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Show BP : FIB; Mi f OWE HUJ Oil lUTil'S I DUMIilEl 1 MV By James J Hill Famous Railroad Builder and Financier : Drawing. By-Homer Davenport. , ' " ' " If Bf? ,, ... ... ... , . Copyright, 1911, by C. J. Mar, for "Publishers' Press. ,11 I HV.'. 'm 4u well lhat the I It Wlll.nnf Mil ii can people should . farmer depends in future- of our country. A as any future event Ration of the United 000.000 by about the nt century, or In less ?Ws Is proved by the according to clroum-mes clroum-mes lift both the im-I im-I the .domestic birth Ion decreases both. Immaterial Millions ng will see the 200,-1 200,-1 and the first ques-rc ques-rc to be fed. There rc problems In such but we may for the all the others until suppose."01 advanco as as many Wo grew 504.185.470 bushels " In ni,m,lc,IK0f tUP new Inds of tL west latlon iucreaef anO.OOor" S bread S II V J5"01111' nnd ',enanrt ?oT-nrci ?oT-nrci J v. Ill not keep pace throuh tlir working: of any law of nature. C Moreover, the Increase of possible wlmit .yield by increasing acreage is 11m tVd vi have no longer an unlimited p ubHe do-main do-main awaiting the plow. There will Up, some grown upon reclaimed arid and though this is mostly devoted to he raisins 0f fri.it and fodder pla ts There n "J SOme ,n,nd (lrai"cd. and there are a few acres of public lands left whore wheat may be raised. cic But o. denser population makes new demands de-mands upon the soil, and It is more like- &m 1 U,C Vh0! lnat tl,c lioat acreage will ho reduced, for raising nil the other commodities consumed by two hundred largod! PCPlC' l,mn lhat 11 wl be en-Xothing en-Xothing but a material rise in price could accomplish this; and we may. per haps, assume that a steady and certain price of one dollar for wheat may raise our total annual product to 900.000,000 bushels, which would bo 50 per cent more .than Its present average. This Is tho extreme limit of probability. The country could, under present methods, meth-ods, do no more unless it took land Just as necessary for other purposes, and devoted de-voted It to wheat raising. In that case it would only Imitate the man who tried to make the legs of his trousers longer by cutting strips ofT the bottom and sew-In?: sew-In?: them around tho waistband. Wc are left, practically, with a shortage short-age of 400.000,000 bushels In our wheat supply, even supposing that we consume every grain that we raise. This amount we should have to procure from some other source. Where are we to get It, and how Is it to be paid for? This Is the vital question, and as an answer is imperative It is well thai some of the brightest minds In the country ure turned toward the farm and the solution of this and other problems connected with the farming Interests. The true statement Is this: That this countrv cannot feed the population which It must necessarily have within a comparatively com-paratively few years If It does not change Its agricultural methods. The emphasis is all on that conditional clause. Germany, which sets the pace for the world In commercial expansion abroad and Industrial activity at home, has :!00 inhabitants to the square mile. There arc less than thirty per square milo In the whole United Slates, II. could support 150 to tho square mile ns easily as any country in the world. Some of our states already have over twice that many. I3ul no such population as this, nono such as wo must inevitably oxpect in tho United States by the middle of the present century, cen-tury, can be maintained unless wo Improve Im-prove and keep on Improving our agricultural agri-cultural methods; unless wo apply to tho tilling of the soil that system of high scientific development, of intensive cultivation, culti-vation, of rigid economic handling that has become tho rule In all other Industrie. Indus-trie. "We cannot support our coming' population popula-tion upon the crop yield per acre that now satisfies us. We have to transform a growing decline In the value nnd productivity pro-ductivity of our soil under continued cultivation cul-tivation Into n rapid Increase In both. Tf the crisis can be soon moving upon us now. and If it took Great Britain over half a conturv to raise hr wheat yield from about 15 bushels to -32 bushels per acre, wc have tio time to lose. What has to be considered, the keynote of all pres ent discussion, is not the difficulty but the urgency of, the lask. The whole argument argu-ment Is one not of despair out of-reassurance; provided only that we do the ob- and'do hdnow,S!,bIU and fcaslb,c thIS. nnnn?o,(man.d- 1,1 lllG shnPc Increased ?nni ,s , reasonably definite: the f P.E y ln thP forrn of r01 Products, depends de-pends upon two factors land and labor. "e'is ,of "c future if the area or the Mon -There is no other possible solu- Area Is Inelastic.' Our public binds fJm mam.,v 0:vnuBte(I. A few more years om,i f t ,e, ,asf of thc,n- 'est they u P l, n!i,bc "pandered quickly enough ,w ?L?iV Y "ffer, u,e,n 10 everybody un-' fraud, but when the government finds lt- inl vn;,1!f,n,Cfw,l,, !i particularly choice and valuable tract of farm land it holds nii?,ttoryi n.lld ll8trI"tes It among Tom. Dick and Harry, no matter whether rarmcrs or speculators, after they have been collected from distant parts of the SSmMi1" by PoaHnP ie passion for S, "ft The areas to bo obtained by teclan union work would not. all told, lakc-cnio lakc-cnio of our Increase for two years. Sr.' there are final limits already in sight to the quantity of tillable land. The productivity of the soil and tho food supply as compared with acreage and with population both decline. Our total agricultural product has been growing grow-ing so rapidly and so Immensely that wo find it hard to. renlizo that this may bo entirely consistent with failure, at the same time, to keep p&ce with the growth of national needs. The public is Impressed by the statement state-ment that tho Increase In the value of farm products In the eight years from JSflO to 1007 was from 54,717.000.000 to 37,412.000.000. or 57 per cent, and that from 181)7 lo 1007 the strictly agricultural crops corn, hay. wheat, cotton, oats potatoes, barlev and rye increased ln value nearly $2.000000,000. or 05 per cent. These are facts that strike tho imagination, imagi-nation, and the Increase last year alono of 5:170,000,000 In the value of farm products prod-ucts ir. encouraging. Yet It Is neither wine nor safe to take these conclusions at their face value and declare, without further fur-ther inquiry, that everything is going to come out for tho best In this best of all possible worlds without any forethought, earn or direction on our part. And it Is onlv ordinary business sense and sanity to analyze the returns and see where wc stand with reference to the future. Fluctuations In prices may change totals expressed in dollars Into something very dIXfercnt when they are expressed In bushes or pounds. Wealth aggregates may bo swollon by marking up goodr, as well as by adding to stock on hand. Congratulations Con-gratulations upon prosperity are all right, but It Is still better to make sure that the prosperity Ik real and that it will remain. re-main. There, aro ton states In the union in which the wheat crop was less In 1908 than it wns In 1S8S. Twenty years have cut this staple food product. In many cases, more than one-half. They aro not all the oldest and poorest soils originally. Both the total crop of this country and its yield per acre have been maintained by resort to now soils not yet robbed of their fertility. The yield per acre, with singularly few exceptions, is falling In ordinary years. Consumption per capita tends to increase, and new population adds from IK, 000, 000 to 15.000.000 bushels every year to the demand. de-mand. This is not il prophecy of disaster, but a plain statemont of fact that any mnn can verify for himself. Tho figures arc all drawn from tho official publication's publica-tion's of the United States government. The situation Is In no sense desperate, because wo know exactly how it can he met. but If we arc Intelligent men wo will face It fahly and inquire wbat we ought to do. There are two wnys In which the productive pro-ductive power of the earth is lessened. First, by erosion and the sweeping away of the fertile surface into streams' and thence to the sea: and. second, bv exhaustion ex-haustion through wrong methods of cultivation. cul-tivation. The foimer process has gone" far. Thousands of acres In tho cast and south huvc been made unfit for tillage. I North Carolina was, a century ago, one 1 of tho great agricultural states of the country and one of tho wealthiest. Today ns you ride through the south you see everywhere land gullied by torrential rains, red and yellow clay banks exposed where once wore fertile fields, and agrl-cultute agrl-cultute reduced because Its main support has been washed away. Millions of acres, in places to the extent of one-tenth of the entire arable area, have been Injured so lhat no Industry and no care can restore them. Par more ruinous, because universal and continuing In Its effects, is tho process of soil exhaustion. It Is creeping over the land from cast to west. Tho. abandoned farms that are now the playthings of tho city's rich or the game preserves of patrons pa-trons of sport bear witness to the melancholy melan-choly change. New Hampshire. Vermont and nolhern New York show long lists of them. In western .Massachusetts, which once supported sup-ported a flourishing agriculture, farm properties are now for sale for. half the cast of the Improvements. Professor Carver of Harvard has declared, after a personal examination of tho country, that "agriculture as an independent Industry, In-dustry, able In itself to support a community, com-munity, docs not. exist in the hilly parts of Now Iingland." Tho same process of deterioration Is affecting tho farm lands of wnstern New York, Ohio and Indiana. Whore prices of farms should rise by increase of population, popu-lation, In many places they aro falling, Between 1S80 ami 1000 the land values of Ohio shrunk $(10,000,000. Official Investigation of two counties In conlnfl New York disclosed a. condition of agricultural decay. In one land was for salo for about tho cost of improvements, nnd 1")0 vacant houses were counted In a limited aroa. In the other tho population popula-tion In 1005 was nearly 1000 less than In lfir.5. Practically Identical soil conditions exist ex-ist In Maryland and Virginia, where lands sell at from J10 to $30 an acre. In a hearing' before an Industrial commission the chief of the bureau of soils of tho departmont of agriculture said: "Ono of tho most important causes of deterioration, deteriora-tion, and I think I should nut this first of all, Is the method and system of agriculture agri-culture that prevails throughout those slates. Unquestionably the soil tins been nbusod." The richest, region of the west Is no more exempt than Now ISngland or the south. The soil of the west Is being reduced re-duced in agricultural potency by exactly the same processes which h'avo driven the farmer of the cast, with all his advantage of nearness to markets, from tho field. Within the last forty yeara a great part of the richest land In the country has been brought under cultivation. We should, therefore. In the same time, have raised proportionately the yield of our principal crops per acre, because tho yield of old lands. If properly treated, tends to increase rather than diminish. I'he year 1906 was one of large crops and can scarcely be taken as a standard. W'o produced, for example, more corn that year than had ever been grown In the United States in a single year before. But tho avcAtgc yield per acre wns less than It was in 1S72. We are barely keeping keep-ing the acre product stationary. The average av-erage wheat crop of the country now ranges from 12i. in ordinary years, to 15 bushels per acre In the best seasons. And so It Is on down tho line But the fact of soil wustc becomes startllngly evident when wc examine tho record of some states where single cropping crop-ping and other agricultural abuses have been prevalent. Take the ease of wheat, tho mainstay of single-crop abuse Manv of us can remember when New York was the great wheat-producing state of the union. Tho average yield of wheat per acre In New York for tho last ten venrs was about IS bushels. For the first .flvo years of that 10-year period It was 18.4 bushels and for the la3t five 17.4 bushels. In the farther west, Kansas takes high .rank as a wheat producer. Its average yield per acre for the last ten years was 14.1C bushels. For the first five of these years It was 15.14 and for tho last five 13.18. Up In the northwest. Minnesota wheat has made a name all over the world Her average yield per acre for the same ten years was 12.96 bushels. For the first five years It was 13.12 and for the last five 12.8. Wc perceive here tho working work-ing of a uniform law. independent of location, lo-cation, sell or climate. It Is the law of a diminishing return due to soil destruction, destruc-tion, Apply this to the country at large, and it reduces agriculture to the condition condi-tion of a bank whose depositors are steadily drawing out more money than they put in. What is true in this instance is true of our agriculture as a whole. In no other important country In tho world, with the exception of Russia, is the industry that acre of ground In the shortest possible I time and with the least possible labor. This soli Is not mere dead matter, subject sub-ject to any Hort of treatment with impunity. im-punity. Chemically It contains elements which must be present ln certain proportions for the support of vegetation. Physically it is made up of matter which supplies the principal plant food. This food, with Its chemical constituents in proper admixture, ad-mixture, is furnished by the decomposition decomposi-tion of organic matter and t.hi disintegration disintegra-tion of mineral matter that proceed together. to-gether. Whatever disturbs cither factor of the process, whatever takes out of the soil an excessive amount of ono or more of the chemical elements upon which plant growth depends, ends in sterility. Any agricultural methods that move In this direction mean soil Impoverishment, present pres-ent returns at the cost of future loss, the exhaustion of the land exactly as the animal system Is enfeebled by lack of proper nourishment. Our agricultural lands have been abused In two principal ways; first.' bv single eropplng. and, second, by neglecting fertilization. fer-tilization. It Is fortunate for us that nature na-ture Is slow to anger and that we may arrest ar-rest the consequence of this ruinous policy pol-icy before It Is too late. In all parts of the United Stales, with only Isolated exceptions, the system of tillage has been to select the crop which would bring -in most money at the current cur-rent market rate, to plant that vear after year and to move on to virgin fields .-us soon as the old farm rebelled, by lowering the quality and quantity of Its return. It Is still the practice, although diversification diversifi-cation of industry and the rotation of crops have been urged for nearly a con-tury con-tury and are today taught in every agricultural agri-cultural college in this country. The demonstration of the evils of single sin-gle cropping Is mathematical ln its completeness. com-pleteness. At the experiment station of the agricultural college of the University of Minnesota they havo maintained 41 experimental ex-perimental plots of ground, adjoining one another, and as nearly Identical in soil, cultivation and care as scientific handling can make them. On these they have tried and compared different methods of crop IWered the primary one of 5S ft life. The food iaw "Vy collateral Issues, wy the matter of bread, 'ted Wfi to obtain loaves j? we coming millions? ?5ilir,r.Ly consumption of Mt fec?na!dcrably with P8. but It vises steadily VDuSt.7. advatlcing standard Su. 'hiJE a,,d 0ne-half bush-r? bush-r? wnicn is certainly within felfe Hnl arc to BDniv irbU-8hc,S 01 whci torn i&A we d,(1 x-eraBea x-eraBea r -,i1i?6 "'elusive iWoniv5,1'735-000 bushels bughif Lav7 we exceeded 60.000 on?!', fl lK falr "Mlsilon 0f course, w th total S co.me a some-m some-m l0lal Production, though must bo tho foundation of overy state ai so low an ebb as in our own. According to the last census the aver-ago aver-ago annual product per acre, of the farpu of the wholo United States was wortli rental in communities whore the soil b S1I.3S. It is little more than a respectable properly cared for and made to give a reasonable return for cultivation. Tohre wore but two states in the Union whose total value of farm products was more than $30 per acre of improved land. The groat state pf Illinois gave but 512.13. and Minnesota showed only $8.71, No discrimination attaches to those figures, fig-ures, where all are so much at fault. Nature has glvon to us the most valuable valu-able possession ever committed to man. It can never be duplicated, because there is none like It upon the face of tho earth. And wo arc racking and Impoverishing It exactly as wc aro felllnp: tho forests and rifling the mines. Our soil, once the envy of every other country, the attraction attrac-tion ywhich draws millions of Immigrants across the seas, gave an average yield for tho wholo United States during tho ten years beginning with 1896 of 13.5 bushels of wheat per" acre. Austria and Hungary each produced more than 17 bushels per acre. France 19.8. Germany 27.6 and the United Kingdom King-dom .".2.2 bushels per acre. For the same decade our averago yield of oats was less than 30 bushols. while Germany produced 46 and Great Britain 42. J?or barlev the figures aro 25. against 33 and 34.6: for rye. 15.4, against 24 for Germany and 26 for Ireland. In the United Kingdom, Bel-glum, Bel-glum, the Netherlands and Denmark, a yield of more than 30 bushels of wheat per acre has been the averago for the last five years. When the most fertile land In the world produces so much less than that of poorer quality elsewhere, nnd thin low yield shows a tendency to steady decline, the situation becomes clear. Wo rye robbing the soil in an effort to get the largcnt cash returns from each L rotation and fertilization, together with systems of single cropping-. Tho result of ton yoars' experiment are now . available. On a tract of good i ground sown continuously for ten years t to wheat the average yield por acre for : the first five years was 20.22 bushels and . for the next five 16,92 bushels. Where ; corn was grown continuously on one plot, : while on the plot beside II corn was planted but once ln five years in a system sys-tem of rotation, the average yield of the latter for the two years It was under , corn was 4S.2 bushels por acre. The plot where corn only was grown gave 20.S bushels jer acre for the first five and 11.1 bushols for the second five , of these years, an average of 16 bushels, i The difference of those two plots was 32,2 bushels or twice the total yield of the ground exhausted by tho sinsle crop i system. Tho corn grown at the end of the ten years was hardly hip high, the ears small and the grains light. But the cost of cultivation remained the same. And the same is true of every, other grain or growth when raised continuously on land unfertilized. We frequently hear II said that tho reduction in yield is due to the woarlng out of the soil, as If It wore n garmont to bo destroyed by tho woarlng. The fact is that soils either Increase or maintain their productivity lndeflnitclv under proper cultivation. if the earth, the great mother of human hu-man and animal life, is to "wear out," what is to become of the race? Tho two remedies aro as well ascertained ascer-tained ns Is the evil. Rotation of crops and the use of fertilizers act ns tonics upon tho Foil. Wo might expand our resources re-sources and add billions of dollars to our national wealth by conserving soil resources. re-sources. Instead of exhausting them, as we have tho forests and the oonUnts of the mines. For there Is good authority for the assertion as-sertion that the farmer could take from the same area of ground In four Years' grain crops out of a total of seven 'years as much as the wholo seven years now glvo him. leaving the products of the other three years when the land Is rested rest-ed from grain as a clear profit due to better bet-ter methods, Wlilio I havo here dealt onlv with wheat, the same is true of staple crops, cotton, tobacco, corn nnd the like. Not only tlm economic but the political politi-cal future of tho country is Involved No people evor felt want of work or thr pinch of poverty for a long thw without reaching- oirt violent hands against thIr political Institutions, believing that thev might find in a change some relief from their distress. Although there have heen fflBlfW moments -of Mich restlessness in our HmlifP country the trial has never been so se- 'iSniful vcrc or bo prolonged as to put us to the ISisir It Ik Interesting that one of the ablest llslfi'i men ln Rngland during the last century, iBttjffn a historian of high merit, a statesman Dlfjifn who saw active service and a profound ' flulii j student of men and things, put on rec- llDJnt I ord his prophecy of such a future ordeal. ilSllSm' Writing to an American correspondent 'ISkiuI' fifty years ago. Lord Macaulay used those ifflfMilt i words: "As long as you have a bound- ILlni less extent or fertile and unoccimled land 'Infilfi' your laboring population will bc found !iHkIS more at case than the laboring population of the old world: but the time will come :hlIISii- when wages will be as low and will 'IslW fluctuate as much with you as thev do i efHlit with us. Tbcn your Institutions will be tlHlH Bi' brought lo the test. Distress everywhere 'iNtelo makes the laborer mutinous and dlscon- 'Saul'! tented, and inclines him to listen with ilfiuilr eagerness to agitators, who fell him that IliSRHf It Is a monstrous Iniquity that ono man 'iifilif should have a million and another cannot 'IGiJIt 1 got a full meal. " The dny will illO'i' come when the multitudes of people, none 'IflRiti ! of whom has had more than half a break- tlBMJti- i fast or expects to have more than half fiEllS a dinner, will choose a legislature. iBUffa "Is It possible to doubt what sort of IcBltfrC legislature will bo chosen? In Hi ml There will be. T fear, spoliation The RiIIm spoliation will increase the distress: the lBfGlv distress will produce fresh spoliation. Ilw3fj . Either civilization or liberty will mM perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon liSrltii? will seize the reins of government with a ; RnJifa strone hand, or your republic will bc as flllrfr fearfully plundered and laid waste by 118$ barbarians In the twentieth century as 168111 the Roman empire in the fifth." flail f! Wc need not accept this gloomy pic- j Hf j W ture too liberally, but wc have been al- ilBuillli ready sufficiently warned to prevent us IsSllfs from dismissing the subject as unworthy f of attention. Every nation finds Its hour J Ijfljjk of peril when there Is no longer free 8 StffHi access .to the land, or when the land will 9 flnjlfn no longer support the people. Biiiai Disturbances within are more to be fimR? feared than attacks from without. Our IfflffiS government Is built unon tho assumption , fiBjBf of a fairly contented, prosperous and filillfii happy people, capable of ruling their llflllfKj passions, with power to change their in- mil If stltutions when such change is generally t pjf w i desired. It would not be strange If they In I I should in their desire for change attempt 'ln w I to pull down tho pillars of their national 'IntiJM temple. j WunHj 1 Far may this day be from us. But ' iyBijtg'i since tho unnecessary destruction of our i BSinl' 1 land will bring new conditions of danger. IikhHIj, i its conservation. Its improvement to tho llBfrar highest point of productivity promised llflBHni 1 by scientific Intelligence and practical I INbhI'1 i experiment appears to bc a first com- t Buiili I mand of any political economy worthy 1 SnUfll of the name. 'IcRnrfi i The work now being done by the de- 'IfilNjjiH ' parlment of agriculture and tho agrl- i bIbI 7 li cultural colleges of tho various states filfii'il 'i furnishes a broad and intelligent .founda- ulHifi 'i Hon upon which to build up a new era Sfllll't i of national progress and prosperity. It 'HHlllli' calls for a wise, generous and contlnu- I fill jits i Ing policy on tho part of both federal Tfifni?!! and state governments. 5 RBI jlati If this patriotic gospel Is to mako HflBlilSji headway, it may be by just such or- rBHwi ganlzcd missionary work as is today bc- i (ISRfSj gun. It cannot go on and conquer If ini- slnttfllfSr posed from without. It must, come to I cl'iH's' represent the fixed idea of tho poople's 'iPmilsJ mind, their determination and their hope. JMilfti It cannot be Incorporated in our pmc- flfitujltl tical life by tho dictum of any Individual ; Ufn IT or any officer of nation or stale In his ifllill? ofricinl capacity. It noods tho co-opora- .lllllilffi tlon or all the Influences, the help of 'i'lljli every voice, the commendation of nation 8 11 and state, that has been tho strength (MBM I and Inspiration of every worthy work on jHttii 1 American soli for 120 years. r gil f I |