Amador ledger., 1905-11-24

floods of the Mississippi and it's tribu-
larleS will be led out through net
work of canals, large and small, and
stored in reservoirs, and every drop
devoted to beneficial use, a use that
| will be so valuable that it's value for
navigation will count for nothing in
| comparison. 1t may be a great many
| years before this will happen, but it
| IS certain to come. In no other way
can the vast population with which
tnlS country will TEEN within a few
| hundred years be provided with the
| food to sustain it.
Japan, from her total area of 147.-
655 square miles, of which only 10000
| are cultivated, collected an annual
revenue before the war with Russia
began of $121 ,433, ,725, and her exports
amounted to $124, ,20S,923.
The average population per square
mile or Japan is 299.76, but only one
seventh of her territory is actually
| under cultivation.
A Thousand Miles Square.
A section of our own country con-
| ta1ned within a square extending one
thousand miles north from New Or
| leans and one thousand miles west
from Pittsburg, and containing one
million square miles, if as densely
populated as Japan, would sustain a
population of 300,0OO,0OO; but a much
larger proportion of this great square
in the center of the United States
could be intensely farmed than in
Japan, where only one-seventh of the
total area is cultivated.
On the 10000 square miles of land
in Japan that is actually farmed, they
sustain 100000 farmers. 1t is a
safe estimate that at least one-half of
the thousand mile square central sec
ton of the UnIIed States above des-
crlbed could be as closely cultivated
as the productive fields of Japan.
Those Japanese fields sustain over
flfteen hundred people to the square
mile. AT the same ratio of population.
our own thousand mile square central
section would sustain 75O,OOO.0 900 of
farming population alone.
A population of over fifteen hundred
TO the square mile sustained by agri-
culture seems to the ordinary mind in
credlbles but on the Island of Jersey,
OH the English coast, population of
over thirteen hundred to lne square
mile is sustained by out of door agri-
culture in climate by no means hest
adapted to intensive farming.
1t must be borne in mind that we are
talking now of the possibilities of
future development, and the facts and
ngures above given will no doubt be
looked upon as utterly chimerical by
the average reader.
Degeneracy ia England.
Bear in mind however, again, that
they are based only upon the assump-
ton that we in this country should at
tain to point of development already
reached by the japanese people, and
on which rests their national strength.
1t is true that our development dur
ing the last half-century has not been
towards the land. We have followed
in the footsteps of England, rather
than Japan; and while, in fifty years.
Japan has restored the land to her
people and rooted them to the soil in
homes Of their own, England has
done the contrary. She has driven
her yeomanry from the farms to the
cities, where they have become fac
tory operatives, and degenerated
physically and mentally to such a de-
gree that the degeneracy of her citi-
zenship now presents itself to the
statesmen of England as a most ap-
palling problem.
We are doing the same thing, bat
we are not, as yet, feeling the effec-s
of it so severely because we have still
larger proportion of our people on
the land.
Back to the Land.
We have much to do to reverse the
tide of population, and turn it from
the cities back to the land-from the
tenement to the garden. 1t must not
be imagined that it is necessary, in
order to accomplish this, that the
workers 10 our cities or in our fac
tories should quit their present en-
ployment and become farmers All
that is necessary is that the facilities
for rapid transportation afforded by
our trolley system should be availed
of to plant every factory family upon
at least an acre of land.
Let that be done, and the problem
is practically solved no matter
though the acre be used for nothing
but to raise chickens and keep a goat.
The children of the family will have
fresh air and sunshine and pure milk,
and will grow up to be healthy men
and women.
The lever with which we must
move our population back to the land
must be the public school system.
Gardens and Handicraft.
Every child in the public schools,
boy or girl, must be trained from its
earliest days of school life to culti-
vate the ground and make things
grow in garden, and to raise poul-
try, and do all that needs to be done
to provide the food for family from
an acre of land.
Add to this a training in simple
sloyd work and home handicraft
cooking and sewing and making things
for the home. and you wA4 have Gre
ated the impulse in the minds of the
multiplying millions of our children
which will lead them to shun the