The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-10-14
WIFE AT-GKouTSG.

The October estimate of the wheat crop
shows how rapidly we are approaching the
period when wheat cultivation will cease TO
be remtnerative without the aid of fertili-
zeIs. The total average yield per acre for
the whole country, spring and fall wheat
alike. is only trife over II bushels. a
few States do better In New York, where
subsoil blowing is becoming general in Ger
tain localities, the average Yield is IL bush
els. In Or, gcn the cultivat on Of virgin soils
has raised the average to the same figure.
Kansas. which has done unusually we'll this
year, reports l3.5. California is set down at
y. These averages are sometimes mislead-
ing, The high yields are added to the low
yields, and an average is struck which does
not represent the yield of any locality.
Thus the agent Of the Agricultural Bureau
finds fields in Colusa ard Stanislaus which
yield 80 bushels, and other fields in San
Diego and 1ulare which for want Of rain
yielded no crop mt all-say 8 bushels to the
acre. He adds the two and strikes an aver
age of 16.j for the whole. That is not ex-
actly fair.
Still, there is no doubt that the wheat yield
OF the States in the central river valleys of
The continent is gradually declining, and this
for the simple Tea, on that the soil is being
robbed of the chemical elements which the
berry contains. Two remedies may be en-
ployed to check the progress OF impoyerish-
ment: The soil may be plowed to a greater
depth, so rs to bring to the surface earth
which still contains its normal quantity of
phosphates and nItrates, or these fertilizers
may be supplied to the surface and plowed
in. England, North Germany and France
have long been largely dependent on arti-
fetal manuIeS Iol tier wheat yield. If they
had not been used wheat would in those
countries have ceased TO be grown. With
artificial manures English and French
farmers raise quite frequently thirty bushels
of wheat to the acre, and thus, though, as an
English economist once observed. tile prod
uct of four acres planted in wheat in Mime
sofa can be harvested and carried to Liver
pool for the money W hich it costs to manure
one acre of wheat land in England, the
English farmer somehow manages TO live.
1t stands to reason, however, that when
the use OF artificial manures becomes neces-
sary in the Mississippi and Missouri river
valleys the pri &c Of wheat will have to adj
vance. 1t will not ray TO scatter fertilizers
over field whose crop is worth only cent
pound on the farm. II wheat remains as
low as it is, landowners will devote their
ground to other uses. They win find cattle
raising paying better in the river valleys,
and fruit-growing in this State. In France,
where a very large wheat crop is harvested
annually, the farmers who grow it, and who
spend considerable sums every year on fer
tilizers, are miserably poor They have
been driven to such straits that they have
compelled the chambers to exclude Ameri-
can -four in the idea that if they had their
market all TO themselves they would get
more for their crop. Their trouble is not
local; it presses on agriculture everywhere
1t springs from the simple fact that the world
has been growing more wheat than people
want, and that the price las fallen, not in
France only, but all over the world, below
the ordinary cost Of production, except in
exceptional cases.
II the average yield of wheat land in tie
United States is to remain at or near ten
bushels to the acre, it will not be long before