The Ladysmith news and Ingram news. [volume] (Ladysmith, Wis.) 1905-1906, 1905-09-09
jim Hill on Markets.

J. J. Hill delivered an address before
the North Dakota state fair in which
he said in part on markets:
Iwant to see better farming, because
if in the state of Minnesota they got
the same annual return per acre Of cul-
tivated land that they get in Iowa, the
state of Minnesota would have $50, oo0,-
600 year more money, and it IS too
much to waste.
Don't let people tell you that you can
cultivate farm through an act Of the
legislature. You can't. There is
nothing in the world but the mans own
brain and his hand to the plow that will
give him the returns.
Now, suppose that you did cultivate
all this land and double the yield. What
would you do with it? You must find
new market. There are new markets
to be had Can you find them in South
America, where we are spending hun
dreds of millions of dollars to build
canal to bring that trade to US? And we
haven't any ships to carry it. We are
going to build it for somebody else's
ships, and hope that we will have ships
some day. Now, ! haven't a word
against the canal because the people
along the gulf states have had a hard
time and they haven't many appropr::a-
tions, and they think it will do them
good. They think the canal is going to
be of great assistance to them. But
let US go back and take a map of the
world and take the country south of the
equator, and what share of the popula-
ton of the world does it contain? Less
than per cent.
Is that the place where we are going
to find market? Is that where the
people are that we are going to feed?
Let us go somewhere where the people
are old, thick, plentiful, may be you
call me q crank, but I have tried to
make market, and year ago last
fall we carried your grain, or your
flour, from Minnesota and North Dako-
ia to Australia, to Hongkong and to
Yokohama, and if anybody told me
fifteen years ago that grain would go
from the Red River valley to the Orient
| would have thought the man was at,
least in need Of a guardian, or else he
thought was,
Now, what you have got to have is
new markets. If your commodities
that you raise are going to bring high
prices you must have somebody who
wants to buy them and is willing to pay
for them, and the greater the demand
the higher the price will be- The state
of North Dakota couldn't raise grain
enough. to bake ten biscuits per capita
for the inhabitants of China. Now ten
biscuits would be short for a years sup
ply, and don't know that you could
raise enough grain. You certainly do
not raise enough grain to make two
biscuits per capita. That is a market
that seems to me to be unlimited.
This morning we learned that Russia
and Japan have made peace. I am
glad they have agreed, but want to
say this:
The agricultural people of the United
States find in Russia their greatest COM
petitor. Russia raises what we raise;
they export what we export. We eX-
port, first, cotton, wheat and oil; they
export, first, wheat, oil and cotton,
But in the transcaspian country they
are opening up, through irrigation,
great areas Of country where they can
raise cotton in competition with US, and
they will.
On the other hand, Japan, little
island, densely populated, cannot begin
to raise enough to feed her own people.
Now, the japanese, whether we like
them or whether we don't, are going