Mr. Jardine Reports

Whatever the embattled farmers may think, the onetime Professor of Agronomy who came from Kansas to be Secretary of Agriculture is no drone. His name is William M. Jardine and his mind works like Herbert Hoover's. Both of them are "pluggers." A man must be a "plugger" who can produce a 120-page annual report on agriculture covering the entire field from "Swine Sanitation" to the "Nutritive Value of Wheat Bran."

Herewith some of the more laymanly items from Secretary Jardine's report issued last week:

The Year 1925-26. "Certain regions have suffered reverses, notably the cotton states, whose principal crop, produced in exceptional abundance, is selling at very low prices. Parts of the spring-wheat states have harvested a poor crop. Generally speaking, however, the position of agriculture is better now than it has been in any year since 1920. Livestock raisers, dairymen and winter-wheat growers have earned good returns, and underlying conditions in the Corn Belt have improved."

Tariff. "Industry has acquired an export-surplus problem nearly as acute and difficult as that of agriculture. It is therefore less interested in the tariff than it formerly was. There is a large financial and industrial interest which already holds that American industry is outgrowing tariff protection. It would be in the highest degree unwise for farmers at this time to launch an attack on the tariff without carefully considering the possibility that in the near future they may need it more than any other economic group in the country."

Freight Rates. "The Department of Agriculture's index of freight rates indicates that they are still 58% higher than before the War. It is instructive to compare this figure with the index for farm commodity prices, which in September stood at only 34% above the pre-War level. . . . These freight costs are large relatively as well as absolutely. They place the American farmer at a disadvantage of from four to ten cents a bushel in comparison with the freight costs of his competitors in Canada and Argentina."

Co-operative Marketing. "As I have frequently stated, the great need today is to give the farmer greater bargaining power through centralized selling. . . ."