The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-13
Agriculture q BuIwark.

/ The sure foundation of Americas export
 trade has been the shipments of the pro-
 ducts of agriculture It is the American farmer who has the proud distinction of of paying off Uncle sams huge indebted ness to Europe, who has brought securities from foreign banks, and who has sent Amer lean capital around the world looking for | investment. To the farmer and his stupen- dous volume of products rests Americas real bulwark in these days of inflated finance.
 England is our great customer, as she buys from us with lavish hands. Last year
 nearly half a billion dollars worth of the
 products of American farms were shipped
 across the Atlantic to provide tue living me-
 cessities for the English people. England
 depends on American farmers and planters for her wheat corn and cotton. English cottons worn the world over, are woven from cotton grown on Southern plantations, and English bread is baked from flour ground in Minneapolis mills. What Eng
 land would do and how her people would
 subsist if deprived suddenly of her Amer
 ican source of supplies it Is difficult to inn
 agine. England lives on wheat she receives in importations from America.
 The following figures give a general idea of what importance the American farmer and his products are to the general welfare of England, that paid to Uncle Sam last
 year for wheat s7s,oOo,ooo; corn s17,ooo.ooo; cotton S124, 900, 900. Total, S214,0O0,O0O The railways have done much to encour- age the movement of grain by a steady re- | duction in the rates charged for transpor- tation. Thirty years ago the cost of snip ping a ton of grain from Chicago by railway to NewYork and then by steam to Liverpool was about SIS. The same service is now performed for about $4.5o.
 Every summer the financial markets of the world watch with anxiety the growth of the crops in America. Because this country raises more wheat and more cotton and more corn than any other country in the world 1t is to the American farms and plantations that the eyes of the world are turned. The price of bread in Europe de- bends in agreat measure on the amount Of wheat Uncle Sam has for export The cot ton manufacturing industry of Europe is
 almost entirely dependent on the Amer l. lean cotton crop. The price of beef in England hangs on our corn crop in the United States. t 1 It is interesting to note that the Govern ment crop report just issued indicates the largest corn crop this country has ever had,
 being 2,463,724.O00 bushels The total
 wheat crop is estimated at 555, ,0ss,0Oo bush l els; barley crop. sss.5oo,ooO bushels, about 100, oOO 900 bushels greater than last year l.. The Spectacle of the Harvest. . To witness the. harvesting of these great American products Is certainly most inter- esting and entertaining, Imagine twenty thousand ripening acres, of wheat in one of
 the Western States of the Union. What q , grand spectacle.
 With the dawn an army of men and a regular artillery corps of binders come
 down a road which winds through these ex- tensive fields and which one cannot see for
 the ocean of wheat. First come the binders
 each drawn by It's four six mules. Then
 there are a half dozen wagons loaded down
 with hands" gathered from every part of America by promise of high harvest wages They work early and late in these busy
 times, because all of the twenty thousand
 acres must be harvested and in stack with
 in the fortnight, else the grain will begin to
 drop. and that would be a serious thing on a farm which boasts the value and the gross yearly returns of many a city corporation. The leading machine makes it's turn into
 the field. The driver and his helper do
 something with the machinery. The mules
 start with a jerk. the sickle buzxes and the great canvas arms which sweep the grain
 into sheaves for binding begin to whirl Be-
 hind 1t as 1t runs lies a long swath of brown
 stubble from which field-mice and quail are scurrying. The machine coughs and out
 tumbles four sheaves. Behind walk the
 harvesters. setting up the sheaves in shocks.