Arizona republican., 1906-09-13
SECRETARY WILSON'S
 OPTIMISTIC VIEWS
Disagrees With ]. J. Hill as to Danger
 of OverpOPuIation.

James J. Hill. at the Minnesota State 1 fair the secretary of agriculture has been receiving appeals to reply 60 sir | Hills inquiry. How shall ve feed the 2OO,O00.00O Americans who will in fifty years constitute this nation2" Score 1 tary Wilson consented today to discuss | the subject and his views. coming | from a practical farmer and an eco homie philosopher of no little renoRH. will be read with especial interest. | ''I have read Mir Hill's article said | Secretary Wilson. "and regard it az complete and statesmanlike paper. He
 outlines the situation with accuracy and an ability that nobody less familiar ! with the national interests could have applied.
 With regard to the exhaustion ssf wood, oil and coal. the farmer will meet that. Congress has taken the first step ! in granting free alcohol. and this de- partment is at work learning what can i be done to develop it's possibilities. The 1 chemists are working at big canneFy
 in Illinois to learn how to produce a3- cohol cheaply from the bi-products sf | that business. and an expert has been | sent to Europe to study and bring back supplies of seed for production Of the
 big stock potatoes raised there for all ! ! dinary edible potato We know, but z-iH give twice the alcohol from the pro duct of an acre. Still other experts are studying the uses of alcohol for heat and power. I have no uneasiHess
 about the prospective lack of coal and oil.
 AS to the approaching exhaustion es i iron, I would not add to what MT Hill has said; he is an expert in that line and I am not"
 The secretary would not attempt te combat the seriousness of the danger ! of exhaustion of iron. but his chief aid. 1 Dr. Galloway. of the bureau of plant l industry. offered an interesting suz- | gestion-
 We build our cities of iron.r he said and make them ungainly. unsiEhJly. | uneconomic; some day we will do as | they do in wiser countries limit strict | ly the height of buildings to. say six floors. and make it no longer an object to build them of iron. Then we EilI l draw on the soil with its ineXhaustible i clay and stone for building materials | Look at our new building for this de- partment-five stories high and nsk | enough iron to make a set of barrel hoops in it. reinforced concrete con- ! struction. It will last for centuries. | and no iron structure could be so at- | -ractive as it will be-
 Secretary Wilson nodded assent l We study the soil in all its rsla- | tions.S he resumed The plant grow | ing in it. the animal living on it. IL is | true as MT. Hill says. that the British 1 grow an average of thirty bushels Of l wheat an acre to ours of less than if l teen. But we can get thirty if we adopt
 their methods. They fertilize for a root | crop every four or five years. and then
 grow wheat the next year. and that | only on the best land. They grow bar ley and oats on the poorer lands;
 wheat grew twenty to thirty bushels in
 Iowa fifty years ago; now little is 1 grown because the farmers find stock ! growing more profitable. But the Iowa ! blue grass lands can be turned up to- | day and will produce as big wheat | crops as ever. AS director of the Iowa i experiment station. I got between thir-
 ty and forty bushels of wheat. and have
 no doubt they do it yet but it was on i the best land and in the best conditions
 '"The Mississippi valley farmer now gives up wheat altogether for corn. and | his system of rotation is based on the
 requirements of the corn and livestock
 that he wants to produce. He raises
 corn two or three years on a given
 piece of land until the appearance of the root worm warns him to change; | then oats a year and perhaps another ] crop of corn; then he seeds the land ] lets it lie in pasture for two or three | years. When the sod is turned up
 again he gets a green corn crop, and if l he wanted wheat he would get it as l we'll I know many farms in Iowa that
 are raising better crops today than 1 they did fifty years ago. There need ] be no fears of the capacity of the soil 1 to feed the people MT. Hill expects to l see here. and I don't question his fig
 ures. either. We will have them. But
 we must have different farming meth l ods.
 ] MT. Hill's observations on the sub ject of farm help are correct, but it is | hard to do much for the farmer at this l point. Help is expensive and scarce, ! but better appliances make it produce 1 more. 4 year ago travelling in the | southwest, I saw this well illustrated. ! In Arkansas or Tennessee I would see l a man cultivating behind a single horse
 that might weigh eight hundred or nine | hundred pounds; going on to Okla ] homa that man would be working with | two horses. Up in the corn country of
 Kansas or Iowa. he would have three
 or four 1.6OO pound horses. In old 1 times a man and two horses would | handle ten-fOOt harrow; now man | and four big horses drag a twenty-foOt | harrow: then, grass was cut. raked, 1 cooked loaded on wagon and later | unlOaded in barn or stack all with | pitchforks; now it is raked. loaded and l unloaded with a machine by hOrsepow- | CT. with a double harpoon fork These | things illustrate how much the possi- | bilities of one mans work have grown We will irrigate more The gov
 ernment is doing what it can for the | land which lies below the level of the | ditch. But what of the land that lies | above the ditch. to which water cannot | be taken? Well, we are working still ] more for 1t. We are finding crops that ! will grow on it; we are searching the | ends of the earth for them; Durum | wheat. grown for centuries in Algeria