Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-03-10
THE GOOD WORK GOES ON.
Secretary Rusk Proposes 10 Put Soc, 600
600 Vi ore Into the Pockets of the Amer


Secretary Rusk Proposes 10 Put SOC, 900
600 Vi ore Into the Pockets of the Amer.
lean Farmers.
Julian Hawthorne, the accomplished
scholar and popular novelist, has written
an article IN Lippineott's Monthly, in
regard to the agricultural department,
from which the following is taken:
The secretary of agriculture is not salts
he'd with wringing from the off eials of
foreign nations reluctant consent to al
low our good things to reach their hungry
populations; he aims to appeal directly to
the populations themselves. Until very
lately, for example, the use of corn and
corn meal as human food was almost en-
tlrely unknown in Europe-the people
imagined it was fed to animals only. Mr..
Rusk dispatched agents to the other side
to educate these benighted people. The
success OF these agents has been great
Cora bread is likely to become as popular
on English breakfast tables as mullins and
crumpets are now; and In Berlin corn
Kitchens have been arranged for, and a
mixture of rye and corn Is to substitute
the bread ration supplied to the German
army.
This is only the beginning of the good
work IN the case of a single cereal, in It's
relation to foreign consumers alone. Ihe
prospects for the future are obvious: and
as Secretary Rusk observes, an increase in
crop exports OF only 10 per cent. would put
sixty million dollars a year more in the
pockets OF our farmers. The value of our
crops for 1891 was seven hundred million
dollars greater than it was in 1890.
This is good showing, but, in numer-
Gus ways the department of agriculture is
working to make better and still better
showing here after, not only improving the
yield and the quality OF the yield of land
now under cultivation, but making more
land cutivatable, and lowering prices by
bringing the farmer and the consumer into
closer relations, and thus eliminating the
huge profits of the middieman. For one
thing, experiments have been makde in
sugar manufacture, with a view to retain
ing for ourselves the hundred million dol
lars that we annually pay for the importea
article. Sugar cane, sorghum, and beets,
are the three sources of commercial sugar.
The department has shown that the
southern belt of our country can probably
produce the first, the middle belt the
second, and the regions farther north the
sugar beeta. A process has b23n dis.
covered whereby sorghum, treateI with
Alcohol, yields double the amount of sugar
that 1t has been hitherto possible to
obtain from it. Our bssS resources are
inealcuabIe; and altogether the pros
parity OF nome made sugar is assured.
Again, a thorough study or forage
grasses has been made IN order to discover
which varieties are best adapted to given
localities, and especially 10 obtain d grass
which will flourish in arid regions with
out irrigation. Sucn a grass has been
found; 1t is as good as that in the moist
lands, though it is slower in its rate of
growth. In the course Of a few years
millions Of acres, now barren, will have
been given to agriculture by this discovery,
which but for tue department of agricul-
ture might never ave been made. Scarce
ly of less Importance is the Investigation
OF the best means whereby swamp lands
may be reclaimed, and of the preserva-
ton and distribution Of forests, SO as to
both prevent disastrous floods on the
one hand and to res riot arid areas on the
other.