The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-01
OUR FARMING INDUSTRY.
One Wheat Crop Would Have MADE
Nearly Ten of the Pyramids

Frank M. Todd in Ainslees
Joseph, son of Jacob, had to ware
house a good deal of wheat in the seven
fat years to carry the Egyptians
through the seven lean ones The
American farmers produced enough IN
1898 to Make Joseph's little stock look
like a pea in a tub. If it had all been
piled in form on the plain of Gizeh 1t
would have made nine pyramids the
size of the pyramids of Cheops, and
with the surplus another could nave
been reared four-fifths as large That
was the biggest American wheat crop
ever recorded. 1t amounted to 675,l48,-
7o5 bushels, grown on 44,045.72S acres
of land. Next year the yield was lighter
and the Americans only turned off
seven and nine-tenths pyramids OF
wheat In 1900 they even fell short of
that, producing only paltry seven and
a half pyramids. Still that would have
been comfortable addition to Joseph s
stock, considering that it was grown
on a smaller acreage than the crop OF
1899 was a rather creditable perfor-
nance. The deficiency was made up
and 10000 900 bushels of potatoes.
There was considerable ado over the
increase of the standing army to 100,
coo men. If every man in such an army
were a good fast mixer, and worked
at II ten hours a day. the whole force
couldn't milk more than one-third OF
the cows that are now being MIXED in
this country-not to speak of the goats.
And if they could milk them all, and
4 !
into the Chicago Drainage Canal, be-
ginning with it entirely empty they
could milk it bankful in about two
weeks.
IF all the hens in this country were
to be consolidated, like some of our
other manufacturing establishments,
into one hen, and that hen We're to
lay an egg with the cubic contents of
all the eggs laid daily on American soil,
that egg would be as big as-well, it
would be a very large egg. A chick
Matched from it ought to be able to
peck wheat off the dome of the nation
al capitol. In 1890 there were 25S 81. 125
chickens in the country, and during
the year S91, 722 ,916 dozen eggs were
produced and sold.
when Mr.. Reed deprecated a billion
dollar Congress somebody retorted that
it was billion-dollary country. 1t is.
The millions period is no longer ade-
quate to express the magnitude of
our farming industry.
THE acreage of American farms in
1890 was greater than the combined
acres of France, Germany, Austria,
Italy and the British Isles. The value
of their realty was $13, 279, 252 ,694, and
the tools and implements on them re-
presented an outlay of nearly half
billion more. They produced over So
100000, 900 worth of food and raw ma
teral. The value of their exports in 1899
was 1892, S1l 1888, or more than half the
value of the entire exports of the
country by $42,00O,000. The growth of
this industry had the most primitive
beginnings, and has gone forward in
the face of the most discouraging
vicissitudes.
The American of the revolutionary
period was an extremely poor farmer
Looking back on his methods and his
work, it is hard to say which were the
more crude, his implements or his
ideas.
He used a wooden pillow, he was
afraid an iron one would poison the
SOIL He had not yet learned that
CHAMBERS was contagious, and would
work and stable healthy stock along
side stock affected by il, and wonder
what there was in the SOIL air or
climate that carried them off He
didn't understand the use of fertilizers,
and instead of spreading his barnyard
manure on his fields, he let 1t accumu-
late around his barn until the an
proaches were impossible. Then he
dug the barn out and moved it. In
stead of rotating crops to save his soil,
he planted according to the phases of
the moon. There were few sheep in the
country, and other like stock was poor
and scanty. In Virginia the belief pre-
vailed that it would kill cows to house
and milk them in the winter.
Transportation was poor, and con-
tinued so for a long time. The roads
could not have been worse. Markets
were scattered and far between. Each
farm attempted to be self sustaining
in as large a degree as possible. What
the farmer couldn't grow or his wife
make they went without. Wasteful
methods of tillage eventually exhaust
ed a soil originally rich. and in the
reign of Andrew Jackson agriculture
had fallen into such an alarming state
Of neglect and inefiiciency that the
Government had to come to its relief.
Through the efforts OF Henry L. Ellis
Worth. Commissioner of Patents, a
bureau was established in the Patent
ONCE which developed into the Depart
ment OF Agriculture. BY aid of that de-
partment, principally farming has been
made a science