The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-07-10
RALEIGH, N. c., JULY 10, 1888.

sand, and a considerable portion of it
was a swamp given up to wolves and
bears. Very much of it was regarded
as absolutely irreclaimable The
climate is cold and damp, and is un-
favorable to the securing of the best
results. But under this system of
industry the bad lands have been re-
claimed, and the sandy plains have
been brought into abundant fertility.
Not only has the production per acre
been increased by nearly twofold in
all parts of the Empire, but, while the
forests have carefully been preserved
and even extended, variety has been
added to the list of products, and the
number of acres in tillage has been
multiplied The list of plants now
grown with profit in Germany is far
greater than it was half a century ago.
and some of them, as for example the
sugar beet, are adding an nually enor-
nous sums to the wealth of the en-
pire. Thus it is that Germany re
ceives an abounding and constantly
increasing reward for the care which
she has bestowed upon the culture Of
the soil.
But, it may be asked what has
america to learn from all these varied
experiences ? What have a0e to fear
with all our thousands of square miles
of unexhausted soil, and with our in
finite variety of fertility and climate !?
All my friends, we are not the
favored sons of heaven who can claim
any exemption from the operations of
common law We, too, are ignor
ant of all devices for perpetual mo-
ton We, too, shall fail if we attempt
to cheat nature by taking constantly
from the soil without giving back to
it anything in return
The history of our country already
has it's melancholy lesson for us. In
the early years of our national life, the
soils of Virginia were praised for their
fertility; for the early pamphlets that
were sent back to the old world boast
ed of productiveness far greater than
that of England. But you know that
thousands of acres, I had almost said
thousands of square miles, have been
so impoverished as to be worthless,
and so they have come to- be aban-
dcned. Many soldier in the forests
of Virginia during the war, observed
beneath the tall growing pines distinct
traces of the last burrows that were
drawn before the fields that had finally
come to refuse to yield return we're
given back to Nature In the other
Atlantic States similar results followed
from the similar methods of agricul-
ture. 1t has been simply the story of
the Orient over again; and but for the
wealth of the new soils in the West,
either improved methods would have
had to be introduced, or the people of
the Atlantic States would long since
have been driven to the necessity of
confning themselves to commerce and
manufactures, or would have been
obliged to confront the other alterna-
tive of poverty and ruin. In some of
the Northern States improved meth
DDS have been adopted on the one
hand, and the poorest lands have been
abandoned on the other; consequently
we find that in some exceptional cases
the product per acre is not less than it
was twenty-five years ago. But gen.
orally throughout almost the whole of
the Union the figures show signif-
cant, I might say saddening, if not
even an alarming, decline.
Take the figures presented by the
reports of the agricultural department
for 1884, the last that has been pub
lished, the one for 1874, ten years
earlier and the one for 1854, ten years
before that. What do the figures
show?
There is, for reasons just limited at,
no absolute uniformity in the tendency
towards lesser crops. Many irregular
or accidental causes have tended to
change what seems to be general
law of decline For example, an in
spection shows that in New England
there has been a slight increase in the
amount raised per acre of the great
staple of wheat, corn and oats. This
is doubtless accounted for partly by
methods of agriculture, and
partly by the fact that vast tracts of
lands that formerly were titled, have
been abandoned, because, on account
of their sterility, they could not COM