The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-09-06
POINTED PARAGRAPHS
extracted From James j. Hills Brilliant
Address at State Fair.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS
extracted From James j. Hills Brilliant.
Address at State Fair.
James j. Hill delivered one of his.
greatest and most remarkable adj
| dresses at the opening of the new live
stock amphitheater on the state fair
grounds last Monday. The speech
treated OF the growing tendency of this
country to.squander it's resources and
was both forceful and eloquent. The
address in type covers between two
and three newspaper pages and is
consequently too long for reproduce
tlon. We give, however, few of the
plthy, pertinent paragraphs culled
from Mr.. Hills address:
The average man is often more in
terested in speculative theories than
in his plain duty toward himself and
his neighbor. The average state is
Tiled with visions OF it's place in the
procession Of the years, while it over
looks the running account of daily
expenses.
Within forty-four years we shall
have to meet the wants of more than
two hundred million people. -
Notwithstanding the addition Of.
more than a million people a year
from abroad, nearly all of them men
and women who just work for a liv-
ing, labor outside of the cities was
never as scarce or wages as high as
at the present time.
Within twenty years, perhaps, we
shall have no place east of the Rocky
mountains timber product worth re-
cording, and shall then be compelled
to begin in earnest the slow process
of reforesting.
The two great resources of the un-
der earth, economically speaking, that
are indispensable to human comfort
and growth, are coal and iron.
The estimated life of the Pennsyl-
vania anthracite fields, whose narrow
area has permitted closer approxima-
ton, is put at little more than fifty
years.
In the year 1850, as far as our own
resources are concerned. we will ap-
proach an ironless age.
Every people is thus reduced in the
final appraisal of it's estate to re-
lance upon the soil.
| Yet the waste of our treasure has
proceeded as far that the actual value
of the soil for productive purposes
has already deteriorated more than it
should have done in five centuries of
use.
The people have neglected the pres
ervation of the soil. They take away
all and give nothing back.
Only two states in the Union show
an average total value of farm prod
| ucts in excess of $50 per acre of i'm
proved land. -.... ... .,....
Lest the conditions Of life should be
made too favorable for this people,
it's home markets are surrendered,
bound rigidly by law, to the compar-
atively small number who control
domestic supplies of raw material for
manufacture.
Agriculture. in the most intelligent
meaning of the term, is something al
most unknown in the United States.
Except in isolated instances, on
small tracts here and there, farmed
by people sometimes regarded as
cranks, and at some experiment STA
tions, there is no attempt to deal with
the soil scientifically, generously or
even fairly.
The average for the United States
in 1899 was II $40 bushels per acre.
In 1904 it was II 80. That is about
the figure for a long series of years.
More than half century ago the
average yield in England had risen
above 26 bushels to the acre.
| From 81 acres in the suburbs of
Paris there have been. grown in sin
gle season 250.0 pounds of vegeta-
bles.
It is a mathematical fact that within
twenty years under present conditions
our wheat crop will not be sufficient
for home consumption and seed, with
out leaving a bushel for export.
The government should establish a
small model farm on it's own land in
every rural congressional district,
later. perhaps, in every county in the
agricultural states.
Disseminate knowledge of farming
as it should and must be, instead of
maintaining the pitiful bride of a few
seeds. --..e..-ass--- .r=ss.--.--....-..-.
| Tho cit11oti0n iS not of II b<,oo1oec