The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-09-03

lation to the cities grows more pro-
nounced. A considerable portion of
this years magnificent crop will be
either reduced in quality or altogether
lost by reason of the impossibility of
getting labor to handle it properly.
Discouraged small farmers now are
selling their land to larger proprietors
who can prOfitably substitute machin-
cry for men. The country needs more
workers on the soil. Not to turn the
stranger away, but to direct him to the
farm instead of the city. not to watch
with fear possible increase of the
birth rate, but to use every means to
keep the boys on the farm and to send
youths from the city to swell the de-
pleted ranks of agricultural industry
is the necessary task of a well-advised
political economy and an intelligent
patriotism.
Within twenty years we must house
and employ in some fashion fifty mil
lion of additional population; and by
the middle Of this century there will
be approximately two and a half times
as many people in the United States
as there are today. No nation in his
tory was ever confronted with
sterner question than this certain pros
pect sets before us. What are we to
do with out brother. whose keepers
we are? How are we to provide our
children with shelter and their daily
bread? Our arabic public lands have
almost disappeared
Our one resource, looking at human
ity as something more than the crea-
ture of day, is the productivity of the
soil. The reckless distribution of the
public land: its division among all the
greedy who chose to ask for it: the
appropriation of large areas for graz
ing purposes, have absorbed much of
the national heritage. Only one-half
of the land in private ownership is
no wtilled. That tillage does not pro-
duce one-half of what the land might
be made to yield. without losing an
atom of its fertility. Yet the waste
of our treasure has proceeded SO far
that theactual value of the soil for
productive purposes has already de-
Perforated more than it should have
done in five centuries of use. On the
new lands of the west. where once the
wheat yield was from twenty to thirty
bushels per acre it is now from twelve
to eighteen. Frankly. and without
shame, this is attributed to the wear
ing out" of the soil. as if the earth
were a garment that must be destroyed
by the wearing. If the earth. the
mother of humanity, is to wear out"
what is to become of the race? The
fact is that soils. properly treated.
maintain their productiveness indefin-
itely under cultivation. The further
fact is that, with the disappearance of
pestilence and the discontinuance of
war that belong to the future. all con-
tributing to the growth of population,
the productive capacity of the soil must
be sustained. at its highest point or
the world suffers
The single intelligent advance on
practical lines made by public author
ity within the last quarter of a Gen.
fury is the reclamation law. Initiated
and inspired and paid for by a few
western railway companies, it provides
for real addition to the source of
food supply and the opportunity for
employment. But it is only light
breeze blowing in the face of a cy-
clone. If every project contemplated
at feasible were executed. and if all
were completed instantly by the rub