The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1880-05-29


Let us farmers give few moments
thought to this problem of American
agriculture, and the inevitable cOnse'
quences of the present system of de-
pletion upon the future condition o.
our country. Only philosophers, We
know, deal with questions the re-
suit of which reach hundred years
into the future but for the time being
we will imagine ourselves all philoso-
pliers, that we may think a little
about one such question-for in fact
hundred years does not seem so long a
time after it is past. We look back
to the times of the Revolution and
seem familiar and acquainted with
the men who took part in those events.
They acted in our behalf; they felt the
responsibility of the future bearing
upon them with every step and every
thought. Let us for a moment mag
inc ourselves thinking and acting
for the generations which are to come
after.
Only few years ago the agriculture
of the East was self-supportng. We
raised enough of corn, wheat, beef
and every commodity for our own use.
Stately and comfortable farm houses
were found all over New England,
where was present the largest amount
of comfort and independence. From
the State of Maine catt tie and wheat
were both sent to Boston markets in
large quantities. What is now seen
in many places in eastern and northern
New England, where once were these
large farms, but weed-overgrown
fields and dilapidated farm houses and
barns? Young men, comparatively,
Of the present day, can remember
when flour began to be purchased
from Genesee and corn from Virginia.
Then Ohio was in the far West To-
day, one of the leading questions
among Ohio farmers is how they shall
restore the exhausted fertility of her
soil. Farms in that State, which
twenty years ago would carry twenty
five cows, are now hardly able to sup
port half that number. What has
caused the impoverishment of this
once rich soil Why is not the valley
of the Genesee to-day, as it was for
years regarded, the granary of the
East? A depicting and thoughtless
system of land-skinning, answers.
The crops of corn, wheat and tobacco,
and the cattle and horses grown Ill
such abundance upon the productive
virgin soil, have robbed it of its ability
to longer yield remunerative crops.
The farms have been sold by the
bagful and baleful they have been
transported by rail and ship and team
to near or distant cities, leaving
barren soil that can only recuperate
itself by long period of rest, or be
accomplished by the farmer at an
taken. And westward the system of
eastern spoliation has been transferred.
The grand prairies are now contribute
ing of their life-blood the food needed
by hungry world, yet men think
their fertility ineXhaustible, and for
getting the lessons of old-time farming
in the East, say that the land of the
West is never to need artificial plant
food, it will always produce. 1t will
not always produce the crops and the
stock it is producing to-day. Let us
be philosophers. Is it not reasonable
to expect, to believe, that the same
course which has brought agricultural
dependence to the East will also bring
it to the West, however fertile the
West may be? There is limit to all
natural fertility-that limit is only
measured by time. In improving
farming especially, tho future is sure
to reproduce the past; for the same
condition and agencies that have
brought it about in the one case are
at work to bring it about in the other
case. Nature sclf-cXecutes her own
laws.
1t would seem that we Of this gen
Grafton ought to have gathered wis
dom from the experiences of the past.
But we have not. Had we done so,
there would have been manifest more
the fertility of nature and a desire to
restore wasted resources, and to leave
to future occupiers an unimpared soil.
But there are few evidences at the
West of providence in agricultural
operations. The soil is being sent
across the ocean in wheat and beef.
The experiences of the Genesee, the
Ohio, the Wisconsin farmers, are
being repeated, and in less than
hundred years the story Of devasta-
ton will have sad meaning to all
prairie farmers of America. Why not
stop? Why not be philosophers ?
Why not save manure? Why not
husband natures resources? Why
not adopt now that well-balanced
system of cattle feeding, sheep hus-
bandry and cropping which shall
maintain our land in good condition,
at the same 'time it gives fair return
for the demands made upon it?-
American CultivatOr