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OCR Page 1 of 18Sa me
"MATIONAL
A NEW LIFE FOR FARM FAMILIES AND THE SOIL THEY WORK
The rapidly growing economic and military strength
of the Nation rests upon many columns, but upon none more
basic than the sound, productive system of family farming
that is the backbone of American agriculture.
Though less than one-sixth of our people today are
farmers, they provide an abundance of food and agricultural
raw materials for the entire civilian population, for our
growing military forces, and for our booming defense indus-
tries. In addition, they furnish immense quantities of com-
modities for export to friendly foreign countries.
But the present strength of American agriculture
did not come into being by chance. It is the product of
many factors: extensive natural resources, a favorable
climate, the free and industrious spirit of the people --
plus the wise governmental programs and policies of the
past two decades.
Twelve Years of Trouble
Boom
Agriculture has not always had the productivity,
the strength and the stability that it takes pride in today.
It came out of World War One into a brief era of zooming
prices for land and farm products. It was a period of up-
roarious boom not only for agriculture, but for the country
as a whole.
and Bust
A wild ride it was, and a short one. Only a year
and a half after the close of the war, prices began to fall.
In July 1920, the index of farm prices dropped 7 points, then
18 more in August, then another 10 points in September. The
break came just as a grain crop was coming to market -- a
crop produced at the highest costs in history up to that time.
The price of wheat on the farm fell from $2.56 in June 1920
to less than a dollar in December 1921 a collapse of more
than 60 percent.
Other farm prices were on the toboggan, too.
Mortgages Up,
Farmers who had hoped to make a fair living and pay
Assets Down
for land bought at boom prices, almost overnight found them-
selves unable to do either. Between 1920 and 1921 farm mort-
gages went up nearly two billion dollars. Farm assets came
down about seven billion.
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