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Show Fear of Farm Land Boom fV Adds to Inflation Worry 'fi Official Figures Show Agricultural Unit rrf yj Values Have Increased 20 to 24 h Per Cent in Year. " By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. TEiEFACT 1 WAR RAISES VALUE OF FARM REAL ESTATE (VALUE PER ACRE IN U. S. AJ 1912UOOOOO OOOOG 1921 0OOOOO0O00 00000 G 1929 OOOOO OOOOO oc 1933 OOOOO 0O 1942 OOOOO oooo Each symbol represents 5 of 1912-14 value WNU Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. For many months now, government govern-ment offices and conference rooms, no matter how they might echo with glowing reports from the home or the battle front have never been quite free from a ghost. It hovers in the corner and sends chills down every spine it is the ghost of Old Man Inflation, trying to come back to the scene of his crimes In the roaring twenties. The Office of War Information has Just issued a warning that this specter spec-ter may appear in his most frightful fright-ful form if we are not careful. The fat pay envelope is the inflation danger dan-ger you hear most about. But there is a worse one, namely, a farm land boom. So far, there has been no spectacular rise in farm land prices but a dangerous trend has been discovered in some states and the bureau of agricultural econom- ics is decidedly worried. Here are some figures. Up 20 Per Cent As of March 1 of this year, increases in-creases in farm land values over those of the previous year were 20 te 24 per cent. In September, 1941, I wrote in these columns: "Money to burn! "And the burning question is how to stop the conflagration before it starts. The chief danger is another prairie fire of farm land speculation such as started in Iowa in World War I . . . Today, two years after the present war started, farm land prices are up 1 per cent ..." Remember, that was written in September, 1941. Well, steps were taken to prevent speculation then and they met with success. However, How-ever, as we have seen by comparing compar-ing figures, land prices in some states have now increased considerably. consid-erably. That is natural for much has happened since 1941. In 1942, as the Office of War Information points out, "for the first time in 20 years, the annual average of farm prices reached parity with other prices." Since the outbreak of the war, the average of farm prices has risen more than 90 per cent nd farm income by about 80 per cent while the average prices paid by farmers, including interest and taxes, has increased about 25 per cent Farm income was around 19 billion bil-lion dollars in 1941 it will be about 82 billion for 1943. That means, of course, that the farmer has money to spend and it is natural that land values would rise to some degree. As I said, they faave gone up as high as 24 per jcent in some states and less than 6 per cent in only six states. Those figures, says the bureau of agricultural agricul-tural economics "bear watching"! It is also reported that bankers in some parts of the Middle West believe be-lieve that in some cases, the land values have risen beyond their real worth based on the long-time earning earn-ing capacity of the land. That if It is true, of course means that right now some farmers are buying buy-ing land that won't pay for itself. It is reasonable to suppose that they are not members of that unhappy un-happy group of 85,000 farm owners who met Old Man Inflation before and who lost their property under foreclosures in the decade that ended end-ed in 1939. If they are, they deserve to suffer again. But the unfortunate unfortu-nate thing is that when the farmer loses, the rest of the country does, too. We have struggled through minor mi-nor industrial panics, as we used to call them, but when the farm goes, it means that things are in such a way that there is no stopping until everybody touches bottom. Campaign Worked in '41 The article which I wrote in 1941 reported a meeting here in Washington Wash-ington of mortgage bankers, insurance insur-ance people, farm organization representatives rep-resentatives and others who were urged by the Farm Credit administration admin-istration to make normal appraisals of land. Apparently they did a pretty pret-ty good Job. Meanwhile, an educational educa-tional campaign was started urging the farmer, instead of rushing out and buying land with the first money he got as income increased, to pay off his debts. It was gratifying to see the results. In the next year (1942) the net reduction of mortgages mort-gages was 360 million dollars as against an average of 120 million reduction over the three preceding preced-ing years. Of course, there is nothing noth-ing Old Man Inflation hates worse than seeing debts paid up. Another thing which has helped the present situation is the fact that the farmers who are buying land now usually put up a large initial cash payment. In other words, they are avoiding future debts and that is another thing, of course, which is equally unpleasant to Old Man Inflation. In-flation. There is nothing to stop the farmer farm-er from speculating in land if he wants to, buying on a margin the way the gamblers used to do on the stock exchange. Now such transactions trans-actions are considerably limited by law but there is no law to keep a farmer from gambling if he doesn't know any better. 'Psychology for The Fighting Man' -I have just been reading a little booklet called "Psychology for the Fighting Man." It is one of those books published primarily for the soldiers, and every soldier able to read, ought to have it. It has 20 chapters, each written by a well-known well-known psychologist or expert in his line. Any chapter can be read separately sep-arately and they are all highly interesting. in-teresting. Familiarity with them will make any man a better soldier and a better leader. The chapter on mobs is only one. It tells how and why mobs form, what starts a panic and how to stop one. But here are a few of the other topics I found exceedingly interesting: interest-ing: Psychology and combat Seeing in the dark Color and camouflage Food and sex as military problems Differences among races and peoples and many others. Simply-told psychology. In this war, a man needs all the helps of that kind that he can get for the contrast between army life and civilian life is greater than ever. This book, "Psychology for the Fighting Man," is put out by a nonprofit non-profit corporation the Infantry Journal, here in Washington. It costs only a quarter. It is for the soldier, sailor, private or general, ensign or admiral. And it would be a good idea for a lot of next of kin to read this book, too. It might help them to understand what the soldier is up against |