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56 his methods. The advice is good, to be sure, but even if it began immediately to be generally followed there would be the passage of many years before the beneficial results would show strongly. This is analogous to telling other capitalists, and the engineers who work for and with them, that they should improve their methods in manufacturing, transportation, etc., in order that wage earners may retain their present scale of living, the main difference being that manufacturers have already attained a high degree of efficiency, while farmers have not, wherefore the road to further improveinents by engineers is not so easy.

The matter of concern to the farmer is what can be done by and for him right away. Let us be frank and say that there is nothing. He must watch the operation of economic forces and await their results just like everybody else. He is in the same position as the stockholders in industrial companies, but he is doing more complaining. Probably his situation is not so bad as he thinks and represents. Even the farmers of the northern-central group of states raise a great deal of produce other than wheat and hogs. The extent to which they continue to operate automobiles and the bill that they pay for that comfort and convenience indicate that their condition is not utterly desperate, else they would not be able to do so at all.

If conditions be left to work out in their own economic way, we may expect that the more intelligent farmers will curtail their production of wheat and hogs, and divert their attention to the growing of other things for which there is better demand. The less intelligent will simply curtail their production, and in doing less work and living not so well, will tend to contribute