As an indication, take our valve plant. We established it eighteen miles out in the country so that the workers could also be farmers. By the use of machinery farming need not consume more than a fraction of the time it now consumes; the time nature requires to produce is much larger than that required for the human contribution of seeding, cultivating, and harvesting; in many industries where the parts are not bulky it does not make much difference where they are made. By the aid of water power they can well be made out in farming country. Thus we can, to a much larger degree than is commonly known, have farmer-industrialists who both farm and work under the most scientific and healthful conditions. That arrangement will care for some seasonal industries; others can arrange a succession of products according to the seasons and the equipment, and still others can, with more careful management, iron out their seasons. A complete study of any specific problem will show the way.
The periodic depressions are more serious because they seem so vast as to be uncontrollable. Until the whole reorganization is brought about, they cannot be wholly controlled, but each man in business can easily do something for himself and while benefiting his own organization in a very material way, also help others. The Ford production has not reflected good times or bad times; it has kept right on regardless of conditions excepting from 1917 to 1919, when the factory was turned over to war work. The year 1912-1913 was supposed to be a dull one; although now some call it "normal"; we all but doubled our sales; 1913-1914 was dull; we increased our sales by more than a third. The year 1920-1921 is supposed to have been one of the most depressed in history; we sold a million and a quarter cars, or about five times as many as in 1913-1914—the "normal year." There is no particular secret in it. It is, as is everything else in our business, the inevitable result of the application of a principle which can be applied to any business.
We now have a minimum wage of six dollars a day paid without reservation. The people are sufficiently used to high wages to make