It is suggested as the only effective way out of the difficulty that farmers organize into powerful bargaining organizations, which, on occasion, can practice sabotage as skillfully as capital or union labor. But, in addition, and above all, it is absolutely necessary to become extraordinarily efficient. We must continue to apply our best brains to production problems, perfecting methods which will enable us to produce corn 10 cents a bushel cheaper in Iowa than in Argentina. PRICE STABILITY AND SOIL FERTILITY One of the strongest arguments for more stable prices is the effect on soil fertility. While the best farmers will try to maintain the fertility of their land, no matter what may be the economic outlook, the bulk of our farming population will not make any serious efforts along this line as long as the price outlook is uncertain. When prices are advancing, the tendency is for millions of acres of farm land to find their way into the hands of speculators and investors, who hold for a rise, and who take no interest whatever in the application of lime and phosphate or the growing of clover. When prices are tending downward, there is a tendency to economize to the limit. Even those farmers who normally use fertilizers are likely to postpone purchases until next year or the year after, in the hope of lower prices. It is only under a system of relatively stable prices that we may expect really effective attention to be given to soil fertility problems by the bulk of our farmers. The quicker we can get onto a stable price level, the more effectively will the fertility of our soil be conserved. It is common observation that live stock farming maintains the fertility of the soil more effectively than grain farming. In the corn belt, live stock farms ordinarily produce five bushels more corn per acre than grain farms. Two great obstacles to live stock farming are tenancy and price uncertainty. The man of small means who has been farming for himself for only a few years can not afford to take a chance. He does not know whether or not hogs will be at a price next year which will furnish a good market for corn, and he therefore plays safe by breeding only three or four sows, instead of the five or six which he might very well handle. Unquestionably, the farmers in the corn belt would be justified in keeping more live stock if the price of live stock should represent cost of production day by day and month by month. In fact, corn belt farmers, as an average of a five-year period, could probably afford to produce both hogs and cattle at lower relative prices than were customary before the war, if only prices were more nearly stable, if they could feel reasonably sure of getting a price more nearly representing production cost.