The Mena weekly star., 1909-03-18
SOIL CONSERYA
 BEFORE ASSEMBLY
Measure Likely To Come Up Before Present Assembly-0 One of Great Importance to
 Future of State.

measures likely to come up before the present General Assembly.
 The bill provides for a thor ouoh scientific investigation Of inc soils of the state, including their chemical analysis, and also for the establishment of cooper .tiye test fields to be widely scatterei over the state upon whicb fertilizer and rotation tests w;ll he carried out, and all pos s,ble ways aud means studied for maintaining and increasing the fertility of all Arkansas soils.
 By the passage of this bIll Ar kansas will joiu the great na- t;onal movement for conserva ion of national resources. At the conference of governors at the White House last spring, called ,o consider the conservation of our natural resources, James J. Hill. in an address before this conference, male the following statements:
 "Were auy statesman to show ms how 10 add $7.000, GOO, ,000 an- nually to our foreign trade. II would be the sensation of the hour. The way to do this in agriculture is open. Our share in the increase would not be the percentage of profit allowed by successful trading, but the entire caoltal sum. ca the other haud stands the fact that the unsettled area suitable for farm purposes is almost gone. Besides, we have been for the last century re- ducing the producing power of the country. Nowhere in the range of national purp Ises is tue reward for conservation of a national resource so ample.
 By the fixed rate of increase in the past we must couut upon a population of over two hundred million iu the United States in the year 1850. The annual in- crease from natural growth is about one a1d one half per cent each year. Adding for immi- grafton only 750,000 per year which is less than three quarters of the figures reached in recent years, we shall have about 13O,- OOO,000 people in 1925 and at least 200, ,000,000 by the middle of the century.
 Where are they to go, how are they to be employed, how fed, how enabled to earn living wage? The pressure of all na- tlons upon the waste places Of the earth grows more intense as the last of them are occupied. We are approaching the point where all of our wheat product will be needed for our own uses and we shall cease to be an ex- porter of grain. There is still some rt om in Canada but it will soon be filled. The relief will be but temporary. Our own people, whose mineral resources will have by that time greatly di- miuished must find themselves thrown back upod the soil for a living. II continued abuse of the land should mark the next nifty years as it has the last, what must be our outlook"
 In other words we must hasten both for our present profit and Tor the future protection and safety of our children to promote widespread adoption of better methods of agriculture, including ways and means for maintaining and increasing the fertility of oul soils, which is the one funda. mental and absolute basis of all property.
 The plan embodied in this bill Is not an experiment. It has hac years of successful application ir other states. notably in Missouri Illinois and Ohio. It has never been a failure. Missouri i, spending sl8,000 annually for thi' work, Illinois $25,000, Wisconsin SsiO,0OO and Alabama $i0,000 lhGeneral Assembly of Illinois ii now considering proposal to ap' proprlate $l00,000 annually fol ten years to be devoted exclusive " to this work.
 In proportion to the magnitud, ana importance of this worK tn, approprlation of $5,O00 annual, asked Tor IS extremely small. l Sthe minimum necessary to in 4ugurate this great undertaking le lS an investment which will re pay The state many fold.
 our statute books are fillet @ith laws for the protection an' conservation of fish and game we have the most delicate lega machinery for protecting th