Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1919 — NO NEED TO DELAY BUYING [ARTICLE]

NO NEED TO DELAY BUYING

Lower Price Levels Will Be Slow In Coming. \ Among the men who are in a portion to study and analyze the conditions affecting prices, the opinion is practically unanimous that return to lower levels will be gradual. This opinion already has been strengthened by the fact that there (has been no evidence of a panicky feeling in any material market during the six weeks that have elapsed since hostilities ceased. Nor has anything occurred to Indicate a radical change In labor costs. On the contrary, the cost of living, held up by the high prices of farm products, has increased since the war ended. And business is beginning to feel the ad--vances in freight rates which will endure for many years. So long as prices of farm remain at a high point there will be no material reduction in wages nor the cost of manufactured proand there is every reason to believe that prices of farm products will continue on the present level for a long time to come. They may even go higher. In normal times many farmers have opposed general increases in crop yields on the ground that they caused prices to drop below the point of profit. If one were to concede that this argument has force, one still would have to admit that it has no bearing on the present situation. The demand for food is far in excess of the supply and it will be several years before the" positions are reversed. And the change will take place gradually. It is Impossible for us. to conceive of a farmer so foolish as to limit unnecessarily his crop-raising operations during the next few years. ’ It is unthinkable that any farmer will fail to * utilize every acre of tillable land, or that he ill refuse to buy anything he needs .tn" the way of equipment to obtain maximum yields. It is therefore impossible for us to tfhare the view entertained by some trade factors that the expectation of low prices in 1920' will keep farmers frdm buying needed machines in 1919. We credit the farmers with better judgment than that course would reVoaV—Farm Implement News.