The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1900-01-24

No two vocations Of human concern
are more closely related than those Of ag-
riculture and railroad transportation.
They are the correlatives OF one another.
Agriculture is the basis of all other in
dustries, because mankind could not sub
sist without it. 1t grows the food and
supplies the textiles to feed and clothe
the civilized world. Railroads are the
distributors OF agricultural products-the
consort, indeed, of agriculture and the
great territorial arteries OF commerce.
These two OF the greatest factors Of hui
man necessity and human activity bear
the same relation to each other that the
stomach does TO the limbs, that the water
does to the ship, the soil to vegetation,
the light of the moon and stars to the
beauty and brightness ofthe night, Rail-
roads have advanced agriculture more
than all other agencies combined. They
have multiplied production almost be-
yond calculation. Wherever they have
been built they have dethroned famine
and installed Righteousness, Through
their fundamentally and efficiency more
has been added to the wealth Of the
world in the past halfcentury than
through all the past ages. They are also
the best OF educators. They are difiusing
knowledge in broad and broadening
stream throughout the world Build rail-
road into most benighted region where
the people are lawless and ignorant, rude
and savage, brutal and vicious, and in
few years industry and energy will estab'
lish trade, schools will be opened and in
telligence will light up the faces of the
inhabitants.
In the territory Of the United States
there are more than 100000 square
miles that have been made habitable only
by the construction of railway lines.
There are 100000 persons that have
found employment in agriculture in the
wide and treeless plains OF America. In
1850 throughout the whole region now
organized into eighteen States and Ter
ritoriss there were less than $4,000 farms
or ranches. In 1890 these had been in
creased to $4,000. The farms were then
confined to the watercourses and to
ocean lines. Now they are scattered
throughout this vast region. In 1850
there was not single farm in cultivation
in the territory now embraced in North
and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Arizona, Montana, Wyom-
ing, Colorado, Idaho and Washington,
and but l57 in Minnesota and S7S in the
whole of California. Without railroads
this region would yet be desert land.
These railway lines enabled hundreds
OF thousands of homes to be bought or
entered by the homeless. The produc-
ton OF wheat since the opening Of these
" desert lands has increased seven-fold,
while the population OF the country has
increased only three times. We are now
able to export 225,OOO,OOO bushels OF
wheat, which is more than twice as much !
as we produced in 1850. In the mean
time the production of corn has in
creased from 6OO,OOO,OOO bushels to over
1000, 100000.
This work OF the railroads has made
the United States the largest grain and
meat producer in the world, as we'll as
the largest exporter. 1t has become lit
orally the granary Of the world, and leads
all nations in wealth aud in the intelli-
gence OF its citizenship.
Railroads have double reason for fos-
tering all kinds OF industries along their
line, and especially are they interested
in fostering agriculture. 1t gives freight
and it induces immigration.
Agriculture has more to gain from
heir successful management than any