual conditions. Downward Down-ward prices were assisted by involved conditions in Europe. A nation-wide attack on grain exchanges by the farming interests -weakened considerably consid-erably the country's grain market. Then, when farmers expected three dollars a bushel for their wheat, they were urged by their grange organ- ization and their leaders not to sell. When prices fell to somewhere j near one dollar a bushel, and farmers farm-ers were obliged to sell, they came to the conclusion that they had been penalized for holding. Reversing their methods, in the fall of 1921 they marketed wheat at a speed never equaled in the history of the country. Speculative markets found themselves unprepared to handle such huge quantities of wheat, and this helped to make the whole situation situa-tion abnormal. As crop figures begin to come from the Argentine and Australia and I from Canada it becomes clear that in none of those countries will the yield approach earlier estimates. The result is that, while May wheat options were selling at $1.12 a bushel-in the middle of last October, they had gone as high as $1.47 by the first of March. Cotton too has had a substantial upturn. Corn and hogs have appreciated appre-ciated steadily; sheep and wool are bringing much better prices, and so are cattle in spite of the fact that a few months ago political orators were predicting that the packers would do everything in their power to keep prices down. With grains and "other farm products prod-ucts selling at their present levels, farmers will realize much more from their 1922 crops than they could have expected when this year began. In turn, they will be better customers for things which, in their period of adversity, they refused to buy. While the prices paid to the farmer farm-er have been going up, the prices of ! other commodities have been com-' com-' ing down. The farmer can buy a good ! tractor today for $H95. as compared ! with practically twice that amount ; some months ago. Millions of fanners, coming Into I the market to buy all the things 'which for many months they have gone without buying farm tools, j clothing. furnishings. everything '. which they and their families need and use will have a far-reaching ' effect on our factories aud our retail stores. Confidence in the future has to a considerable extent been restored. While the relative value of the price the farmer receives and the price he 1 pays for the things he must buy is ; still unsettled, much progress is being be-ing made in the right direction. The .Manufacturer. WHERE PROSPERITY STARTS In the fall of 1920, prices paid to farmers for their products entered a period of drastic decline. From then until a few months ago the industrial indus-trial depression was due largely to the shrunken purchasing power of the American farmer. Four mouths ago the values of |