The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1893-05-05

hours: all willing hands will be employed
and effort will be ease.
Onward and upward will move the null
tiplying millions of earth, impelled by indi-
vidual selflshness to minister to one an
others wants till trade is free and mems
leading ambition will be to serve one an
other Then the nations will be one, strikes
will be unknown and poverty forgotten.
Great private fortunes will become historic,
former will have learned the art of just dis
tribution, and there will be enough for all.
w. A. PETER.
Professor Briggs on Sunday Newspapers.
[From Our New York Correspondent
Professor Briggs does not care to say
much about the results of what is called
| the higher criticism upon religious thought
in the next century, although it is known
| that he believes that before many years
have passed accurate scholarship, exhaust
| i've research and intelligent criticism will
| be welcomed as an aid rather than him
! drance to religious development. There is
one thing, however, about which Professor
Briggs has spoken to your correspondent
freely, and that is the power of the press. He
said:
/ have learned since the proceedings in
which my writings have been involved to
realize more than l ever did before what
| the power and influence of the newspaper
press are. have found that its desire is to
report great events in the religious as well
as other fields of activity fully and with
accuracy, and | have TO doubt that this
tendency will continue. If it does the in
stitution is to have greater influence in the
| future than in the past.
But l have been especially interested in
| Il . I,a ,.lnr-
which is comparatively recent. At first
was prejudiced against it, and l would not
permit any reading of these Sunday news
papers. Whether it is regrettable or not, l
now realize that the Sunday press is per-
manent institution; that thousands of re-
| ligious people recognize and approve it, and
| that it can be pade power for vast good.
| My hope and belief is that in the next
! century it will be cultivated by persons Of
| high character and be made one of the en-
| gines for the dissemination of religious and
| moral truths and information, so that per-
| sons of such inclination can rely upon . f,T
| those things which they desire, and H. eli
while it's influence will reach in this dircC
| ton others who are not of religious DISPOSE
ton.
| think that good men, recognizing that
the Sunday press has come to stay, will
undertake to make it an influence for good,
as unquestionably it can become. It's tend
| ency is certainly in the right direction, for
the Sunday press contains now matter suit
able for tho reading of those of moral and
| religious inclination, and there are sermons
to be found in many of the news reports
| printed in these issues.
! Secretary Rusk the Future of Agri-
OrrIf I'm
Will our soil and methods of agriculture
| improve so as to provide food without diff
Guilty for all our population in 1882
1t would take the gift of prophecy to an
| swer that inquiry, and though 1 bear a
prophets name and am a seventh son
| never found myself gifted in the prophetic
line. can give you my opinion as to the
| probable relative production of this coun-
| try when all it's available land is subject to
| tillage, but who is going to tell me what
| our population will be in 1893? / see that q
writer in recent magazine estimates that
| it may be 1000, 900, 900 in 1890, but cannot
help thinking that in making such an esti-
mate he has INDUCED little too much in
prophecy for ordinary men endowed with
but the usual number of senses.
| AS to the possible productiveness of this
country, 1 would not hesitate to affirm that
not more than one-fourth of the land avail
able for tillage in the United States is now
under cultivation. Consequently, without
| any further improvements in agricultural
methods and with no more care than is ex-
ercised at present, The mere extension of
| tillage to all the available land would null
tiply our production fourfold
Now, have already more than once ex-
pressed the conviction that the yield per
~ 80 L..
creased simply as the result of better farm
ing and the application of the best methods
now available by 30 per cent Suppose this
improvement to take place and you have a
skiold increase of our present production.
Now, then, much of the land which remains
to be brought under cultivation must be
cultivated by means of irrigation or re-
claimed by drainage, and we know that
when land is cultivated under the condi-
tions necessary to make these lands avail
able the yield Is greatly in excess of that
which is cultivated by the ordinary meth
DDS.
All these factors must be taken into nc.
count in estimating our possible future pro-
duction, and we have not yet touched upon
what inventive genius and science may
discover in the interest of greater produc-
ton and diminished waste in the next hun
dred years; but in the light of what these
agencies have accomplished in the past hun
dred years, whether the population of this
country n hundred years hence will be a
thousand million souls or not, think
have said enough to relieve your mind of
any anxiety lest your children or your chill
dren's children should have to go hungry
for want eff sufficient productiveness OF
United States soil. There is one thing more
you must remember, and that is that be-
fore our own people go hungry we will
stop exporting food products and the aver
age exports of the past year or two would
feed quite number of hungry young
Americans.
Asregards exporting food products, while
no one can realize more than do the i'm
portance of our export trade, l would Of
course rather see our own demand increase
to the extent of consuming all we produce
at home, and this suggests to me that
there is good deal of wild talk about
shutting off completely all immigration
from European countries. Discrimination
Is to the class of emigrants that we should
welcome to our shores is all very well, but