The west shore., August 01, 1885, Page 230, Image 4

THE WEST SHORE.
230
1881 1,195,000,000 bushels of corn were worth $760,000,000;
in 1884 1,795,000,000 bushels were valued at $041,000,000;
a small crop was worth C3.6 cents por bushel, a larger
one 25.7 conta. h'ovorthcloaj, thoro ia disaster in a Bmnll
crop. The failure is unequally distributed. The few
advanoed farmers grow nearly full crops and receive
larger revenues than usual; the many unskilled and cure
less suffer disastrous reduction of yield and quality, and
fail to make return for seed and labor. Given unscien
tific agriculture, with an nnauspicious season, and the
poor may grow poorer, while the soientifio farmer in the
same year may grow richer.
Theso contrasts in present production and profit of
agriculture are sufficiently striking. But the present
will soon be past We are confronted with a future full
of possibilities as of dangers and difficulties. Experi
ment, skill, scicuce applied to industry, can only avert
tho latter. Fifteen years ago 47 per cent of our people
were employod in agriculture; five years ago, 44 per cent ;
to-day pcrhaiu 42 por cent We find that all nations in
which more than half of the laborers are in agriculture
are comparatively poor, and their rural processes are
primitive, their implements rude, their rate of produc
tion low. We find that in the highost development of
agriculture, 20 per cent, or 25 at most, can furnish food
for alL In this oouutry, allowing for surplus production,
40 per cent can readily meet the demand of home con
sumption, and 33 per cent will probably do it in the not
far distant future, loaving two-thirds to produce other
forms of wealth. With increase of permanent wealth
there will come demands for luxuries of living which
will add to the profit of the farmer. As the facilities for
production iuorease, one danger from an unsoientifio,
primitive, routine agriculture is great excess in certain
crops that have boon cultivated from the earliest days
with little labor. Already our wheat has encountered
tlte lowost markets of a century in Great Britain. The
present price of wheat in Liverpool is May lower than
in the UiirtMnth to fifteenth centuries. I have known a
crop of cotton to sell for $40,000,000 loss than the pre
ceiling orop 1,000,000 bales smaller.
What is needed, then? Evidently experiment iu col
toting uew plants, in producing new varieties by scion
tifio process, m cheapening the cost of cultivation to com
poto with foreign production by cheap labor. It will not
do fe say that, having learned how to compete with the
world in certain products that are very cheap, we can
never learn to compote in the matter of products that are
T In ,u5 dw"" for for large results by labor
saving machinery, we must not fall into routine, and de
cliue invention, inTOntiv, rerd, and experimental
effort Thought in agriculture must be alert and prac
tical iu tins era of mental activity.
Our agriculture is Ux much "controlled by accident
and caprice Free prairie lauds, improve! xLZZ
railroad extension make a glut in wheat The cotton Kin
slavery and a strong oreign demand once made the SouA
poor in buying supplies fr man and beast engagS in
growing cotUm. Thus unequal development Sees
profits. While one-third of the wheat is exported, one
seventh of the consumption of barley is imported. We
do not grow even the oereals required.
We boast of our exports of products of agriculture,
We foolishly talk of feeding the nations of the world. We
do not feed ourselves. In 1883 we paid $240,000,000 for
food and drink imported, and the freights, commissions
and customs duties in addition; and our food exports, at
prices on the farm and in the packing house, scarcely
sufficed to pay the bill of costs of such imports. A large
item of this was sugar. Thirty years ago half the sugar
used in the United States was produced in Louisiana.
Is it possible that European agriculture can be threat
ened with paralysis by American competition, and that
this country cannot produce sugar on account of Euro
pean competition? Less than a century ago it cost $1 a
pound to produce it there; now three cents. While we
do not expect to manufacture it from sorghum at a cost
of one cent per pound, or flood the markets of the world
with our surplus of production in five years, it is fair to
assume that the great maize-producing country of the
world will ultimately obtain much of its sugar from sor
ghum. The cane regions of Louisiana, Florida and Texas,
by the aid of some process which shall not allow a waste
of 40 per cent of unexpressed sugar, should aid materi
ally in the home supply for the wants of consumption.
In addition to the cane in the southern belt and to sor
ghum in the great central zone, there is a belt along the
northern frontier suited to beet sugar, and there has been
no test that throws a shadow of doubt of success on the
experiment. The Maine experiment was a successful
manufacture, except that the farmers would supply the
beets only from garden patches in insufficient quantities
for eoonomio manufacture. They lacked land in proper
condition, rotation, fertilization and high culture neces
sary to success; with all these requisites, experience in
the cultivation of sugar beets would be essential to full
success. In California a single factory produced two to
three million pounds of sugar last year, and has made it
at a profit for several consecutive years. If one can do
it, so also can one thousand. The trouble with our fann
ers, with all their energy and dash, is a dislike for new
methods, an adherence to routine, and impatience in
waiting for results. They will exchange sheep for hogs,
or vice versa, in a twinkling, as prices veer, but will not
experiment for the ultimate success of new rural indus
tries. As a rule, they cannot well afford to; it is the
duty of the Government, the proper business of the Agri
cultural Department and of the agricultural colleges to
do the necessary experimental work which shall usher in
new and profitable enterprises in production, which shall
relieve the crowded competition in cereals and cotton,
give to the laborer a demand for his worK, the producer a
market for his varied products, and the country added
ealtn and foreign exchanges in its favor. But the pros
perous farmer should cultivate a kenerous publio spirit,
as wel as a laudable esprit de corps, and take some risk
m intelligent experiment that promises beneficent results.
-V. It. Dodge, Statistician Dapartment of Agriculture.