Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1891-07-22
The Farms OF the Future.

The Country Gentleman of q recent
date prints letter from Mr. G. Wood
Davis on crops per capita, and the con-
cluSiOn he draws is that good lands any
where in the United States will be worth
500 an acre within five years" This
ought to cheer the hearts of the farmers.
Mr. Davis asserts that there is an eX-
act ratio between population and pro-
duction, but that this has not been made
manifest for the reason that we have
been cultivating too much land and could
at any time increase one product at the
expense of another without making a
shortened supply of the lessened crop"
But this is not to be SO another decade.
Indeed, he fixes the limitation in 1895.
His reasoning is exhilerating:
We cannot reduce the number Of cat
tie other than Tllch COWS below $50 to
1000 people without making beef so val
liable that the farmers will rush into it's
production and thus create a shortage
in some other product; nor make the
mich cows less than $50 to each 1000 of
the population without making short
age in some other direction and putting
up the price Of everything pertaining to
the dairy. The balance must be pre-
served. For each !, 900 units added to
mich cows and given number of horses,
and but for the surplus of beeves now
existing we should have to add fifty to
fiftY-three cattle other than mich cows.
For every cow, steer, or horse added we
must add about six TO seven acres to our
farms, and of this two and one-half to
three acres must be in pasture.
On these figures Mr.. Davis, in 1891,
believes that home consumption by 1895
will consume all the products of Amer
lean farms, and that the price of good
farm lands in the old Northwestern
States will be 500 an acre.
If 4 Could BE Young Again.
If were farmers boy intending to
be farmer, think 1 would study very
hard all the forms of ''out-door science"
Before and after school, and in the long
vacations L would keep the run of all
farm operations, learn from my father
the reasons for his plans and operations,
and try to share in the plans and the re-
suits. / would try to become deft and
skillful in all the farm processes, such
as hand moving, pitching, blowing, care
of stock, milking, shearing, pruning,
and handling farm tools and machines.
would have, if possible, and read some
of the best books on farming. AS soon
as / had thoroughly good education in
the common English branches, l would
try to spend four years at a good agri
cultural and mechanical college. If that
of my own State was not doing good
work for agriculture, or was not thor
oughly in sympathy with industrial life,
Iwould try to go to one in some neigh
boring State where such was the case.
would study the conservatism of fer
tility, for with proper cultivation, rota-
ton of crops and manuring, any soil is
inexhaustible, and for ages on ages it
will yield food for man and beast. The
indestructibility of matter is the law
that conserVes productiveness. But by
continued cropping, without sense or
reason, certain food elements may be re-
moved from one place to enrich some
other lands. If we raise corn ana wheat
in America to feed Europe for a century
or two we shall certainly waste our pat
rimony and exhaust the resources of fer
tility in our lands, rich as they are
w. T. Chamberlain, I'M Rural NelO
Yorker.