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Show s WHY FARMING MUST BE SCIENTIFIC. - Ottawa, 111. Trader: The Econo-miste Econo-miste Francais, speaking recently of the demands of Europe on America for cereals, anticipates a day in the near future when this country may cease to be an exporter of gram and meat, owing to thehomc demands of the population of the nation, With an immigration of over a million a year, and the augmentation of the population by births alone by 2 per cent per annum, while for the most par$ there is no increase of rural population, either there must eventually event-ually be, in the absence of any possible pos-sible increase in the area of the farm lands, a decline to secondary importance import-ance of the nation as a "grain exporter or a large increase in the yield per acre. Hitherto it has been necessary only to conquer new lands in order to enlarge en-large our yield of grain; but for obvious ob-vious reasons, as the Economists points out to those who may not have realized it, "running back sever- PRESIDENT ANTHON H. LUND, FOUNDER OF THE A. C. U. Hon. Anton H. Lund, who is the father of the ibill creating our State Agricultural College. There is probably prob-ably no man in the state who is more universally admired and respected than is President Lund. He is a man of splendid education, liberal views, and warm sympathies, and his efforts have always been directed toward the improvement pf agricultural conditions condi-tions in tht west. The Agricultural College has always been a source of pride to President Lund, and he rejoices re-joices in the fact that hundreds of young men have hod in that institution institu-tion an opportunity to qualify themselves them-selves for a more intimate knowledge of the .common things of the farm. President Lund believes in farmers' schools, u farmers' institutes, in fajrm journals and in all of the factors thaf 0 to make for a 'better fawn life, ,rfrm al years, one is obligated to admit M H that the area under cultivation in the M United States is increasing but slow- M ly," and that "only in the wholly new fl regions, such. as thcDakotas, Texfcs M and the Pacific states, can any sub- fl stantial increase in the rural popula- H tion be seen." In the meantime, our H arable lands arc "growing old" and H losing somewhat of their virgin ferti- H lity. It docs not follow, however, that H on that account our yield should be H less per acre; indeed', in some of our H older states the yields of wheat, -e, g , H arc greater per acre than in the newer states of the West. But it does fol- low that there must be a -change of H method extensive farming must give H way before the intensive methods H based on agricultural science; the H science of the schools and the labora- torics must take the place, or, rather supplement, the empirical knowledge of the practical farmer. When this is done there is no reason why a yield of 30 bushels, or more, of wheat may H not t be grown, as in England, ot I American wheat lands that now yield not over 16 bushels. And so of all our .cereals. Hitherto we have farm H cd with riotous waste of natural soil tcsourccs; hereafter we itiust needs conserve them or starve. |