Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 310, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1913 — TEN BILLIONS IS VALUE OF PRODUCTS [ARTICLE]

TEN BILLIONS IS VALUE OF PRODUCTS

New Record of Vast Production is Not Expected to Materially * Lower Cost of Living. Following is the record value of farm products in 1913: All crops : .$6,100,000,000 Cereals alone . ..... 2,896,000,000 Animails / 3,650,000,0p0 Corn 1,692,000,000 Dairy products 814.000,000 Cotton 798,000,000 Hay ..; 797,000,000 Wheat 610,000,000 Eggs and fowls 578,000,009 Oats 440,000,00| Potatoes 228,000,006 Tobacco 122,000,000 Barley 96,000,000 Wool 51,000,000 Sweet potatoes 43,000,000 Sugar beets ....34,000,000 Cane sugar ~ 26,000,000 Rye 26,000,000 Flaxseed 7 21,000,000 Hops 15,000,000 Buckwheat >■; 10,000,000 Washington, Dec. 29.—Ten billion dollars’ worth of products, $5,000,000,000 cash income—a bumper year in spite of droughts and other setbacks—is the 1913 record of 6,000,000 American farms. The value of the 1913 crops is twice as great as that of 1899; more than 1,000,000,000 in excess of 1909 and substantially greater than in 1912, although the quantity of production has fallen. Fourteen prnicipal crops average- about 20.2 per cent higher in price than a year ago, and 4.6 per cent higher than two years ago. Their total values average about 3.8 per cent higher than a .vear ago and 7.6 per cent higher than in 1911. Of all the crops, it is estimated that 52 per cent will remain on the farms where they were produced, and that 20 per cent of the animal production wflj remain. On that basis the ©ash income is estimated by the Department of Agriculture at $5,847,000,000, in a discussion of the subject made public today. But despite a record year of crop values, and the fact that the number or farms has increased 11 per cent since 1910, the department does not believe a lower cost of living will follow as a consequence. “However desirable increased production on farms may appear to be from* the consumers’ standpoint,” the report says, “it does not follow that such increased production would result in any increase in the cash income per farm or per capita of farm population, or that prices paid by consumers' would be any lower,” says the report. “The numerous distrbutors and middlemen between the farmer and the consumer are in a position to take advantage of the market, hnd ta ir.certain extent control the market in both directions, because they are better organized to keep informed of crop and market conditions and to act promptly than either farmers or consumers, who are not organized and as individuals are helpless.”