The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-20

| because of the over-growth of our
cities and the congestion of population
in the great manufacturing and COM
mercial centers. In his annual address
Governor Mount says:
| President Washington, in his an
nual message TO congress, Dec. Z, 1886,
recommended the. establishment of a
| national university, in which, among
/ other things, the science of agriculture
should be taught 1T will not be doubt
ed" he said, that with reference to
! individual or national affairs, agricul-
! ture is of primary Importance. In pro-
/ portion as nations advance in pOpula-
\ ton and other circumstances of matur-
1 ity, this truth becomes more apparent,
and renders the cultivation of the soil
more and more an object of public
patronage
Hon. James Wilson, secretary of
agriculture, in his annual report for
1898. commends the teaching of this
science in the schools. He says: There
is a growing interest in the education
/ that relates to production. and all
classes of intelligent people favor it.
More knowledge by the farmer of what
he deals with every day should enable
him to control conditions, produce more
from an acre and contribute more to
4 ing done in most of the common schools
of the states to cultivate and lead the
mind to inquire into and store up facts
regarding nature, so that the young
farmer may be directed into the paths
that lead to education concerning his
life work.
In a recent speech at Savannah.
Ga, Mr.. Wilson said: THE young
farmer of the south should study soil
rather than dead languages; he should
learn of the present in preference to
ancient history, and the feeding of ami
mlas before giving time to belles-lettreS.
The study of the government of moist
ure in the soil will pay better than the
study OF oratory. Barnyard poultry
offers greater rewards for its inteli-
gent care than county offices" -
Mr.. Maxwell said further: cit is
mistake to suppose that when our land
has all been brought under cultivation,
we have reached the limits of its posi-
bilities as a basis for the support Of
population and for the advantageous
employment of labor on it. That limit
is not reached until all the water sup
plies have been also utilized, for water
is such a wonderful fertilizer that ten
acres titled TO diversified products by
method of intensive culture and with
irrigation ana the additional labor made
necessary by such methods of cultiva-
ton will yield a product many times
greater than ten times as much land
would yield under the ordinary meth
DDS of farming dependent entirely on
the natural rainfall
IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS.
1.-THE secretary of agriculture fully
realizes the Importance of this great
problem and its possibilities in increas-
ing the value and prOductivenessI of the
eastern farms, and at the same time
opening up new opportunities for the
wage-earners of the great eastern cities
for profitable and permanent employ
ment near at home, and if this appro-
priation is made, Investigations viii be
inaugurated TO demonstrate these facts
and the benefits of those experiments
will be made available to farmers all
over the country through the publica-
/ ton and free distribution of the bulle-
tins of the department.
Italy is the classic land of irrigation
in Europe, and yet in many parts of
that country the average rainfall is
greater than that of most of the states
east of the Mississippi river In that
country the value and prOductiveness
of the valley of the Pc has more than
doubled by irrigation. There is every
reason to believe that equally import
ant and favorable results will come
from an adoption of this art in the east
ern half of the United States, and it
will in the end be found to be the real
solution of the labor problem.
Every agricultural experiment sta
ton in the United States should be a
practical object lesson to the farmers
of that state of the enormous advan-
tages to be attained by them through
the adoption of these improved meth
DDS Of cultivation and fertilization"