The La Jara chronicle., 1905-11-24

|
york OF canals, large and small, and
stored in reservoirs, and every drop
devoted to beneficial use. use that
| will be so valuable that its value for
| navigation will count for nothing in
comparison. 1t may be great many
years before this will happen, but it
| /, certain to come. In no other way
can the vast population with which
this country will TEEN within few
hundred years be provided with the
| food to sustain IL.
Japan, from her total area of H.
$50 square miles, of which only 1900
are cultivated, collected an annual
revenue before the wa with Russia
began OF S12l ,433, ,T25, nad her exports
amounted to S124.2oS.923
The average population per square
mile OF Japan il 299.70. but only one
seventh OF her territory is actually
under cultivation
Thousand Miles Square.
A section of our own country con-
tanned within square extending one
thousand miles north from New Or
leans and one thousand miles west
from Pittsburg, and conta lining one
million square miles, II as densely
populated as Japan, would sustain
population OF 30o. 1000 900; 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
safe estimate that at least one-half of
the thousand mile square central sec
cribed could be as closely cultivated
as the productive fields of Japan.
Those japanese fields sustain over
fifteen hundred people TO the square
mile. At the same ratio of population.
our own thousand mile square central
section would sustain 150,000,00o of
farming population alone.
\ population of over fifteen hundred
to the square mile sustained by agri-
culture seems TO the ordinary mind in
credible: but on the Island of Jersey,
of the English coast, population of
over thirteen hundred to ,ne square
mile is sustained by out of door agri- |
culture in a climate by no means best
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
hgures above given will no doubt be |
looked upon as utterly chimerical by
the average reader.
Degeneracy l. England.
Bear in mind however, again, that |
they are based only upon the assump-
ton that we in this country should at |
lain to point of developme ent 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 de-
gree that the degeneracy of her cit-
Zenship now presents itself to the |
statesmen of England as a most ap-
palling problem.
We are doing the same thing, but
we are not, as yet, feeling the effec-s |
Jf it so severely because we have still |
a 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 |
be imagined that it is necessary, IN
order to accomplish this, that the
workers In 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.
I.pt that he done and the nroblpm
is practically solved Lo matter
though the acre be used for nothing
but to raise chickens and keep 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 Handicrnft.
Every child in the public schools,
boy or girl must be trained from its
earliest days of school life to cult |
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 a family from
an acre of land.
Add to this training in simple |
sloyd work and home handicraft |
cooking and sewing and making things |
for the home. and you Wa. have Gre |
ated the impulse in the minds of the |
millions of our children |
which will lead them to shun the |
bricks and the asphalt, the slums and |
the tenements. rs they would shun |
the plague, and flee from them far
enough Into the country to have an |
acre at least for home and gar
den.
Create this impulse in the minds of |
our children, the millions upon mil |
lions of them who are attending, and |
will attend our public schools. and |