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ducer, he has been aided by the government. "Our attention has been concentrated almost exclusively," says the introduction of the report of the Country Life Commission, "on getting better farming. ... Practically the whole of this effort has hitherto been directed towards increasing the production of crops. In the beginning this was unquestionably the right thing to do. The farmer must first of all grow good crops in order to support himself and his family. But when this has been secured, the effort for better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be accompanied by the effort for better business and better living on the farm." Thus the cotton growers of the South were taught how to increase the production of cotton, upon the theory that it is a blessing to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. But the report of the Secretary of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange states that while the cotton crop of 1911-12 increased by four million bales over the 1910-11 crop, the price received by the planter was over one hundred million dollars less. On the other hand, the crop of 1909-10 showed a falling off in production over 1908-09 by over three million bales, but an increase in value of a hundred million dollars. Thus in 1911 the energies of the Southern planters, devoted to cotton production, resulted in overproduction of this one crop and an under-production of other crops which the South needed, such as corn and hay, and also swine. In various important public meetings and congresses in the South, the farmers there have sought to stabilize their net returns by limiting the output of cotton to regular trade demands, while at the same time increasing their output of food crops and other crops needed by the South. This move for "limitation of output" has been misunderstood by the public since the practice itself has been associated with some of the methods of industrial warfare used by some radical labor unionists. In the case of the Southern planters, however, the agitation has been to produce a different output, not a smaller output-different crops, not smaller crops. It signifies a groping after a method of coördinating supply and demand. Lack of a balanced production is true for all the great staple crops, such as wheat and oats, for instance.

The wheat farmers produced a bumper crop in 1906, seven hundred and thirty-five million bushels. In 1907 they produced a hundred million bushels less, but got sixty million dollars more for it.

The farmers in 1910 produced the enormous quantity of 1,186,000,000 bushels of oats with a farm value of $408,000,000. Next year they produced a crop of two hundred million bushels less,

but with a farm value of six million dollars more. In 1912 they increased the oats production by the unprecedented amount of five hundred million bushels, but the crop value only increased thirty-eight million dollars. Hence the problem of producing more is not the only problem of the farmer. It is no longer his greatest problem. He must produce more of the right thing. As Sir Horace says, the problem of better business must be solved if agriculture is longer to compare favorably with the other great industries.

Industrial Concentration. The most striking economic difference between agriculture and the other great industries up to the present time is exhibited in the extent of organization and concentration in the general industries, on the one hand, as against the lack of organization and centralization in agriculture, on the other hand. Some evidence on this point will make the situation clear.

Lumber. The Report of the Bureau of Corporations on the lumber industry (January 20, 1913), in speaking of our standing timber, says that these three facts are shown by the investigation: (1) the concentration of a dominating control of our standing timber in a comparatively few enormous holdings steadily tending toward a central control of the lumber industry; (2) vast speculative purchase and holding of timberland far in advance of any use thereof; (3) an enormous increase in the value of this diminishing natural resource, with great profits to its owners. This value, by the very nature of standing timber, the holder neither created nor substantially enhances. Forty years ago, continues the report, at least three-fourths of the timber now standing was (it is estimated) publicly owned. It passed from Government to private ownership. The three largest holders are now the Southern Pacific Company, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, and the Northern Pacific Railway Company. "The Southern Pacific Company holdings," continued the report, "is the greatest in the United States one hundred and six billion feet. It is difficult to give an adequate idea of its immensity. It stretches practically six hundred and eighty miles along that railroad between Portland and Sacramento. The fastest train over this distance takes thirty-one hours. During all that time the traveler thereon is passing through lands a large proportion of which for thirty miles on each side belongs to the railroad, and in almost the entire strip this corporation is the dominating owner of both timber and land."

"These three holdings have enough standing timber to build an ordinary five- or six-room frame house for each of the sixteen million families in the United States in 1900." The holdings of

OTHER INDUSTRIES

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the two railroad companies are government grants, and 80 per cent of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company holding was bought from the Northern Pacific grant. By an interweaving of interest, corporate and personal, and by interlocking directorates, there is a further real concentration of control of a great many large holdings which on the surface appear to be separate holdings. With the concentration in timber is also the concentration in the land which remains after the timber has been cut. In Florida 182 large timber holders have over 16,990,000 acres, nearly one-half the land area of the state. In the area investigated by the Bureau of Corporations, the large timber holders had 89,744,000 acres an area greater than the ten northeastern states, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.

To this concentration in timber and land must be added a closely connected railroad domination. "Still more impressive," continues the report, "are the possibilities for the future. In the last forty years concentration has so proceeded that one hundred and ninety-five holders, many interrelated, now have practically one-half of the privately owned timber in the investigation area (which contains 80 per cent of the whole). This formidable process of concentration, in timber and in land, certainly involves grave future possibilities of impregnable monopolistic conditions, whose far-reaching consequences to society it is now difficult to anticipate fully or to overestimate. Such are the past history, present status, and apparent future of our timber resources. The underlying cause is our public land policy, resulting in enormous loss of wealth to the public and its monopolization by a few interests. It lies before us now as a forcible object lesson for the future management of all the natural resources still remaining in the hands of the Government."

Other Industries.-Turning now to other industries, we find similar tendencies at work. The concentration of control of a large portion of our banking, railroad, and manufacturing industries in the hands of a few men-of one hundred and eighty men in fact was shown by the Federal money trust investigation in 1912 and 1913. This small group of one hundred and eighty men, by a system of interlocking directorates, were shown to be represented in the directorships of corporations having total resources or capitalization of $25,325,000,000. They held, to specify more in detail, three hundred and eighty-five directorships in forty-five banks and trust companies having total resources and deposits of

$6,666,000,000; fifty directorships in eleven insurance companies having total assets of $2,646,000,000; one hundred and fifty-five directorships in thirty-one railroad systems having a total capitalization of $12,193,000,000 and a total mileage of one hundred sixty-three thousand, two hundred; six directorships in two express companies and four directorships in one steamship company with a combined capital of $245,000,000 and gross income of $97,000,000; ninety-eight directorships in twenty-eight manufacturing, producing, and trading corporations having a total capitalization of $3,583,000,000 and total gross annual earnings in excess of $1,145,000,000; and forty-eight directorships in nineteen public utility corporations having a total capitalization of $2,826,000,000 and total gross annual earnings in excess of $428,000,000; in all seven hundred and forty-six directorships in one hundred and thirty-four corporations with total resources or capitalization of $25,325,000,000. It is impossible to grasp the magnitude of this figure, but it may help to compare it with the value of all the farm land in the United States in 1900, which was but $28,475,000,000.

The interlocking nature of this concentrated control may be illustrated by the following examples. The firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., of New York, had three directorships in the Northern Pacific Railway. This firm also had three directorates in the Astor Trust Co. and the Astor Trust Co. had two directorates in the Northern Pacific, as well as two in the Southern Pacific. In brief, the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. had twenty-three directorships in thirteen banks and trust companies, which companies in turn had fifteen directorships in the Northern Pacific Railroad and eight in the Southern Pacific. To illustrate further the concentrating tendency in banking, railroading, and manufacturing, attention is called to the fact that the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., together with four neighboring banks in the city of New York, held three hundred and forty-one directorships in one hundred and twelve corporations having aggregate resources or capitalization of $22,245,000,000. To carry the illustration of this tendency yet a step further, the fact may be cited that Mr. J. P. Morgan testified,' that he named the entire board of directors of the United States Steel Corporation. This was a corporation capitalized at $1,400,000,000, with some fifteen thousand stockholders, yet Mr. Morgan, owning but a small fraction of the stock, found the power of control of the corporation entrusted very largely to his judgment. Thus the

1 Dec. 19, 1912.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT

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institutions above mentioned, especially the banks and railroads, control resources vastly in excess of what they own. They gain thereby an importance and a mobilized economic power which is impressive when compared with the unorganized agricultural industry. It is only fair to state that most of the great "captains of industry," so-called, have used their economic power in a constructive manner. And this is particularly true of the late J. P. Morgan, whose control and direction of big commercial investments was conspicuously successful and made more money for others than it did for himself. Hence the secret of his power.

A similar condition exists in Canadian agriculture, a country forming with the United States an economic and ethnic unit. A recent issue of the Grain Growers' Guide of Winnipeg 2 discussed the question, "Who owns Canada?" The conclusion reached was that forty-two men controlled $4,000,000,000 in resources, or more than one-third of Canada's total wealth in railroads, banks, factories, mines, and lands. The railroads had been favored, says this report, with cash grants, $208,072,073; with land grants, 56,052,055 acres; and with bond guarantees, $245,070,045. The forty-two men named in the article hold directorships in the following institutions; thirty directorships in financial institutions; forty-two directorships in transportation companies; fourteen directorships in insurance companies; and one hundred and eighteen directorships in industrial and other corporations.

Will Farmers Own the Farm Land?-The question suggests itself at this point, will not the ownership of our farm lands eventually pass largely into the hands of a small group of capitalists, just as we have had concentration of control of our other great industries? There are evidently many tendencies at work making for this very outcome; there are, however, opposing tendencies in operation which must also be taken into consideration. The question is a most serious one, as England and Ireland and other countries have already found out. But the discussion of this problem must be postponed to the chapter dealing with land tenure.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT

1. State and explain the rank of agriculture among our industries formerly and now.

2. Cite census figures as evidence of this change.

3. Comment on the increase in value of farm lands.

4. Compare the great industries as to the number of persons engaged in each. 5. Compare the great industries as to the amount of capital invested. The same for the value of the product.

2 June 25 1913.