Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1869-04-02
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF OHIO,
Speech Delivered In the House OF Rep.
resen1a1ives, March lth. 1853.


Speech Delivered In the House OfRep-
resenGattves, March II Ith, 1869.
The House having under considera-
tion the bill Oh. B. No. 576) to provide
for Geological Survey of Ohio,
Mr.. LEE said
Mr.. SPEAKER: The development OF
the material resources of Ohio is a
theme of momentOus concern to her
Legislators and people. It embraces in
the largest sense not only her present
welfare, but her commercial prosperity
and independence for all time to come.
To us, who are the commissioned
guardians of her interests, it commends
itselfas one of the most weighty mat
ters that can engage our attention or
command our legislative effort. For
whatever we shall leave uudone for the
promotion of this great object, we shall
be held ausWerable not only to our ina
mediate constituencies, but TO the mill
lions who shall come after them to in
herit the name and fame of this favored
State.
elapsed since Ohio was admitted to the
Union, her people have to-day no ade-
quate knowledge of the extent and
value of her natural resources. We
have expended over three hundred mil
lions upon railroads, and lavished great
:
we have established a splendid system
of public schools and charities; we have
erected this costly edifice for legislative
purposes yet, amid all our enterprises
of public utility and benevolence, we
have scarcely taken pains to inquire
what inexhaustible sources of wealth
and prosperity may lie not yet unlock
The geographical position of Ohio,
depriving her of the immense advan-
tages of ocean commerce, mRgnifies the
Importance of her internal advantages,
and points out as her main reliance the
very resources which have been so
strangely neglected. Yet beneath her
surface lies, comparatively untouched,
greater wealth than her people have
ever realized or perhaps ever will real
ize from trade or tillage. In single
counties, where the land is now rated
at its mere surface value, there are
deposits Of minerals capable Of yielding
millions upon millions to the manufac-
turer and miner, but which now add
but little more to the wealth of the
State than if they did not exist.
Hitherto our Agricultural resources
have been our, main reliance. With a
diversified soil, of such natural fertility
that. it only needed +" the tickling of the
hoe to laugh a harvest" we have at
tanned a proud position as an agricul-
tural State, and resting in the assur-
ance that resources so bountiful would
not fail, have acted as though nothing
was needed for their preservation or
development. But already our soil
gives unmistakable symptoms of de-
cline, and of the products OF which lG
has been accustomed to yield large
surplus, we are threatened with an in
efficiency for home consumption. Coin
cident in the decline Of agricultural
productiveness, the rapid increase
in population creates greater and
greater necessity for abundant crops
for the support of our people, and by so
much, diminisheS the exports, which
have been our principal sources of in
come. IL is not wise TO conceal or be-
little the fact that this state of things
forces upon our minds cohsiderat atiOnS
of startling import. Increase of pOpu-
latiOn, along with continual eXhaus-
ton of the soil, must soon bring us to a
condition of dependence upon our
neighboFs for the means of feeding our
multiplying millions. At the same
time labor must become so cheap and
food so scarce, that thousands must
emigrate aud seek employment beyond
our bOrders.a Farming must become
Improbable as its fruits fails, and agri-
cultural enterprise will seek more
promising field.
These results are not speculative con-
tingencies of the future they are even
now being realized.
Though agricultural labor has been
greatly economical by mechanical in
VentiOns, and largely benefited by ex-
perience, and though new lands are
constantly being. reclaimed from the
forest and brought under cultivation,
we donot arrest the decline in agricul-
tural production. Taking the wheat
crop, for example, the largest product
per acre during the last two decades,
was in 1850, when it reached Is bushels
per acre. The next year it was Is, and
since then has never risen higher than
IA bushels to the acre. Since 1855 the
crop has never exceeded thirteen BUSH
els per 1cre, and in 1856 declined to ~
per acre.
That this reduction was not accident
al or exceptional appears from the sta
tisIies of the crop ranging over the last
eighteen years. During the first nine
of those. years the average of wheat per
acre was II $500 bushels. and during
the second, or last nine, 1t was S4-100
bushels, showing a decrease of three
bushels per acre in the average pro-
Duct
During the five years Immediately
preceding 1867, the falling off in the
wheat crop amounted to nearly twenty
million bushels. In 1850, when ZOO, ,OO0
acres were sown, we produced 81, 100000
bushels, whereas in 1862, twelve years
later, we gathered only 30,000,0 600 BUSH
els from ?, 400, 900 acres, the largest
acreage ever sOwn in the State. 1t is
estimated that during the years 1863-5-e
there was annual deficit of three mil
lion bushels below the amount required
for bread within the State.
These statistics show that the pres
ent average production of wheat, as
seen in the crops of the last nine years,
is but little more than half what it was
in 1850, and from this we may reasona-
bly infer that the capacity of our soil
to produce wheat is only half what ii
was eighteen years ago. It is notO-
rious fact that some counties which
were formerly prolific of this crop
have now almost entirely ceased to
raise it, and procure their flour from
other parts of the State. If the wheat
crop declines at the same rate during
the next ten years, we shall at the end
ofthat time, be unable to furnish bread
to one half. of our population.
The statistics of the corn crop for the
last eighteen years show that 1T, reach
ed its maximum average product in
1855, when it amounted to 40 bushels pei
acre. The crop has never since risen
to that amount, and has not but foul
times exceeded thirty-fve bushels pei
acre. The average crop during the
| last nine years has been but 81 76-1OC
bushels per acre, whereas, the crops
during the nine preceding years ave
ragged 80 $40 bushels per acre. While
therefore, the wheat crop has fallen of
one half, corn has not "held its own. D
although 1t is grown upon the richest
and hardest lands, and the decline in
wheat must have directed additional
attention to its culture.
The potato crop, of which we have
no statistics further back than 1860
averaged that year So bushels per acre