The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1895-11-20
rhs Farmer, Of America.

Secretary of Agriculture Morton's an
hual report contains the following:
The protection Of domestic health will
be much improved when each purchaser
of meats demands and insists upon that
which has been governmentsliy inspect
ed and certificated.
Speaking of the export trade in dairy
points out the fact that in cheese the
United States, while a large shipper TO
British markets, holds the conspicuously
unflattering place in the extreme rear as
20 quality and price, and as the only one
of the competitors for this trade whose
business shows a serious falling off.
This he attributes 10 the deterioration
i'm the quality of American cheese by
adulteration with oleo aud other ingredi-
ents. In butter the United States is out
of the race, supplying less than per cent
of the British demand for foreign buffers,
notwithstanding the fact that Great Brit
ain imported in eight months $40, ,00O, 900
worth of butter.
SAVED BY WEATHER WARNINGS.
The work of the Weather Bureau for
the year cost SS7S.i39. 1t is claimed that
the warnings of cold waves secured from
freezing more than s22,265,Ooo worth of
perishable agricultural products which
otherwise would have been lost.
The Secretary calls attention to the re-
port of the chief ofthe Division of Statist-
les, which reiterates an argument in favor
of taking an annual agriculture census.
''If, however," says the Secretary, ''the
Congress of the United States finally pro-
vides for permanent Census Bureau to
gather populational, agricultural, COM
mercial and manufacturing statistics each
year instead of once in ten years the
entire business of collecting agricultural
data and statistics should be vested in
that bureau, which now proposed and ad-
vocated as a permanency by many of the
most thoughtful economists and statists
of the United States"
Improved road construction is progress
sing in many of the States notably in
Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Caro-
lima and Kentucky. More than half the
States have passed new road laws within
the last year, and there is general effort
TO ascertain the best methods for develop
ing the country roads, for using the coun-
ty prisoners or State conviots for this
purpose, and for organizing State COM
missions to look after these matters.
The report closes with discussion OF
''the future of farms and farming in the
United States" in which the Secretary
compares the Indebtedness of the various
class of owners.
'These figures" be says, 'show an
| enormous and constant indebtedness o
the banks and bankers alongside of which
the money in farm mortgages and the
debts owed by farmers are relatively in
significant. The debts ofrai roads, bank
ers, manufacturers and merchants entitlt
them, and not the farmers, TO be called
the debtor class in America"
In conclusion he says, "The value o
farm lands, being governed by the rela
ton of the supply of those lands 70 tn,
demand for them. will therefore steadil.
increase. The area or supply remain
stationary, or from careless tillage dc
creases. But the added millions of on
population augment and intensity the de
mand. Therefore the price of farms mus
in the next 20 years, and possibly in tel
years, advance more markedly than thos
; of urban real estate. The owner of fertil
fields, however, must understand nov
that agriculture is swiftly becoming
scientific profession. The more the farm
er cultivates his mind the better and NOR
prOfitably he can cultivate his field.
q The department of Agriculture has eN
pended during each of the last two year
a greater per cent. of its appropriation i
, the application of science to farming, I
, correct tillage and fertilization than eve
: before"