Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1874-11-13

''The position of Great Britain in
regard to breadstuffs, says the Mich-
igan Farmer, is not only of great
importance to her own people, but to
the whole world. She is the only
country that regularly consumes
more than she raises. She cannot
feed her own population, and her
ability to provide for them is grow
ing less and less each year. 1t is 1875
years since England exported grain
of her own growing. 1t is with diff
Guilty that her population is supplied
with meat, and this difficulty is ma
king the production Of live stock Of
all kinds supercede grain growing
more and more each year. Hence
all that is written about the supply
of breadstufs for that country possess
es very great interest for the wheat
growers of other countries which de-
pend upon Great Britain as the mar
ket for their surplus breadstuffs and
grains"
A prominent foreign journal con-
tains the following remarks, which
refer to the efforts of Russia to afford
facilities to her grain growers to meet
the demands of Western Europe in
this respect, and which are worth at
tention by western farmers:
"Bread can never again be more
than comparatively dear, whilst meat
will never again be cheap. All
classes of the community now eat
more meat. Indeed, it is only now
that the name of England can be tru-
ly coupled with roast beef-certainly
more enormously applied in former
times, when bread was the true sta
pie of consumption.
"In addition to these causes, these
disadvantages, we feel sure that the
British farmer will soon have to
struggle with much sharper COMPETE
ton than he has ever yet experienced
and unless he can contrive by some
means or other to produce wheat at
something like half its present cost
of production, he is likely to be beat
en- altogether out of his own market
at no distant date.
"The completion of the Russian
railways, now rapidly progressing
under the military convict labor so
admirably organized by Baron I'm
germ Sternberg, will soon open safe
high-roads-if they have not done so
already-through the very heart OF
the fertile corn countries of the south
and glut every market in Europe with
their produce. Hitherto, the compe-
tition carried on by the great Russian
landowners, some of whose estates
are as Large as English counties, has
been fitful and desultory. BY far the
largest portion of their lands has
been suffered to lie waste, and GER
tainly in no other country in Europe
is there the same acreage of virgin
soil which has been left untitled for
centuries.
'The terrible lack of moisture
which exists in country where it
does not rain for six months at time
has been partially remedied by the
zeal with which many Of the more in
telligent German colonists have en-
deavorcd to master the subject of sci
entific irrigation by artificial means.
Throughout Observation-Disclosures the
driest as it is one of the most fruitful
provinces of southern Russia-large
lakes have been formed, with no
small skill and advantage. Boring
for water and the construction of ar
tesian wells are found much easier
and far less costly than formerly;
while the great increase Of steam ma
chinery applied to farming purposes
has not only brought a great deal of
new land under the pillow, but it has
at last rendered the Russian landown-
cr comparatively free from the Ca
prices and exactions of peasantry
too recently freed, and too indepen-
dent to care for employment on such
terms as to leave profit OH their Ia
Dor. Such is the account given of
the changes taking place in Russia,
and the Kiev railway will not only
bring down the Russian wheat in
price, but it will also stimulate the
energies of money-loving people,
who have been long accustomed to
place their best hope of getting it, on
81 orood fon,;no in Enrland'