If prices were going up, so, happily, was the farmer's income. After four years in the fever-land of falling incomein part induced by price-depressing surplusesthe farmer has reached a turning point. His condition is better and his prospects are good, reported Department of Agriculture economists last week. Realized net farm income is up 4% over 1955 and should rise an additional percentage point next year.
Why the upturn? A "decisive" factor, explained Agriculture's Economist Frederick V. Waugh, was "government programs," e.g., the Administration-sponsored soil bank, which last September began to pay farmers to withdraw 12 million acres from production and put them...