The Agricultural Outlook for 1926

Excerpts from the report: During the last year agriculture as a whole has made further progress toward normal stability. Apparently the heavy net movement of population away from the farms has declined. Farmers have paid off a substantial amount of indebtedness. Increased sales of fertilizers, machinery, fencing, and building materials indicate that the farm productive plant is being restored. The trend of total crop acreage has been slightly downward in recent years, while population has been steadily increasing. The production of the principal crops has been at approximately the 1919 level during the last three years. Marketings of meat animals, on the other hand, declined materially during 1925 and represent the turn from the peak of the animal production cycle, reached in 1924. In short, agricultural production has been so readjusted that the farming industry as a whole is now in the best general position since 1920. An important feature of this readjustment has been the better general balance finally achieved in livestock production. However, feed-crop acreages last year were so large that the production of most of these crops resulted in prices too low to be satisfactory to those who raise such crops for sale. Farm products, taken all together, still stand at a disparity in exchange for industrial goods and services. Any general expansion in production at this time would tend to place agriculture in a less favorable economic position.