Prospects at this time look very flattering for a prosperous year ahead, with plenty of moisture in the ground, at this time, we have a very favorable outlook for a good crop.

For the past two or three years we have been shipping to the packers, lots of cows and heifers, and we now have noticeable shortage of the stuff on the farm, a fact which is bound to make cattle high for some time to come.

The late spring has made it difficult for farmers to save the early pigs. The high price and scarcity of corn has caused many a good brood sow to go to market instead of remaining on the farm for breeding purposes, and I look for very high prices for hogs during the next year. With a good corn crop we will see a scramble among our farmers to get back in the hog business.

Lowering the tax on money, in my estimation will reduce interest rates on farm loans. The most of our retiring farmers would rather leave their surplus money in first mortgage loan on a good old Cass county farm, than to take it out of the state for investment in cheap lands, providing he can receive a fair income from it. Under the new law he can loan it for 5 per cent and it will net him 4 1/2 per cent after his taxes are paid, no matter whether he lives in the country or in any city in Iowa. This fact will make money easier to borrow on good farms which will tend to make prices steadily advance on our best producing farms. Renters with a few thousand saved up, will be able to purchase farms with a small payment down and the balance on long time at a cheap rate of interest, from men who wish to retire, and they will eventually be land owners, instead of wasting their energies moving from place to place each year.

If the farmers are prosperous, we in other loines of business will prosper with them.