The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-09-15
DIMINISHING FOOD SUPPLY;
MUST INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTS

their wages limited to fields where the
competition of all the world must be
met and overcome.
1.-THE consumers of bread through
out the world increase by probably
from four to Ave millions every year.
In our own country we shall require
from 100000 to 15,O00,O0O bushels
more annually for SEED and home con
sumption. The domestic supply can
not be maintained by present methods.
Not only is the cultivation Of the soil
being neglected, but it is also motor
iously 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 infe-
rior to our own. Only by bringing rich
new land under cultivation have we
prevented the fall from becoming
abrupt. Good farms in the Mohawk
valley in New York state 40 years ago
were worth from 800 to $3.50 per
acre; now many are SOLD at from s25
to $50. This is not because wheat
has become cheap, for it is dear; not
entirely because of western competI.
ton. but because there is neither goo'.
cultivation nor enough cultivation.
The younger generation throngs the
cities: and the land, rented by its
owners to tenants careless of every
thing but immediate profit, Is abused
and robbed of it's fertility. In New
York state 10000 farms are for sale.
The southern central portion shows a
progressive. loss of population. If any
body imagines that this process of ex-
haustion and abandonment or trans
Ter to other uses is peculiar to the
East let him look at Iowa, whose av-
erage wheat crop in the five years,
1SSa-S7, was 29,6S2,56o bushels, and
in tho five years 19O4-0S was 1885,
4SS bushels. In 1908 it was S,06S, 900.
Better Tillage Required.
"All this has-o0He aeOut notwith.
standing economic changes favorable
to the occupant of the farm. The
perfection of our transportation sys-
lem has made Amt rket accessible tfs
every farmer, and carries his produce
at the lowest rates in tie world His
life has become more comfortable and
desirable. But tho 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 in
duce him to continue his wheat acre
age, it does not lead him to more
careful tillage.
Wealth Acquired Slowly.
"You deal with wealth in it's most
condensed and universal form. That
occupation with wonderful facility;
but, so slight at all times is the mar
gin between the worlds production
and it's consumption, that its savings
have been acquired almost as slowly
and painfully as the miser's hoard.
wealth is the slow accretion of many
centuries. 1t changes it's form and
Practically only few months lie be-
tween universal cessation of produc-
ton and the destruction of the human
race by starvation. The marvellous
diversity of modern industry and its
products blinds us to the bare simpli-
city 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 chan
nels through which the fertilizjng
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 nation
al wealth. and the most sensitive
whonavar it 10 1apletod or opdap-
gered."