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Show Not Enough Real Farm Organization to Put Farming Upon an Equality By PRANK O. LOWDEN, Former Covernor of Illinois. SAM aware that it is often said that, there are too many farm organizations. organi-zations. That may be true, but 1 am sure that there is not enough real, practical, effective farm organization to put the business of farm-ing farm-ing upon an equality with other industries in this highly organized world. Farmers have the' power within themselves to effect such organizations. organiza-tions. If they can be persuaded of the necessity of organization they cow can organize independently of the Department of Agriculture. If they are not so persuaded, the Department of Agriculture can help but Little. I am convinced that I can be of more service in helping to bring about the more effective organization of farmers outside the Department pf Agriculture than I could in the department. For the head of the department de-partment must of necessity devote the largest part of his time to administrative adminis-trative routine. It will be better not only for agriculture, but better for the country, if we face the fact and admit that there is a real problem waiting for solution more important than any other domestic problem we have. The American farmer produces more than eight times as much as does the farmer of other lands. This has largely been possible by what we call commercialized agriculture, and this in turn has made possible the phenomenal phe-nomenal industrial growth of the country. It is clear that without commercialized com-mercialized agriculture the whole mighty fabric of our industrial and national life would fall. We may assume commercialized agriculture has come to stay. Agriculture, Agri-culture, then, must conform to the economic laws and limitations which control the other portions of our commercial structure. One of these is that production must be adjusted to compensation. Only through organization organi-zation can this result be achieved, because only through organization does progress come. ' In the modern world the farmer alone has been the last to realize the value of organization for its own sake. In all other industries the marketing market-ing problem has been the problem stressed for a generation, yet in the marketing of farm products the producer has been content with the methods of a century ago. The laws of supply and demand extending over a series of years, in fixing what the political economists call the normal price, still obtain. To fix the market price fairly, that law is effective only with free competition com-petition on both sides. |