The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-01-24
TERRITORY AND CULTIVATION.

A paper by G. Wood Davis furnishes
more plausible explanation of the CONNER
cial crisis of 1898 than the financiers have
supplied. From 1865 to 1885 the United
States brought under cultivation greater
area than had ever been set under the pillow
by any people in ten times as many years,
the actual increase being in round numbers
100, 000,00 acres. The result was the
greatest activity and the greatest seeming
prosperity that the world has ever wit
messed; the new lands requiring the imme-
date production of enormous quantities
of farm machinery, houses, farm buildings,
mills, towns, furniture and all other forms
of equipment required by young and
seemingly thriving people. A halt was
called in 1885, when the easily accessible
portions of the cultivable area were fully
occupied, and in 1890 it became apparent
that the land was incapable of furnishing
further employment for labor. As, how
ever, foreign immigration and natural in
crease continued to furnish the usual sup
ply of labor, a migration from the rural to
the urban districts set in, and the conse-
quence was gorged condition of the city
labor markets, and a cessation OF produc-
ton by large percentage of the population.
When these conditions were fully realized,
a decline in prices and stagnation in bust
ness became inevitable.
The revolution is as marked in the
country as in the city. Agricultural prod
ucts have declined to unprecedented
figures, though the area devoted to grain
has diminished several years. In 1894 it
was 1900, 900 acres less than in 1889, and the
cotton acreage had not increased, the de-
crease in the former representing acres
devoted to the growth of hay. The pro-
portion of the population living ON farms,
and supported by the land, has diminished
from 40 to SO per cent in little over ten
years.
We need look no further to discover a
reason for the decline of business. Pros
perity naturally followed the occupation
of vast, fertile, treeless prairies, which re-
quired no labor to subdue them except the
breaking of the sod; tie opposite condi-
ton made itself apparent when the sons of
the race which made itself homes on the
prairies focked to the cities in quest of
work. For the farmer adds yearly to the
wealth of the country, while the worker in
the cities produces nothing.
Mr.. Davis, sound as he is in most of his
propositions curiously fails to discern the
true cure for the present evil, which is the
diminution of the size of agricultural hold
ings. The American nation is land-peor,
and it will not become abidingly rich until
people realize that the owner of forty
acre tract is better off than the owner of a
quarter section, which he cannot possibly
cultivate thoroughly. In Japan, where
Al 100000 of people live contentedly, the
farmer owns and cultivates two or three
or at most ten acres. He gets out of the
soil all that it will yield. The American
farmer cultivates eighty or hundred and
sixty acres, and the consequence is that he
is dependent on providence for his crop.
He cannot irrigate or subsoil-plow or fer
tilize or even cultivate sufficiently, and
hence holding which should support fifty
people in comfort barely sufices to main
tain five