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Show j RETURN OF LANDS TO HAY CROPS MEANS i LARGE SUPPLY OF BOTH MEAT AND BREAD! I : I I In Feeding America, This Is Just as Important as the Golden Grain Field. Milk! Beef! Pork! Is there a more important item in the high cost of living liv-ing than these? Plenty of Feed for Live Stock. And so the United States department depart-ment of agriculture, for the good of everybody concerned, continues to urge the sort of safe and &ane agriculture that provides plenty of pasture and plenty of hay which means providing plenty of meat and milk. The farmer, unless he chose to head straight for bankruptcy, could not think of maintaining a wheat acreage equal to that sown for the 1919 crop. With decreased man power and farm labor appears to be just as hard to find now as it was during the war farmers cannot can-not maintain a materially larger acreage acre-age of tilled and cereal crops than they did with larger man power several sev-eral years ago. If they should undertake under-take it as a permanent policy, city families would not only have less meat and milk than they are accustomed to, but they would actually have less bread, also. War needs caused the plowing up of many pastures that, under peace-time conditions, are worth more in the economy of the farm in pasture or hay than in cereal or 'tilled crops. Some of them are back in grass now. There are others that should go back in grass. Specialists of the department of agriculture agri-culture suggest that every farmer, during dur-ing the winter when he has leisure to lay his plans carefully, work out his own problem of reconstruction, make his plans for planting the kind of crops next spring that will enable him, If not at once tt&u as soon as possible, to put his farm back on its proper basis of diversification and rotation. His county coun-ty agent and his state college of agriculture agri-culture are ready to help him at any point where he may need help. The United States department of agriculture agricul-ture Is ready to advise him on practically prac-tically any phase of the matter. A great deal of thought has been given to the subject. I (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) i'ou have heard a great deal about the problems of reconstruction that are pressing for solution. But, like most men, you have probably thought of them as tremendously big problems that had to be solved, nationally and Internationally, by statesmen and diplomats dip-lomats and high executives. They are that but not just that. Every man-certainly man-certainly every farmer has a reconstruction recon-struction problem all his own. The war unbalanced the agriculture of the United States by unbalancing the agriculture of individual farms. There had to be produced the kind of food that could be transported overseas. over-seas. Wheat Is pre-eminently that kind of food, and other grain crops are to an extent such. Very many farms, therefore, got too heavy on the side of tilled and cereal crops and too light on the side of hay crops and pasture. Many farmers increased their tilled and cereal crops beyond what they had any basis of experience In carrying. Labor requirements were Increased. Rotation practices were interfered with. To the extent that the wheat acreage was Increased, the climatic hazard was increased, because, under the extensive farm practice that characterizes char-acterizes American agriculture, wheat is a crop that is very sensitive to climatic cli-matic uncertainty. Such a practice long continued was likely to result, therefore, not in increased food production pro-duction at all, but in actually reduced food production. In the long run, that would be the inevitable result. Even, If by some miracle, the hazard of weather could be escaped, the practice would reduce soil fertility until yields would be greatly cut down. But, before be-fore that even, meat production would be harmfully reduced. For It is as true physically as spiritually that man does not live by bread alone. Very largely, he lives by meat. And meat animals and milk animals do not grow on grain alone. Most largely, they grow and produce on green grass and dry grass pasture and hay. Return to Sound Farming. Those are some of the reasons why the United States department of agriculture agri-culture began urging, almost immediately immedi-ately after the signing of the armistice and continuously since, a return to sound agricultural practice returning to pasture and hay lots, to clover and other fertilizer-fixing crops, some of 'the land that had been used for grain during the war emervjncy. The suggestion sug-gestion has been criA.'7zed from some quarters, because in some quarters it has been misunderstood. Specifically, the department recommended recom-mended that It was not advisable to undertake to maintain the wheat acreage acre-age sown for the crop of 1919. That did not Imply that the department urged a smaller food production in the country. It did mean that the department depart-ment was urging an Increase in the food production of the country by steadying agriculture, by reducing the hazards that necessarily play into the hands of speculators, by returning agriculture agri-culture to a peace basis that would insure in-sure adequate production of all kinds of food, for this year and for other years. And that meant restoring pastures, pas-tures, restoring hay fields, Insuring feed for the meat animals upon which the tables of the nation depend. This return to sound agricultural practice is Important to the farmer, certainly. But It is not more Important Impor-tant to the farmer than It Is to (he city man. It has to do just as much with reducing the high cost of living as with reducing the high labor requirements and the fertility-draining practice of farming. Wheat, officials of the department of agriculture point out, does .not key the cost of living. It Is merel.v one of a number of co-ordlnnte elements. "One honest John Tompkins, a hedg-er hedg-er and ditcher," that perfectly con. tented man whose praises are sung In the old verse, had a habit of saying: "It I can get meat, I can surely get bread." Maybe his reasoning was faulty. But It wns not a bit more faulty than that of some business and Industrial leaders who say, by Inference: Infer-ence: "If we can get bread, we can surely get meal." Lack of pastures Is a serious handicap handi-cap to production of low-cost milk. The man does not live who can produce pro-duce beet' economically wltho.: -as-lure. And, just as surely, the man does not live who can produce lov-'ost pork without pasture. |