Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1881-09-21
CLEARFIELDl Pa, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER d. 1881

CLEARFlELD, L.
and Missouri alone produced in 1877!
upward Of eight hundred million bush
els OF corn, or more than the yield o
the entire country in 1869. Hanging
upon our Northern boundaries are tht
great wheat fields of the future, thost
two hundred or more millions of virgir
acres in the valleys of the Red river
the Peace, the Athabasca and the
Saskatchewan, producing a superior
gram, and yielding after thlr ty.fivt
years the increased production OF thir
ty bushels to tho acre, showing nc
signs of exhaustion after that long
use without fertilizers. Tho immense
grazing grounds Of the Southwest
where ten thousand herds can feed, nc
one in anothers sight-and our enor
nous railroad development, bringing
those distant fields closer to market
than you were n half century ago,
need only be suggested to remind you
how successfully the husbandmen Of
those cheaper fat lands and the herds.
men of that rich grassy domain can
excel the farmers OF Eastern Pennsyl.
vania in some former special features
Of agriculture here
Now, on the other hand, the demand
for market supplies is enlarging and
coming nearer to our doors. The
vastly increasing population of our
seaboard cities aud the growing manu-.
featuring interests of our own State
make the immediate district which |
now have in mind the centre of a
population comprising many millions,
whose tastes for luxuries and the
ministry to whose necessities afford
opportunity for the successful intro.
duction of new methods and diversified
products.
A consideration collateral TO the
Westward drift of population, enter.
prise and agricultural development,
which has been one Of deep concern
to intelligent farmers, has been the
tendency of the best blood and brains
to quit the pursuits of the fathers and
let go the plow handles for city lie,
attracted by the hustle of its business
activity, the dash of mercantile specu-
lation or the glitter Of social life, too
often only to be shipwreoked on the
rocks of bankruptcy or ruined in the
whirl Of fashionable dissipation. | am
not unmindful that the country and
the farm have been the nursery and
training school Of many of our bright,
est and strongest intellects that the
vigor and breadth of mind so essential
to the best success in any sphere have
been nowhere so well nourished as in
the pursuits of agricultural life, and
that over and again we must look to
it to trace the early steps of some
Diyinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began,
And on humble village green
Who
Moving up from high to higher,
Becomes, on Fortunes crowning slope,
The pillar Of peoples hope,
The centre Of the worlds desire.
The fact remains that farm life has
too long suffered the reproach from
those who might most have adorned
il that it is not congenial to the devel.
opment of social culture.
man p.pNtYNa
To those, then, who seek to find
wherein lie the future enhanced profit
and pleasure of this pursuit which is
your common interest, ! answer that
the future of farming IN this peculiarly
favored and advanced region lies in
High Farming and Home Culture.
They will accompany each other, and
their development will be contempo-
raneous. For whatever tends to give
moro intelligent direction to agricul.
ture will enhance its profits and hence
its pleasures and with the promotion
of scientific regulation there must
come greater comforts of living the
necessity for investigation will lead to
broader learning, and the application
of new methods impel each genera
tion to the elevation of this calling in
its moral as well as material aspects.
SMALL FARMS.
Increasing fertility and productive.
ness, resulting in advanced prices for
land, must lead to q SUBDIVISION of
farms. To no small extent is the per.
fection OF our tillage due to the original
Pennsylvania policy Of small land
grants, and as the years roll on it will
be found that fifty acres are moro
productive than a hundred, and twen-
ty.fve more productive than fifty. /
am not sure that the time is far dis.
tant when we will realize "ten acres
enough" as more than the dream of a
book farmer. Mississippi, with double |
as many plantations as before the war,
but averaging only half the size, pro.
1uces twice as much cotton now as
them France, with far less area than |
Texas, owes her production of wheat,
nearly as large as ours, her horses and |
cattle, almost as many, and her sheep |
more, to the system of small land
holdings. 1t is TO the thrift of her
people, their accurate and economical
of small parcels of ground,
hat she owes the reouperative power
which has made her a marvel among
nations and the admiration of the en-
ire world. There is no poverty so
1itiful as land poverty and no farmer
% destitute as one who owns too much.
Many q one who might have grown
'ich on fifty acres, which he could pay
or, has starved on q hundred, for half
# which he was in debt and paid in
crest, Indeed, / am far from being
that every owner.farmer
annot most profitably work exactly
IS much land as he can bay and pay
or.
CLOSER FARMING.
The subdivision of farms by tho
uture farmer of East Pennsylvania
means change and a diversity Of
'roducts, no less than the competition
II other sections. For it is plain
bat if an acre can be made to produce
100, where before four acres produced
25 each, tho same area will support
lst four times the former amount OF
gricultural occupation, whether by
lew methods and increased care the
'ield is Of the same product as before
r by the introduction Of a new inter
st the cultivation of the land is turned
o better advantage. Up to certain
oint there can be no doubt that two
ladies' of grass may be made to grow
'here only one grew; and whore the
lrmor who now raises fifteen bushels