Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-01-14

Joseph, SON of Jacob, had to ware
house 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 it
would have made nine pyramids the
size of the pyramids of Cheops, and
with the surplus another could have
been rearer four-ffths as large. That
was the biggest American wheat crop
ever recorded. 1t amounted to Ga, 49,
705 bushels, grown on IA, ,045,27S acres
of land. Next year the yield was light
er, 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, and considering that it was
grown on a smaller acreage than the
crop of 1899 was a rather creditable
performance. The deficiency was made
up with a 2,OOO,OOO,OOO -bushel corn
crop, and 21O,OOO,OOO bushels of pota-
toes.
There was considerable ado over the
increase Of the standing army to 100,-
700 men. If every man in such an army
were good fast mixer, and worked at
it ten hours a day, the whole force
couldn't milk more than one-third of the
cows that are now being MIXED in this
And if they could milk them all, and
if they did, and if they MIXED them
into the Chicago drainage canal, be-
ginning with 1t entirely empty, they
could milk 1t 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 were 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
hatched from it ought to be able to
peck wheat off the dome of the national
capitol. In 1890 there were 25S, 1871, ,125
chickens in the country, and during the
year S19,722, ,916 dozen eggs were pro-
duced and sold.
When somebody deprecated billion
dollar Congress Mr.. Reed retorted that
it was billion-dollar country. 1t is.
The millions period is no longer ade-
quate to express the magnitude of our
manufactures, our trusts, our fortunes
and 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 1925, ,252 $40, and
the tools and implements on them rep
resented an outlay of nearly half a
billion more. They produced over $3,-
500,000,000 worth of food and raw ma
terial, The value of their exports in
1899 was $792,S11,733, or more than
half the value of the entire exports of
the country by 100000. The growth
of this industry had the most primitive
beginnings, and has gone forward in
the face of the most discouraging vicis-
situdes, says Frank NJ. Todd, in Aims
lees.
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 plow; he was
afraid an iron one would poison the
soil" He had not yet learned that
glanders was ntagious, and would
work and stable healthy stock along
side stock affected by it, and wonder
what there was in the soil air or eli
mate that carried them off. He didn't
understand the use of fertilizers, and
instead of spreading his barnyard ma
nure on his fields, he let it accumulate
around his barn until the approaches
were impossible. Then he dug the barn
out and moved it. Instead of rotating
crops to save his soil, he planted ac-
cording 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 contin-
ued so for 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 exhausted a soil
originally rich. and in the reign of An
drew Jackson agriculture had fallen
into such an alarming state of neglect
and inefficiency that the government
had to come to it's relief. Through the
efforts of Henry L. Ellsworth, Com
missioner of Patents, bureau was es-
tablished in the patent office which de-
veloped into the Department of Agri-
culture. By aid of that department
principally farming has been made a
science.
CuRlOslTIEs ON RAILWAY TRIP.
Fxper;eureS Met VIII, nv =, Mo-,