The Hartford republican., 1909-11-12
SMALL FARMS
need OF COUNTRY.
James ]. Hill Says Method
Must be Changed.
Land Must be Better Cultivated
or Nation Will Suffer
Shortage.

ion which James j. Hill advances IN
the first of a series of articles in the
Wards work. He first excludes the
possibility of our producing enough
wheat under present methods and pre-
diets $1.5O as the price of that staple
in the near future. He also concludes
that it will be impossible for US 10
purchase abroad enough grain TO COW
er an annual deficiency which he
places at 36,OO0 900 bushels. The rem
edy as Mr.. Hill sees ii is this:
1. The farmer must cultivate no more
land than he can till throughly. With
less labor he will get more results. OF
ficial statistics show that the net prof
it from one cropof2O bushels of wheat
to the acre is as great as that from 2
to 16, after original cost of product
ion has been paid.
2. There must be rotatino of crops.
Ten years of single cropping will
nearly wear out any but the richest
soil. A proper three or four year ro-
tation of crops actually enriches the
land.
3. Three must be soil renovation by
fertilizing; and the best fertilizer is
that provided by nature herself-barn
yard manure.
That the United States must move
quickly in this matter, Mr.. Hill firmly
belives.
1.-The startling aspect of this chang
ed condition of supply and demand" p"
he says, "is that IL is immediate. We
have to provide for a contingency not
distant from us by nearly a gener-
alton, but already present. The food
condition presses upon us now. The
great fall in wheat exports and
the rise of prices.
For the first nine months of the
fiscal year, ending June 30, flour COM
bined was but 1903, 251, 200 bushels. Su
bined was 1903, 251, 200 bushels. Such
is the size of the natinoal surplus in
a fair crCp year. 1t must shrink more
than 100,000,000, bushels for each
three years hereafter. Obviously il
is time 10 quit speculating about what
might occur even twenty or thirty
years hence, and begin TO take
thought for the morrow. AS far as our
food supply is concerned, right now
the lean years have begun.
Il have stated the national problem
in terms of wheat for the sake of
clearness; its solution admits Of sim
liar statement. The average wheat
yield per acre in the United States
in 1907 was IA bushels. The average
for the last ten years is 13 SS. That
is, in 1907 it required 1921 900 acres
10 produce the 634, ,0S7 900 bushels that
we raised. 1t is disgraceful record.
About a cnetury ago this was the
average production per acre of Great
Britain. After the appointment of
a royal commission and campaign 70
the better method of cultivation be-
gun over a hundred years ago, the
fields of the United Kingdom today,
titled for a thousand years, in a cli-
mate where excessive moister is un-
favorable to wheat growers, yield owe
80 bushels of wheat per acre. Germ
any, and agricultural country almost
from the time of Tacitus, produces
276 bushels per acre. Suppose the
United States produced 2S bushels per
acre, or double its present showing.
That would be nothing extraordinary
in view of what European countries
have done with inferor soils and less
favorable climates.
There is scarcely a limit, at least
hone has yet been reached by the
most intensive cultivation, to the val
ue which an acre may be made to
produce. Right methods of farming
without which no agricultural coun-
try such as this can hope to remain
prosperous, or even TO escape event
ual poverty, are not complicated and
are within the reach of the most mod
est means.
"They include a study of soils and
seeds, so as to adapt the. one to the
other, a diversification of industry
, including the cultivation OF different
crops and the raising of live stock;
a careful rotation of crops, SO that tn
land will not be worn out by success
sive years of single cropping; intelli'
igent fertilizing, by the system of 10
tatlon, by cultivating leguminous plan
and above all, by the economic and us
OF every particle Of fertilizing materia
from stock barns and yards; a careful
selection of grain used for seed; and
first of all perhaps in importance, the
substitution of the small farm, through
lily titled, for the large farm, with It's