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14. THOMSON, EDWARD H.: "Farm Bookkeeping," Farmers Bulletin 511, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington.

15. Bexell, J. A.: "The Business Side of Farming," Farm Records, Oregon Agricultural College, Corvallis, 1909.

16. ANDERSON, A. C., AND RIDDELL, F. T.: "Studies in the Cost of Market Milk Production," Bulletin 277, Michigan Agricultural College, December, 1916. 17. LADD, C. E.: "Cost Accounts on Some New York Farms," Bulletin 377, Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, June, 1916.

18. HENNIS, C. M., AND WILLARD, REX E.: "Farm Practices in Grain Farming in North Dakota," Bulletin 757, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1919.

19. "Cost of Producing the 1918 Cotton Crop." By the Department of Agriculture of Texas. Austin Texas, 1918.

20. Farm Account Book. Prepared by Ohio Bankers Association and the Agricultural Extension Service of the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 21. "Report of the Governor's Tri-State Milk Commission" (Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware). Bulletin 287, Department of Agriculture, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1917.

22. LADD, C. E.: "A System of Farm Cost Accounting," Farmers' Bulletin No. 572, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1914; Reprinted 1915.

APPENDIX

Cost of Production of Corn, Barley, Oats and Wheat.-As an example of the work being done by the leading state experiment stations in determining cost of producing farm crops, the following tables are given, taken from the station at Ames, Iowa. The figures were compiled in 1917, using $2.00 as the cost of man labor per day, and $1.50 as the cost of horse labor per day.

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3. Cutting with binder.
Shocking.

Husking from shock.

4. Cutting with binder.
Stacking..

.10

.027

.137

.164

.021

.010

.137

.168

.021

.006

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Total cost per acre..

$12.945

Yield-42.89 bu. Cost per bu.-.302.

Cost of Producing Winter Wheat Per Acre (Iowa), 1917

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Cost of Producing Spring Wheat Per Acre (Iowa), 1917

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261

Average Annual Hours of Labor Per Acre in Producing Field Crops, 1902-1912

(Minnesota)

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Farm Accounting-a Backward Science. An Example from England.— "The general absence amongst farmers of any system whatever of bookkeeping is a deplorable fact. The Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression of 1897 clearly showed that this bad habit was very general. In one district of about 50,000 acres, only one farmer could be found who kept accounts. Some years ago the agricultural correspondent of the Yorkshire Post inspected a large number of farms in Yorkshire, and only in one case out of a hundred farms visited were any accounts whatever kept. This is sad, and all the more so as the art of bookkeeping is an easily acquired one."-Jackson, T. C., The Agricultural Holdings Acts, 1908-1914, and Tenant-Right Valuation. London, 1917, p. 181.

CHAPTER XVII

SPECULATION

THERE are in the higher courts in the United States to-day one thousand judges, more or less, whose duty it is to interpret the Federal and State laws. That such a large body of specially trained men is necessary to construe the meaning of carefully-framed statutes illustrates very strikingly the looseness of meaning which is likely to attach to even deliberately chosen words. Little wonder is it, therefore, that many words current in the daily speech of the people have such a looseness and vagueness of meaning that they mean different things to different people, and to the same people at different times. The word speculation is a word which stands out conspicuously in this class of popular but indefinite terms. This means that there is confused thinking on this important topic, where clear thinking is needed. There is vagueness where there should be sharp distinctions. Before discussing what speculation is, what its services are and its evils, it will be the wisest course for us to differentiate sharply a few terms which are frequently confused with speculation.

Some Misused Terms.-(1) Hoarding. In times of stress, particularly in war times or in times of great scarcity of any focd commodity, the word "hoarding" is freely used in a depreciative sense. It is true that in ordinary times, when the thrifty housewife stocks up her cellars in the autumn with an ample hoard of apples, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, pickles, preserves, jellies, jams, butters, canned fruits and vegetables, and so on, she is considered as doing a highly praiseworthy thing. When a dealer, however, buys from the farmer in the autumn apples and potatoes and stores these in a suitable warehouse, for use later on, this dealer is likely to be denounced as a speculator and guilty of "hoarding." If apples and potatoes are harvested only in the warmer months of the year, which is nature's provision, and if these same products are to be eaten in part in the cold months of the year, which is man's custom, manifestly these products must be "hoarded" by somebody, who is performing thereby a public service. In the ancient sense of the word, hoarding implied secrecy, but as the term is now applied to the dealers in agricultural products it has no such connotation. Potatoes stored in a

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warehouse for the winter by a farmers' coöperative potato growers' association or farmers' coöperative elevator company, is, in popular speech, not hoarding; potatoes stored in an adjoining warehouse owned by a dealer is, in popular speech, hoarding. Evidently the term is used to connote a practice tainted with evil. Such a word, used in such a manner, may shed much heat and but little light on the subject under discussion. The term does not correctly define or describe. On the contrary, it is a subtle appeal to the feelings, to prejudice. The "hoarder" of potatoes in the fall of 1918 paid the growers one dollar a bushel, and sold these same potatoes (if they had not decayed in the winter) for seventy-five cents a bushel in March following. Such a decline in price in the spring happens with unpredictable regularity with all farm crops. "Hoarding," therefore, is a word which should be no longer used in the present heedless and unthinking manner.

(2) Cornering the Markets. Under primitive market conditions, particularly where means of transportation were lacking, shrewd and bold dealers were wont to corner the market for short periods. Many the laws, ancient and modern, against this antisocial practice! Under twentieth century conditions this condemned practice is of sporadic occurrence, particularly in the unorganized markets. On the organized grain exchanges, in contrast, where strict rules exist against this practice, it is now practically extinct. The last cornering of the wheat market occurred during the World War, and was done quite unintentionally by the Allies in buying certain grades of wheat in excess of the supply of these grades. In other words, contracts for the best grades of wheat were made, not to corner the market and affect price, but to secure actual wheat in large and certain quantities. Cornering, long under the social and legal ban, is still confused by many writers and speakers with speculation. Speculation is going on every day, and much of it unavoidably so, while cornering exists in but rare and isolated cases. The two terms should not be used as synonyms, although this slovenly habit of thinking and speaking is all too common.

(3) Cash and Future Trading.-Again, the popular vocabulary betrays an irresponsible looseness of thinking concerning that phase of the grain trade having to do with cash as against future trading in grain. The phrase "speculation in grain" is quite generally applied to future trading. And, conversely, trading in cash grain is quite generally regarded by the public as free from "speculation." Many bills introduced in State legislatures indi

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