"With labor at $5 per day and board and every item of expense at a level cannot break even in $8 for hay. But what can we do. A quarantine has been placed on Idaho hay by other states. This is for the purpose of forcing the farmers to sell to the sheep men. We cannot ship out of the state and must sell to stockmen inside the state, spring, after the sheep men have had all the hay they need, the quarantine will be raised next spring, just as it was raised last spring when Idaho hay was shipped by the train lead to Montana and other states."
Mr. Fairchild painted a rather gloomy picture of the future for the farming industry, especially in the irrigated districts. He said that almost every farm is mortgaged and while the farmer is being told to "look at the high value of your land" when he complains of making no profit, the fact is that farmers will soon be "land poor" for there will be sale of land. He predicted a drop in prices of all farm products below the cost of production unless something is done soon to prevent it, and pictured failures among farmers of the west who are deeply in debt.
Mr. Fairchild says he owns 300 acres of irrigated land between Boise and Nampa and during the war he farmed 200 acres of it. Now he has much of it rented out, having four crops raised alfalfa and grain.
Next, no tenants, and says the expense of farming is increasing, while the price of farm products is steadily declining, said men cannot raise alfalfa hay and put it in the stack for $8 per ton. 