Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-09-17

ously upon town and country alike. Our
real concern is not so much to save the
home market from the inroads of the
foreigner as to keep it from destruction
by an enlarged city life and neglected
country life, a crowded artisan popula-
ton clamoring for food and foreign de-
mand for the product of their wages Inn
tied to fields where the competition OF all
the world must be met and overcome
More Wheat Is Needed.
'"The consumers of bread throughout
the world increase by probably from four
to FIVE millions every year. In our own
country we shall require from 100000
to 100000 bushels more annually for
seed and home consumption. The do
nestle supply cannot be maintained by
present methods. Not only is the cultlva-
ton of the soil being neglected, but 1t is
also VIGOROUSLY Ineffective. Our Wheat
product per acre from the older LANDS
falls steadily. Our national average Is
less than half that of England or Ger
many, both OF. which have soil inferior to
our own. Only by bringing rich new land
under cultivation have we prevented the
fail from becoming abrupt. Good farms
in the Mohawk valley in New York state
forty years ago were worth from $1UO to
$3.50 per acre; now many are SOLD al
from $50 to $50. This is not because
wheat has become cheap, for 1t is dear. :;
not entirely because of western competi-
ton, but because there is neither good
cultivation nor enough cultivation. Inc
younger generation thrOngs the cities +;
and the land rented by its owners to
tenants careless of everything but lmme-
date profit is abused and robbed OF lts
fertility. In New York state 2O,OOO
farms are for sale. The southern cen
trail portion shows progressive
of anVhOOV
AGNES that this process of exhaustion
and abandonment or transfer to other
uses is peculiar to the east, let him look
at Iowa, whose average wheat crop IN
the five years 1SS3-S7 was 29,6SZ,ooO
bushels. and in the five years 19O4-oS was
0GS,000.
Farmers Now Comfortable.
''All this has come about Dotwithstand-
ing economic changes favorable to the oc--
cupant of the farm. The perfection OF
our transportation system has made a
market accessible to every farmer, and
carries his produce at the lowest rates IN
the world. His life has become more COM
Portable and desirable. But the increased
cost of living bears most hardly upon
him, while it entices his children to the
centers where they think that the larger
income now found necessary may be won
more easily. And while the enhanced
price of grain may induce him to enlarge
his wheat acreage, it does not lead him
to more careful tillage.
you deal with wealth in its most con
densed and universal form. That wealth is
the slow accretion of many centuries. 1T
changes it's form and occupation with
wonderful facility; but, so slight at all
times is the margin between the worlds
production and its consumption, that its
savings have been acquired almost as
slowly and painfully as the miser's hoard
Practically only a few months lie be-
tween a universal cessation of production
and the destruction of the human race
by starvation The marvellous diversity
Of modern industry and it's products
blinds US to the bare simplicity of the
situation Those who, like you, are main
factors in supplying to industry the
means to carry it on, who open up the
main and lateral channels through which
the fertilizing stream of capital may be
turned upon the otherwise barren field
of labor should be always mindful OF the
first great source and storehouse OF ma
tionai wealth, and the most sensitive
whenever it is depleted or endangered"