Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1917 — FARMERS RUSH PLANS TO PLANT BIG CROPS [ARTICLE]

FARMERS RUSH PLANS TO PLANT BIG CROPS

Greatest Acreage In History Forecast As Result of Prevailing High Prices. Spurred on by the food shortage, with its attendant circumstances in the way of soaring prices, farmers all over the country are preparing to plant a record breaking acreage this spring and harnest the greatest crop l the country has ever produced, if weather conditions permit. B. W. Snow, of the Orange Judd company, states that this coming spring will find farmers planting as big an acreage as possible. Just what the distributions will be, how extensive, will be hard to say, but it will be immense, stated Mr. Snow. Despit* the rail embargo, there, are plenty of implements on, hand—plows and harrows and everything needed for seeding and cultivating. While this long foreglance was being afforded, consumers .were made, more hopeful by further announcements of falling off of prices of. various articles of food.

The recent drop in prices in the wholesale market has had its effect on retail prices. Potatoes, eggs and butter are said to all be dropping some in various sections of the country and the indications that conditions will be-t come nearer normal with the passing of time. The government investigation of the food situation continues, although no figures have been published.

The cause of high prices in foodstuffs is attributed to antique agricultural methods and scarcity of farming labor, by Prof. John Merle Coulter, head of the department of botany in the University of Chicago. There is an increasing disparity between the growth of population and the increase of food supply of the United States, declared Prof. Coulter. Within the past ten years the population of this country has increased 20 per ceht, while the food supply in creased but one per cent. Our problem is nW with the minor products, such as canned goods, but with the fundamental cereals. There are two causes for the falling off of fundamental food products—wheat and corn, said Prof. Coulter. The first is that the city with its economic advantages has attracted the farming population to the munition factories, leaving agriculture handicapped. The second, which is by far the most important, is that the methods used by the average American farmer are antique—far behind the times. The modern farmer will have to learn to work for his living instead of putting the seed in the ground and trusting to Providence to do the rest.