Life's Pleasures Quote by David F. Houston

A sentence like this doesn’t just ask farmers to grow more corn; it drafts them into a national project. Houston’s word choice is the tell. “Duty” turns an economic decision into a moral obligation, implying that planting choices aren’t private business but civic behavior subject to public judgment. “At this time” quietly signals emergency without naming it, the kind of vague timestamp politicians use when they want compliance without inviting debate about how long the sacrifice will last.

The specificity of “individual farmer” matters, too. It bypasses institutions and speaks to a lone actor, as if the state can’t afford friction with middlemen, markets, or local politics. That rhetorical move flatters autonomy while tightening responsibility: if shortages persist, the failure can be localized and personalized. The phrase “increase his production” also carries an industrial logic into agriculture, treating land and labor as scalable outputs rather than seasonal, ecological systems. It’s a command shaped like common sense.

Historically, Houston served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture during World War I, when food became strategy: feeding troops, stabilizing allies, managing domestic morale, and preventing inflation from turning into unrest. “Particularly of food crops” is a quiet rebuke to farmers tempted by more lucrative non-food production; patriotism is positioned as a corrective to market incentives.

The subtext is transactional: the government will likely mobilize prices, credit, rail priorities, and propaganda, but the farmer is expected to internalize the mission. It’s wartime rhetoric disguised as practical advice, turning the plow into a piece of national defense.