The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-02-19
Outgrowing the Food Supply

Prophecies rather lugubrious are pro-
nounced in regard to the future of the
food supply of the United States. With
an addition of 100000 a year to our
population in less than eight years, all
the additional arabic land of the United
States will be used up, Then what shall
we do for food to eat? ask the prophets
| of evil. There is one answer to their
question that apparently none of them
| have thought of, and that is-eat less.
One of the greatest of British physicians
said, one-fourth of what we eat keeps
us; the other three-fourths we keep at
risk of our lives. If this estimate is
true, then by following the doctors sug-
gestion we shall have with our present
supply sufficient food for three times as
many people as we have now.
But there is another factor which the
prophets of evil do not take into consid-
GRAFTON that offers far more agreeable
solution than feeding hygienically, eat
This is intensive farming, the producing
of three and fourfold our present crops
upon the same ground. French farmers
have already compassed this result. Sc
have those of Great Britain, to some ex-
tent. We, too, must come to this alter
native.
The cheerful progress we have already
made in this direction is alluded to in a
paper written by Julian Hawthorne for
Lippincott's Mr.. Hawthorne sketches
slightly the great work begun by the
United States agricultural department.
Of one branch, the state agricultural
experiment stations, it is said:
| Some Of the stations are experimenting with
| homemade and commercial fertilizers; others
are seeking means to restore fertility to worn
out lands; others are taking up the sub
| ject of fruits and vineyards; others, again,
study the con.,csition and storing of folders,
| or experiment On the feeding of animals, OF
their diseases end the remedies therefor. 10
| states where mnch of the soil is arid irrigation
| is given prominence in the investigations, as
| is sugar making in Louisiana and wine max
| ing i'll California. Here and there station
devotes itself mainly to poultry raising or to
| the treatment of bees.
| 1t is the policy Of the stations to institute
experiments among farmers on their own
| farms. both for practical and for educational
| purposes. This tends to make each farmer a
fresh center of information. The stations be-
come the headquarters of local agricultural
associations, where the members consult with
and instruct one another. A New Jersey
| farmer lately declared that knowledge of the
fact that his soil lacked potash (Which he had
| learned through the neighboring station) had
| been au immediate gain to him of $500 In
| North Carolina, an increase of IA per cent. in
| the quality of commercial fertilizers sold in
the state is due to the work of the local station.
| In Wisconsin, the experiments in pig feeding
| have been of extraordinary value. Nowhere,
/ in short, have the stations failed to pay for
/ themselves hundreds of times over, either di-
rectly or indirectly; and it is significant of the
/ general recognition of American farmers of
the value of the stations, that no state which
/ has established a station has ever abandoned
it. On the contrary, they have steadily in
/ creased The pecuniary support afforded them,
until now II amounts to hundreds Of thou
4 sands of dollars