Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-10-11
Jim Hill Advises City
Crowds to Hike for
the West and get
Hold of Land.

X
tation, the unoccupied lands of the
United States, has peculiarly fitted
him to speak authoritativcly on
the subject, that the most serious
economic question of the future Will
be to provide the food supply OF the
200, 900, 900 people who will be
seeking for homes and work in the
United States by the time the pres
cnt century has run half its course.
In the course of an address at the
opening of the annual Agricultural
exposition of the Minnesota State
Fair Association, Mr.. Hill stated
that no nation in history was ever
confronted with a more pressing
question than that of providing for
the $4,000, 600 of additional popula-
ton which, within the next twenty
years, must be housed and given
employment; furthermore, ne be-
lieves that the one and only ade-
quate resource before us is the pro-
ductivity of the soil In solving the
problem, the first fact which must
be brought home is that of our de-
pcndence upon the cultivation of the
soil; for Mr.. Hill considers that
agriculture, in the most intelligent
and comprehensive meaning OF the
term, is somethinglalmost unknown
in the United States.
The government estimate of the
value of all farm products last year
was SO, AIS, 600, 900, which, after
it had been discounted for high
prices and current favorable condi-
lions, would be represented by an
average total of about SIS, 600, 900,
900. Government statistics also
state that of the lands taken up in
the United States, a little less than
one-half is under cultivation.
Were the other half utilized the
output of the soil would be prac-
tically doubled, even If no change
were made in the present methods
of cultivation. But by directing
surplus population, not, as now, sc
largely into the cities, but to the
soil, and by the adoption of the ad-
vanced methods of cultivation usec
elsewhere, the present minimum
yield would be so largely increased.
that we could add ten billion OF
even fifteen billion dollars to tht
national wealth.
The methods by which the yielC
of the soil could be increased arr
three, and they are we'll known
though but little practised. FRS
is the rotation of crops, which is 81
little followed that the majority o
our farmers have been raising, yea
after year, the same crops on tn
same land, until the soil is all bu
exhausted. The second method Q
increasing the yield is the libers
use OF fertilizing material, and tn
third and most interesting of all
better tillage.
AS showing what intensive cul
tivation will do, Japan is quoted d
supporting As, 600, 600 of people o
ten thousand cultivated squaI
miles, aided by the food produci
obtained from the sea; while
market gardener of Paris is quote
as declaring that all food, amin;
and vegetable, required for 3, 500
900 people of two great department
of that city could be grown b
methods already in use on Il
$3.50 square miles of garden SUI
rounding the city.
What is needed is a return
conservative and economic method
a readjustment of national idci
which will place agriculture in II
very forefront. The present tei
dency to regard manufacture al
trade as the only forms of progress
i've activity, and the false mott,
that riches can be built upon the
at the sacrifice of the fundament
form of wealth production, mt
give way 10 a recognition of t
fact, once so we'll understood, III
the soil is the foundation of
wealth and prosperity. Acknov
edgement of this principle will ha
the double advantage of vastly
creasing the agricultural output
the country, and at the same til
of checking that deplorable mig
ton from the country to the CT
which has lowered the pcrcents
of agricultural labor to the VIII
body of persons engaged in gain
occupations in the United Sta
from a.. 3 in 1880 to 35.7 in 49,
Scientific American.