The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-06-21
The Possibilities of Agriculture.

Prince Kropotkin has issued recently
an intensely interesting volume, large
part of which he devotes to agricultural
economics. a subject which has re-
ceived little or no attention from the
doctrnaires who make a special study
Of other departments Of orthodox politi-
cal economy. He calls his book Fields.
Factories and Workshops" One might
assume from the peculiar political
opinions of Prince Kropotkin that he
would have run into socialstic, if not
anarchistic, extremes in propounding
the philosophy of such questions. This
is not the case. He is honest in col
lating his facts, and rational and con-
servative in his conclusions. He ad-
duces innumerabe statistics to sustain
each argument he sets forth, and these
are drawn from the writings and ex-
perience of practical agriculturalists in
all countries in the world.
What we are concerned with here is
not the sociological features of his
schemes, but with that vast amount of
practical information which he has col
lected on what is known as "intense
agriculture" Experts mean by "in-
tense agriculture" the cultivation of
the land as it is carried out in truck
gardens" bringing similar operations
to bear on early potatoes, onions, cab
bages and leguminous and cereal crops
as the scientific gardener does on such
horticultural produce as grapes and
vines. In a country like this the in
PRODUCTION of such a system Is not
pressing. Nevertheless, the United
States has immensely developed it, 1t
has been a favorite theme with writer's
on political economy in Great Britain
to contend that that country is in
capable of growing on it's own soil suf-
| ficient foodstuffs to support it's popu-
| lation of thirty millions; that England
is purely a manufacturing country, and
that in the nature of things she can
not be anything else. They have main
tained, moreover. that this is her true
! economical policy, and cheap one in
the end. Kropotkin endeavors to show
that this cannot remain long a possi-
bility for England The marvellous ex-
pansion in manufacturing industries in
recent years is not confined to Ger
! many and the United States. Indus
trial expansion has claimed the wide
world for its sphere, except China, and
the industrial renaissance of the Celes-
! tial empire is at hand. The conclusion
! our author arrives at is that the pres
| ent tendency of economical develop
ment in the world is to induce more and
more every nation, or rather every re-
! gion, taken in It's geographical sense,
to rely chiefly upon home production
| OF all the necessaries of life. Not to
| reduce, ] mean, the world exchange
1t may still grow in bulk; but to limit
1t to the exchange of what really must
/ be exchanged, and at the same time
! immensely increase the exchange of
art, new discoveries and inventions.
knowledge and Ideas" In other words.
Prince Kropotkir believes that small
! local industries combined with agricul.
| ture will sunercede the mammoth
manufactures of the present day; that
| decentralization will inevitably follow
the intolerable Industrial Capitalization
of our own time. The day when the
farm iaborer shall unbend his back and
stand upon his legs like a human be-
ing; when the city artisan shall learn
to know and appreciate nature may
come, as Kropotkin predicts. But that
| time seems remote.
When Kropotkin comes to hard,prac-
tical facts he is too much of a man
Of science not to deal with them In
| a scientific manner. There is still room