The Delta independent., 1907-03-15
THE NATIONS FUTURE
Continued from last week.
PROGRESS IN JAPAN.

For halt century Japan mas been
studying and assimilating the best to
be found in the world. Japan is a
worlds university for instruction in the
art of agriculture. Her national great
ness is not merely built upon that, it
grows out of that as the grain itself
springs from the soil. Of her 45, ,000,- =
600 people, 80, 900, 900 are farmers. The
whole body is supported by cultivated
area of but 10, 600 square miles. Every
foot of soil is utilized; the farmer is a
specialist. For twenty-five centuries
this people has turned to tillage as the
basic industry of life. Her progress is
in the right direction; growth, like that
of the tree. from the ground up. The
message of the victorious guns of Japan
is reminder of the fixed order and
proportion in healthy national develop
ment of industry. No nation that does
not throw its intense interest and
expend the bulk of its force upon the
cultivation of the soil can become or
remain permanently great.
THE RICHES OF FRANCE.
In France careful system of agri-
culture took root earlier than in Great
Britain. and from it has been wrought
a far stronger fabric of national pros
perity. France is to-day the banker
nation of Europe. Any sound loan can
be placed in Paris on short notice. In
1871 impoverished France was compelled
to pay s., 600. 900, 600 to the conquering
Germans. Thirty years afterward
France had $500. 600. 600 seeking for
investment. To- day her national debt
of 81. 900. .OOo. 600 is practically all held
at home. and her holdings of foreign
securities are not far from SIS, 600. 000,-
900. She controls the purse strings of
Europe: and Russia and Germany are
guided in their foreign policies. are
urged into or restrained from war. not
so much by the pleasure of emperor.
king or kaiser as by the decision of the
ld-financiers of France. The funds
for this international financing are
obtained largely from the savings of
the Industrious and frugal small farmers
of France. Within the first fifty years
of the nineteenth century agricultural
improvement alone doubled the wealth
of the country. Landed estates sell
to-day for from three to four times as
much as they brought at the time of
the revolution. The valley of the Loire
is one great garden. Every foot of
soil has been studied and devoted to
the growing of what will produce the
largest return. Although one-third of
the area of the country is classified as
uncultivablc, the titled portion yields
food enough for one hundred and seventy
inhabitants per square mile. kropotkin
says, in his remarkable study of agri-
cultural methods: Some thirty years
ago the French considered a crop quite
good when it yielded twenty-five bushels
to the acre; but with the same soil the
present requirement Is at least thirty
three bushels: while in the best soils
the crop is good only when it yields
from forty-three to forty-eight bushels.
and occasionally the product is as much
as fifty-five bushels to the acre" From
limited areas on experimental farms
under special care as high as eighty
bushels per acre has been obtained.
But. taking cultivation as we find it
for the country As whole. the French
now draw from the soil more than five
times as much wealth as they did a
century and half ago.
This is the result merely of the COM
mon agricultural industry of France.
The strength of the nation. its endur-
ance of political changes, its economic
place and its persistence as wealth
creator are due primarily to the fact
that it is nation of small farmers.
pursuing what in this country would be
called intensive, but what is really
diversified farming.
BELGIUM AND JERSEY.
1t is to Belgium and the island of
Jersey that we must look if we would
see the supreme achievement of careful
farm industry exercised under condi-
tions not specially favorable. The
agriculture of these countries represents
fair average Of what the people of
any other might do. with equal patience.
intelligence and industry. Originally
the soil of Belgium as whole was not
highly favorable to cultivation. Yet
Belgium produces now, after allowing
for all imports Of food products. and
exclusive of exports of the same, enough
me.grown food to supply the wants
Of four hundred and ninety inhabitants
to the square mile. This is in addition
to the large manufacturing industries
IL Al. 4 L 1