The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1885-09-16
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT..
aho Money nesults of Skilled Culture.

qho Money Results OF Skilled Culture.
Statistical research shows that q
crude agriculture is not abundant in
product, and that it is compelled to
pay high interest on borrowed money.
A low grade of farming is cursed with
mortgages and mildews, with insects
and ignorance. Uncertainty brood,
over its harvests, and famine dccimates
its people. Famine is unknown in
country of advanced agriculture
though a fourth of its PEOPLE oaly may
be engaged in rural production. On
the contrary mil ions iamish in India,
while most of its people arc in agricul-
ture. 1t is said that in 1870, in Eng
land, "parcnts ate their children when
wheat rose to $50 shillings II quarter
at the present value of money" Five
years ago, when nearly every
E~nglishman lived by agriculture, The
product only sufficed for q home sup
ply now, with a population Of 446 to
the square mile, Of which only one in
eight is an agricultural worker, six
tcnths of all the food required for con-
half the Island is occupied for resi-
dcnccs, pleasure grounds, and hunting
reserves.
The Latin races of Southern Europe,
slower than the Anglo Saxon in utiliz-
ing in rnral practice the discoveries of
modern science, arc still making sure
progress towards u higher and more
profitable agriculture. In Italy lands
are more productive, buildings moro
numerous Il convenient, and the
peasant is better paid and better lodged
and clothed.
An official commission has recognize
ed the improvement as q measure of
progress in scientific agriculture, and
made the future prosperity of Italy
dependent upon schools and scientific
experiment.
This Italian commission declares:
The experience of all times and of all
places has demonstrated the fact that
purely agricultural countries are never
rich, even from an agricultural stand
point, while i'll those countries where
the arts, industries and commerc flour
ish private gain creates rural wealth.
Spain is mainly agricultural, yet its
entire value of rnral production could
be purchased with the value of the corn
crop of the United States. 1t is be-
cause the yield is small and the price
low. Russia, with labor employed
principally in agriculture, Yields but 10
bushels of cereals per head, while
Great Britain with seven-eighths of her
people employed outside of agriculture
last year produced 10 bushels of cereals
for every inhabitant of the country.
In Great Britain the yield per acre of
wheat is 2 bushels; in Russia scarcely
than a third as much. This high
yield has been attained by science
applied to agriculture. A single indi-
vidual has given his life and fortune
tn erin npt0l on,ic,,Itpra ,,l -,
lowed his experimental farm with the
income in perpeutity from half a mil
lion dollars.
The average yield of country is no
indication of the natural fertility of its
soil. The richest soils of the world
under the rude methods of primitive
agriculture, return low Yields. The
progress of skill and learning is indi-
Gated by n country's average Weld.
The Statistical Commission of the In
ternational Congress twelve years ago
made the average yield of wheat 12.G
bushels in Hungary, 1872 in Portugal,
III in France, 24.S in Holland, and
29.9 in Great Britain.
In this country, where maize is n
universal crop, the richest districts do
not necessarily produce the largest
yields per acre New England, with
a soil of sand and gravel, averaged in
the last five harycsts 30.S bushels Der
acre, with good culture and The use of
fertilizers. Pho Missouri Valley, fat
with the elements OF maize growth.
pielded at the rate of 29.S bushels, and
in the Ohio Valley &c bushels, while
the Middle States, with much aid from
experimental science, came very neal
the best western results with 26.4
bushels.
In seasons unfavorable reproduction
the money value of skill and science
In agriculture is immensely enhanced.
1t is often remarked that farmers re-
ceive as much for a very small T. as
a very large one. In 1881, 1,195, O0O,-
600 bushels of corn was worth $780,
100000; in 1884, 1895, 00O, 900 bushels
were valued at &S41 600 900; a small
crop was worth G3.6 cents per bushel,
q larger one 35 z cents. Nevertheless
there is disaster in a small crop. The
failure is %unequally distributed. The
few advanced farmers grow nearly
full crops, and receive larger revenues
than usual and many unskilled and
careless suffer disastrous reduction of
yield and quality, and fail TO make
return for seed and labor. Given nm.
scientific agriculture, with an un-
auspicions season, and the poor may
grow poorer while the scientific
farmer in the same year may grow
richer.
The 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. Experiment, skill, science
applied to industry can only avert the
latter. Fifteen years ago AZ per cent.
OF our people were employed in agri-
culture live years ago Al per cent;
to-day perhaps az. We find in ali
nations in which more than half the
iaborers arc in agriculture are compar-
atveiy poor, and their rural processes
are primitive, their implements rude,
their rate of production low. We find
that in the highest development of