Farm failure rates in the U. S. reached historic heights in the inter-war years. We estimate the dynamic relationship between farm earnings and farm failures and assess the effectiveness of government intervention - state farm foreclosure moratoria, an expanded federal role in farm mortgage lending, and the programs instituted under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Our empirical results indicate that the influence of past earnings on farm failures is important and complex. Our counterfactual estimates of a world without government programs suggest that government intervention saved about two hundred thousand farms from failure.