OCR Text |
Show SCIENTIFIC FARMING. Possibly no other industry ia tha United States ia making ao much progress aa agriculture. We do not realise it here in the west where mining is the leading industry and aa a rule the farms are small. But we have even here, with every annual fair object lessons from the agricultural college and experimental stations to serve notice upon us that effective science is helping the farmer and enabling en-abling him to not .only produce better crops, but to determine what will best grow oA his land and how he may increase the yields. Where the acres are broad Jn the east and farming ia the ruling in- j dustry, by selection and scientific cultivation the corn crop per acre haa been increased 15 per eent in the last twenty years, the wheat crop by a greater percentage stid the cotton crop more. than 9 "per cent per are. - Then the utllixing of eotton seed in the last thirty years haa taken away the expense of the planting And gathering of the eotton "crop, leaving the eotton itself nearly or quite profit. More progress prog-ress still has been; made with forage crops, of which alfalfa leads and which in many regions haa become be-come a reliance and as the ranges have been reduced re-duced haa enabled farmers to fit twice as many cattle or sheep lor market. It, too, haa greatly added to the health of animals, especially work animals that are fed grain heavily. That was demonstrated dem-onstrated in Nevada thirty-five years age. The big mule teams thst hauled heavy freight np 'the Oeiger grade to the Comstoek, and which were fed grass hay -timothy, red top or blue Joint and ground barley, lost, aa rule, one mule a week through sickness. And those mules were worth $600 each. When alfalfa hay waa substituted for the grass hsy there waa po more trouble. Horticulture has been improved aa much as agriculture and the importing of parasites to kill the parasites that are men's enemies in orchards and on food planta, the spraying of trees and the smudge pots to stand off the frost have worked wonders. - The generation of farmers that are growing up now will make the work of their fathers look, by comparison, like an automobile beside and old time lumber wagon, and it is4 confidently predicted that without increasing the acreage devoted to farming, when the population doubles the country will feed the people and have aa much left for export aa it now haa. ' N The last proposition is to establish a-great central cen-tral agricultural university and .give to agriculture agricul-ture and horticulture the first place in the education educa-tion of the youth of the country. |