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Show THE FARMER IMPROVES. One interesting development in the economic situation which promises well ff.r 1930 comes to us with the announcement a few days ap;o by the .crop reporting bureau of the Depart-mc-nt of Agriculture at Washington, to the effect that the 1929 crops of the American farmer were worth $85, 000,000 more than the crops r.f 1928 despite the fact that production decreased nearly five per cent. The principal increases in value were in hay, fruits, vegetables and sugar crops. There were some de-l de-l creases in grains and cotton. The es- timatcd value on the fifty leading crops was $8,580,528,000 compared with ?8,495,7S8,000 in the year 1928. The acreage harvested was about one ) per cent more than the acreage of the year before but widespread ' drouth cut yields 5.3 per cent under "V,.1 the year before and 2.2 per cent below the average of the last ten years. The report shows that the farmers are in better shape than they were a year ago. This affords some consolation consola-tion to the man who has been nervous about the outlook for 1930 because of the break in the stock market several weeks ago. But the most encouraging en-couraging point is that things have just begun to improve for the farmer and he ought to be in a lot better shape a year hence than he is today. In the first place the new farm board at Washington under Chairman Leg-ge Leg-ge is just beginning to function in a big way and will afford a great deal of assistance iu the orderly marketing market-ing of crops. And again, Congress seems to bo making progress on the tariff and there is now some hope at least that a bill will be agreed upon and passed. If this happens, the farmer farm-er is bound to get some much needed protection from competition abroad. If it does not happen and the bill is defeated the blow will be harder on the farmer than any other class of citizens. The farmer will be the loser because he will not get the additional protection, and he will lose again if there is a depression in the industrial world, because the market created by the American working man is the one on which the farmer has to depend and "if the working man is not steadily stead-ily employed he cannot buy so much of the farmer's produce. Take all in all, therefore, the American Am-erican farmer has decidedly better outlook at the beginning of 1930 than he has had for several years past. And this means better times for the whole country. |