New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-12-04
PARTING By MACHINERY.

The changes which are rapidly taking place
In the conditions of Western farming are full
of promise to the Eastern farmer of intelligence
and enterprise. If he is ready TO meet the con-
dltions of successful agriculture there is 10
reason why he should continue to complain Of
the impOSSibility of competing with the occu-
pants OF rich, low priced Western lands. Per-
haps there never would have been any good rea-
son for that complaint if the fastener had been
really awake to the nature of his problem.
Frenchman a Dane would have taken his
farm and, instead of letting it deteriorate. would
have improved it and made money The COM
petition of the West was ruinOus not so much in
that it made Eastern farming intrinscally I'M
profitable as in that ii unsettled habits of thrift
and land nurture and drew people from one
place to another, robbng soils as they went and
leaving q trail of decadent agriculture behind
them. This will go on long as the govern
ment continues to hold out the allurement of I'M
settled lands.
But the cattle ranges are being fenced in. and
the great wheat fields are showing the effect OF
a continued drain The West in its turn must
take up diversified farming It's methods while
for time exceedingly profitable were exceed
ingly wasteful and were possible only on cheap
land. AS the country is settled I'D equilibrium
IS restored. But the East, to compete must
learn one lesson from the West and adapt it's
farming to the conditions of modern industry
1t must farm more and more with machinery
Government statistics show that through ma
chinery the cost Of producing crops has de-
creased 80 per cent since 1850. The per capita
supply Of cereals has almost doubled since 1910
The farm laborer is five times as effective as
he was then. Our product has increased entirely
out of proportion to the numbers engaged in
agriculture. Cotton is the only one of the
nine principal crops requiring greater absolute
amount Of labor than in 1910 In the Other
crops, with vastly increased output there has
been, according TO DR.. H. w. Quaintance of
the University of Missouri, in a recent paper
upon The Influence of Farm Machinery on Pro
duction and Labor" an actual decrease In til,
amount Of labor employed This change has
indeed been marked in the East but il has been
carried further in the West, where the steam
plough and other instruments of farnine, at
wholesale are used. But that wholesale farming
has been wasteful farming. and the opportunity
of the East lies in doing the same thing without
the waste. Its policy should be intensive farm
ing a large scale. with antique sinew and
with modern art" it should carry on that gar
denlike cultivation which supports in Europe
such large rural populations on small areas
with the aid of that machinery which in the
West makes possible the farming of large tracts
with little labor.
This need not necessarily mean the destr1c-
ton of small holdings, though 1t does mean in
a measure their cultivation as a unit No small
farmer can afford the original outlay for tbe
most modern farm machinery, or the waste
entailed by its for only few DAYS in n
year. But there is no reason why farmers I'm
the Eastern States, except in rocky districts like
parts of New-England. where there nre other
promising opportunities awaiting Intelligent i'm.
provement, should not in cooperation Law out
| their fields that they could be titled and
reaped by machinery, and that few mon
with machines could be employed through tho
whole season during which any particuIor class
of work is to be done, just as the owner of Tho
steam thrasher OF any neighborhood now &c
Farming properly done on this basis means
making the most of the land, while now pucb or
it is entirely neglected only half titled because
of the difficulty Of getting farm labor. 1t means
carving on farming like manufacturing ot fuI,
pressure Land under intensive cultivation can
be made TO yield enormous crops but such chi
tvation has been practically impossible upder
past conditions in this country because of the
cost of labor. Even our best farming has ONLY
been half farming. according TO the highest for.
eign standards. In Europe lands far less rich
than orr neglected Eastern fields are sources of
large wealth We have not Europe's incom-