The record-union., 1897-02-23

! States, now that l have been so long
perfecting my eyes and hands in the
business. not to give this garden the en-
largement it asks.
So novel, practically, are these inves-
LEGATIONS though everything about
them is really old and tested for ages
that II ten garden experts, or scientists,
from California, or England or any other
country had been here all summer and
seen and done all that has been done
Il nave no secrets) and gone home again
empty-handed as they went, they would
still find themselves helpless as regards
this business
one OF them could, of course, go to
work with as little means as / had (and
a much better START, and If he proved
patient and persistent enough for 30 or
~ years, might come out where this gar
den now rs. What man has done man
can DO But this would not be economy
Some twenty five years ago a strong
party OF japanese went through our
nelghborlng silk village of South Man
chester. They looked sharply and l saw
trouble ahead. 1t appeared to me that
our brethren in Asia were humping
themselves in competition and would en-
dure-these ancient faces-any amount
, of Western beating.
They knew great deal more about
silk than we did, of course, though.
when l was about years old my father
and mother had filled the house from
cellar to garret with silk worms
But we heard nothing of Japan
ese competition till within year or two
SO long had 1T taken the Japs to train
their new machinery upon u.s.
Now the weak point of these States is
that our agricultural lungs and bowels
are all eaten out of US by our wasteful
methods of farming and immense spaces
or land, north, south, east and west
which nobody cares for, and nobody
knows what to do with, cry to heaven
for better management. Unless we take
up grazing and turf rf-culture on broad
scales as the result of close studies in
gardens, our own people and landowners
viii be the first to let in the "hordes Of
Asia"
There are good enough rural peoples
and turf grasses in Asia, / believe and
know, but we Americans have not the
sense TO select them and set them at
work till we have prepared ourselves
with an Intimate knowledge of what the
arts of grazing will do for the land.
Our "graziers" who have merely fed
the aboriginal forages out of the land
are like the frontiersman who drives the
aboriginal game and people out of the
land. This is the rudest of grazing. We
need shepherds and herdsmen to pro-
vide feed for their animals as they pro-
VIDE meat for themselves, else they are
only hunters for forage.
Too many of our congressman would
defend the nations coasts with artillery
ships and forts. l would save part of
this armament by covering our shores
with men who will fight for their native
sod. The whole nation needs real gra
z1ers on the Pacific Coast, where the
grain and fruit business is already over
done and the plow must take a rest.
For these purposes it is none too soon
TO set studious minds right in turf-gar
dens at educational centers. For these
purposes we should lose no time in
planting the second turf garden in Cali
1ornia, and this for a continent largely
settled by British peoples, who have
never imported their own hereditary
grazing grasses except by accident
hours truly, ]. B. OLCOTT.