The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-06-11

of a single class, the smuts, has
averaged as much as twenty million
dollars a year for a series of years,
and the averag e loss from rust in the
wheat-gfowing region alone has been
estimated at from seventy-fve to
one hundred million dollars a year.
SHUTS are now under control, and it
is not too much to expect that the
losses from rust will soon be reduced
to insignificant figures.
Science wars against injurious in
expect that within fifty years the
persistent efforts of entOmologists to
put an end to the ravages of the in
sect enemies of Our wheat, cotton,
fruit and other crops-the losses
from which are conservatively esti-
mated as averaging four hundred
million dollars a year-will have
achieved a large measure of success.
This success, however, will not be
attained wholly by the use of insecti-
cides, but in large measure by the
adoption of a judicious system of
crop rotation.
Results of the highest Importance
will accrue from the more general
practice of irrigation. 1t has been
we'll said that had the settlement of
the United States been from west to
east instead of from east to west,
irrigation would have formed an i'm
portant part of agricultural opera
tions throughout the entire country.
This is because of the immense bene-
fit that results from it, not merely
in making good a deficient rainfall,
but in regulating, in a measure, the
supply of water to the requirements
of the crop.
In the Eastern States and the great
Mississippi Valley it is no uncommon
thing, even in a season of average
rainfall, for the lack of moisture at
; a particular stage in the growth of
5 the crop to cut down the production
| ten, twenty, and even thirty per
: cent. The importance of the arti-
fetal application of water as a regu-
: latOr of moisture is, however, coming
to be generally recognized and be-
fore many years all truck farms,
; market gardens, or other farms or
parts of farms where the value of
? the crop to the acr is high, will be
irrigated. And where there is an
: abundance of water and the tOpOg-
/ raphy OF the land is favorable, the
necessary bitches may be constructed
for the irrigation even of field crops
IN seasons Of drought.
In stock raising of all varieties,
/ losses will be avoided d ii gains will
; be multiplied. Pl uro pneumonia is
already Il thing OF che past. For
hog cholera, Il disease the losses from
which ar estimated at not less than
one hundred million dollars Il year
a preventive has recently been dis
covered, and the complete eradicu-
ton of every other contagious dis
ease now affecting our ticks and
herds Will he u matter Of only Il few
years.
MARVELLOUS INCREASE IN PROJECTION.
The inferior breeds Of farm ami
mAis with which 50 many farmers
are till content will gradually dis
appear, and their places be taken ~
thorOugh0r dor graded stock. Larger
profits vii result III every branch Of
the industry.
The recent marvellous increase in
agricultural production to which
referred at tie beginning Of this ar
ticle has been made possible only by
the general substitution Of machin-
cry for heInan and animal labor.
The Isl # The human lab. = ex-
pendrd N the yrouuctlon OF a bushel
of wheat has been reduced from
seventeen and three fourths cents f
three and e-third cents, in the pro
ductiOn of Il bushel of corn from
thirty-four and three-fourths cents
to ten and one-half cents, and in that
of ii ton of hay from eighty three
and one third cents to sixteen and
one fourth cents.
The stea n ~gang-plow, with seeder
and harrow combination, has done
even more than this. Ithas reduced
the time required of human labor, in
blowing, sowing and narrowing, to