The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1890-07-17

l.
have but little new land that is suitable
for or that can be devoted to corn cul.
ture and the annual increase Of popula.
ton IL such a. to require the addition
yearly OF more than 10000 acres to
the corn fields. Corn we must and will
have even II the European cries for
bread, and while we might, for the next
year or two, do with less corn land we
shall soon be converting such fields as
now supply the exporting wheat to the
growth Of the corn required at home.
BY the time the next corn crop is mar.
ketable we shall require the product
(corn) of about 1000, 900 acres and shall
have the product Of 7s,5OO, 900 and in the
event the yield proves short one shall
need 1t all and in one or two years at
most population will have overtaken the
corn product and will then soon out run
1t, necessitating the conversion of much
wheat land to corn growing. All this
follows from (practical) the exhaustion
OF the arabic lands. The believer in
cheap wheat probably forgets that but
50 per cent. of farm areas (for the whole
country can be devoted to the growth
OF staple crops, but such is the fact.
The American farmer can get on with
less wheat, but without an abundance
OF corn he can not meet public expecta.
tions in the way of beef, pork, mutton
and that beverage which may not cheer
but is sure to inebriate; hence the corn
field is ultimately certain to grow in
breadth at the expense OF the wheat
field, although the very reverse may be
true for year or two.
In Canada, including Manitoba and
the northwest, wheat production does
not increase any faster than the home
requirements and is not likely to, the
wheat area being limited one and the
best portion Of it covered by an immense
forest growth. Canadian wheat exports
are not growing, and the product of the
Dominion is less than that of Kansas.
The "bears," in order to affect prices,
have held up India as a great wheat
"bugaboo," but the facts are that India
has not, in ten years, increased the
acreage or product, nor have the Indian
exports increased since 1882, and the
cotton fieldsare yearly encroaching upon
the wheat area, cotton growing, as in
this country, being relatively more profit
able, and as wheat advsnces in price
and tends to absorb more land so cotton
will advance, as India and America fur
nish nearly all the cotton of commerce.
We must not forget that India is densely
populated and that the land was prac.
tically all occupied many centuries be.
fore America was discovered, and that
with the peace which reigns under
British rule population is increasing
greatly, quite as rapidly as does the pro.
duction of food, and there is a great and
growing pressure upon the means of sub.
sistence. The Indian uses a wooden
plow and it takes many plowings (some.
times twenty to prepare his land for
wheat.
But three of the Australasian colonies
export wheat, the other four being i'm
porters. The Australasians consume
more wheat per capita than any people
except the French, and while the acre
age is slowly increasing it is but slowly,
and the product OF 1883 has been exceed.
ed but once, and exports to Europe do
not increase, nor are they likely to, as
the growing populations OF the islands
and continents of the eastern world
yearly absorb greater proportion of the
Australasian product. Doubtless very
high prices would stimulate wheat
growing in Australia as elsewhere, but
very high prices will be the best evil
dence that the world is short of bread
and ready to take all that may be offered.
Only the southern border of the Aus.
tralian continent is adapted to wheat
growing, the mass OF the continent be-
ing too near the equator and subject to
fierce drouths. On the other hand New
Zealand is one of the best wheat coun-
tries, the acreage yield being exceeded
only by that Of England, yet the area in
wheat had, up to 1887, never exceeded
10000 acres or less than the cultivated
land OF Sedgwick county. The great in.
dustry of all Australasia is pastoral
rather than agricultural and such it is
likely to continue to be, where, as in
most OF the colonies, the rainfall is very
irregular as well as deficient.
Americans are given to thinking that
they are the only people inventing and
using improved agricultural imple-
ments, but the Australian does not seem
to lag as he has among other things, put
a "stripper" in use which gathers the
wheat heads. This machine, operated
by horse. and is said to pather tbro.h