The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-05-14

In this way it is that the people OF
Germany have me- the demands placed
upon them to improve their agricuI-
tural resources
| suppose that everybody who has
been in rural Germany has observed
two striking peculiarities. The first
is the thoroughness with which the
land is titled, the skill with which all
its resources are brought out, and the
consequent abundance of the returns
in the way of crops. The second is
the unfavorable conditions which ma
ture seems to have imposed upon the
people. The native quality of the soil
is generally of inferior character.
Much of Prussia a hundred years ago
was little better than a vast plain of
sand, and a considerable portion of it
vas 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 I'M
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, r adding annually
enormous sums to the wealth Of the
empire. Thus it is that Germany re-
ceives an Astounding and a 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 We 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 a
common law! We, too, are ignorant
of all devices for perpetual motion !!
We, too, shall fail if we attempt to
cheat nature by taking constantly from
the soil without giving back to it any
thing in return
The history Of u 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
boosted of a 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 worth
less, and so they have come to be
abandoned. Many a soldier in the
forests of Virginia during the war,
observed beneath the tall growing
pines distinct traces of the last fur
rows that were drawn before the
fields that had finally come to refuse
to yield a return were given back to
Nature. In the other Atlantic States
similar results followed from the SINH
lar methods of agriculture. 1t has
been simply the story of the Orient
over again; and but for the wealth of
the new soils in the West, either i'm
proved methods would have had to be
introduced, or the people of the At
lantic States would long since have
been driven to the necessity Of con-
fning 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 methods
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
generally throughout almost the whole
of the Union the figures show a sig
nifcant, [ might say a saddening, if
not eve an alarming, decline.
Take the figures presented by the
reports of the Agricultural Depart
ment for 1884, the last that has been
published, the one for 1874, 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 inspec.
ton shows that in New England there
has been a slight increase in the
amount raised per acre of the great
staples of wheat, cor and oats. This
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