The Grangeville globe. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho) 1907-1922, 1908-05-20

MA, Ool0rado, Idano, MOntAnA, We
vada, New Mexico and Wyoming
contained 1877, 700, 900 acres of sur
veyed and 500, 100000 acres Of un-
surveyed land. Little of Alaska was
fitted, he said, for general agriculture,
while practically all of the rest is
semi-arid land, available only for graz
ing or irrigation.
1--WE have" said he, "subtracting
these totals, SO, 000,0 900 acres of sur
veyed and SO, 100000 acres of un-
surveyed lands as our actual remaining
stock, of which Il, 900, 900 acres
were disposed Of in 1907. How long
will the remaining lasti No longer
can we say that Uncle Sam has land
enough to give us all farm.
Mr.. Hill declared that millions of
acres in the south, in places to the
extent of one-tenth of the entire ar
able area, have been so injured that
no industry and no care can restore
them.
Far more ruinous," he said, be
cause universal and continuing in its
effects, is the process of soil exhaus-
tion." He said that our agricultural
land had been abused in two principal
ways, first by single cropping and sec
ond by neglecting fertilization. The
two remedies are rotation Of crops and
the use of fertilizers. We might, he
declared, expand our resources and
add billions of dollars to our national
wealth by conserving soil resources,
instead of exhausting them as we have
the forests and the contents of the
mines.
Mr.. Hill said that SO percent of our
people are engaged directly in agri-
culture and that all the rest depends
upon it. He estimated that in 1925 the
population of the United States would
reach total of about 1870, 600, 900 and
by the end of the century at least 200,
100000 He continued:
Where are they to go, how are
they to be employed, how fed, how
enabled to earn living wager We
are approaching the point where all
our wheat product will be needed fol
our own uses and we shall cease to be
an exporter of grain. Our own people
whose mineral resources will by thai
time have greatly diminished, mus
find themselves thrown back upon the
soil for living. If continued abuse
of the land should mark the next 81
years as it has the last, what must b.
the outlook"
Mr.. Hill said that not only the eco
nomic but the political future is in
volved and added:
Every nation finds its hour of peri
when there is no longer free access t.
the land or when the land will n,
longer support the people. Disturb
ances within are more to be feare'
than attacks from without. 1t woul'
not be strange if they should in thei
desire for change attempt to pull dow
the pillars of their national temple
Far may this day be from us. Blu
since the unnecessary destruction Q
the land will bring new conditions @
danger, its conservation, its improve
ment to the highest point of produc
{ tivity promised by scientific intelligenc
) and practical experiment appears to b
. a first command of any political ecor
omy worthy the NAME"
| Mr.. Hill, in conclusion, said
, 'Reviving the spirit of the days tn
, created our constitution, the days tn
carried us through the civil confic
{ the, spirit by which all our endurir
work in the world has been wrought
' taking thought as Washington and Lii
colin fnnk tho,,nht nnlu for the hin]