The Changing American Farm

Nobody gave them a Distinguished Service Cross or an E-for-excellence pennant, but U.S. farmers last week had good reason to be proud as roosters: the Department of Agriculture announced that on fewer acres than they plowed in 1918 they will raise 40% more food this year for the United Nations-the biggest, most diversified, most healthful, most vitamin-rich crop ever harvested anywhere by any people.

Not all the old stand-by crops have shared equally in the new records. Pork, beef and milk are far above the old peaks. Wheat, corn and oats are not far below their alltime highs, despite smaller acreage. New crops like soybeans, flaxseed, peanuts and canning vegetables have zoomed from nowhere to pass many of the old leaders. Cotton has sagged 39% below the 1926 peak. "A banner year," caroled the Department of Agriculture.

To win this praise farmers have done everything but turn their barns hayloft out. First thing was to use more & more machines; last year they bought a record-breaking $735,000,000 worth v. only $607,000,000 worth (at higher unit prices) in free & easy 1929. They also went in for more electricity (it was poured into their laps by REA), more fertilizer, better seeds, better livestock breeding practices.

The Newcomers. But the main thing has been crop diversification, a trend that started in mid-depression, picked up two years ago, spurted after Pearl Harbor. Prime example is soybeans-a plant most farmers vaguely connected with China and Manchuria a decade ago but now the No. 1 U.S. miracle crop. In 1918 farmers planted only 169,000 acres of soybeans. In 1941 they hit 10,000,000 acres; this year a whacking 14,241,000 acres are in soybeans-far more than all U.S. orange, grapefruit and lemon orchards combined.

Other fast gainers since World War I are flaxseed (up 150% to 4,440,000 acres) and peanuts (up 300% to 4,827,000 acres). With a 33% acreage gain, soybeans and flaxseed will overtake cotton; peanuts have already outstripped rye. Soybeans, peanuts and flaxseed, grown mostly for their oil, now replace the coconut, palm and linseed oil imported by the tankerful before the war. But soybeans also make top-notch fodder and Henry Ford has even made a soybean plastic automobile. Flax makes linen; peanuts make tasty, vitamin-rich soldier rations.

Meanwhile U.S. farmers have turned gardeners and dairymen in droves. Over the whole countryside big & little gardens have sprouted up, brightly painted cow-barns have been built. Truck farms now total 3,730,000 acres, up 12% over last year, up 30% over the 1931-40 average. Production of sweet corn, green peas and tomatoes is at a new high. Georgia alone has some 30,000 new gardens this year.

In pasture this year are 26,000,000 milk cows--24% more than in 1917. Thanks to better breeding and feeding, milk output per cow climbed from 3,7431b. to 4,742 lb. annually. (Really good cows average over 8,000 lb.) The U.S. now gets more cheese than it can use or ship to its allies; Agriculture Secretary Wickard recently told newsmen to put two pieces of cheese on every hunk of pie.

The Standbys. Wheat and corn acreage has declined 14% since 1918, but the harvest has increased 6%. This year's 904,000,000-bushel wheat crop, in fact, is the seventh largest ever; the corn crop will almost equal last year's nine-year high. Only 24,000,000 acres of cotton were planted this year, a drop of 32% since World War I. The result: 1942 cotton pickings are estimated at less than 11,000,000 bales (v. 12,018,000 in 1918), not enough for booming civilian and military demand. Consequently some of the11,800,000-bale surplus, including six -year-old stuff, can at last be used.

The Incentive. Even though farmers did not get medals or pennants, they got something else to encourage bigger & better crops--cash. For farmers the Government has never tried to squash the profit motive as it has for wartime industry. Average farm prices are 50% above war's beginning, and they have Government-built price props to keep them up. For crops most wanted, the Government let prices go windmill-high: since July 1940, soybeans have jumped 140% to $1.74 a bu., peanut oil, 280% to 13-c- a lb.; butter, 38% to 37-c- a lb. Thus cash farm income this year may hit a smacking $14 billion, highest since 1920.

Washington agronomists think 1942 may be a peak year for farm production, that next year's total will be little if any higher-- partly because this year's crops are big enough, partly because labor, machinery and fertilizer shortages will make more trouble next year. The Department of Agriculture will try to get a slight increase in cotton production (most for cottonseed oil). It wishes it could cut wheat quotas below the 5$,000,000-acre minimum set by Congress (TIME, June 22). But it wants more feed grains (corn, oats, barley and grain sorghums), more rice, more sugar cane, more potatoes--and another whopping increase in soybeans, peanuts and flaxseed.

With these crops will grow strange rowfellows like hemp (for rope, now that Manila is gone), guayule, Mexican rubber vine and milkweed (for rubber), and even daisies (for insecticides).

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