The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-10
FARMERS MUST USE BETTER METHODS James J. Hill Sounds Warning on Demand and Suppy LAND MUST PRODUCE MORE Railroad Magnate Says That United States Must Keep Up With
 Foreign Countries in
 Soil Production.
LAND MUST PRODUCE MORE

system of farming in the United States which shall greatly increase the produc- tiveness of the soil" advised James J. Hill, in an address before the National Corn exposition here today Mir Hill warned the congress that the time is not far distant when the farms as tiled at present will not feed the people of the United States.
 He said In part:
 'The whole subject of our food supply and It's relation to population indus try, growth, institutions and everything that concerns our future is appropriate. for this occasion. The true statement of the broad general fact which it Is most desirable that everyone should under stand Is this: That this country cannot feed the population which 1t must neces- lsarly have within comparatively few years if it does not change it's agricul-. tural methods The emphasis is all on that conditional clause.
 we cannot support our coming popu- lation upon the crop yield per acre that now satisfies us. We have to transform a growing decline in value and pro- ductivity of our soil under continued cul- tivation into a rapid increase in both. If the crisis can be seen moving upon us now, and if it took Great Britain over half a century to raise her wheat yield from about 15 bushels to s2 bushels per acre. We have no time to lose. What has to be considered, the keynote of all present discussion, is not the difficulty but the urgency of the task. The whole argument is one not of despair but of reassurance; provided only that we do the obvious, indispensable and feasible thing, and do it now.
 Public Lands Exhausted.
 Area is inelastic. Our public lands are mainly exhausted. A few more years will see the last of them. And, lest they should not be squandered quickly enough, we not only offer them to everybody un- der conditions that invite and reward fraud but when the government finds itself burdened with particularly cho.ce and valuable tract of farm land it holds a lottery and distributes 1t among Tom, Dick and Harry, no matter whether farm CTS or spectators. after they have been collected from distant parts of the coun- try by appealing to the passion for gam bling. The areas to be obtained by recla- nation work would not, all told, take care of our increase for two years. So there are final limits already in sight to the quantity of tillabe land.
 'sThe productivity of the soil and the food supply as compared with acreage and with population both decline. Our total agricultural product has been grow ing so rapidly and so immensely that we
 
 entirely consistent with failure. at the same time. to keep pace with the growth of national needs. The country, unless there shall be change, Is approaching a time when it must import wheat to meet home needs. Other food products also lag behind the constant new demand Since that demand cannot be escaped, and since not to meet it means want or a low ering of the standard of life and com fort in this country. which no American would wish to see, there is but one course before the nation That is to increase the productiveness of the farm so that the earth.s gifts may year by year equal or exceed the peoples requirements.
 Scientific Farming.
 ''It is the more necessary because the great bulk of our foreign trade Is made up of these commodities. Foodstuffs and articles but one remove from the soil are the currency with which we have paid for what we bought abroad. What we have to do in this country is to apply to farming the scientific knowledge, shaped now to practical uses. that will raise our average product per acre to something like that of countries which lack many of our advantages of soil and climate When Great Britain, in what her own people regard as an age of agri- cultural decline, can produce over 32 bush- els of wheat per acre, and other grains in proportion, while the United States calls 1t big crop when it's average rises to IA, it argues mere want of intelligence on the part of this country; failure to grasp the simple reasons for coming hard- ship and its obvious and natural rem- edy.
 Use Not Abuse of Soil.
 "All that is needed to turn an impend- ing national good deficit into a surplus, to support in plenty 150 or more persons to the square mile in the United States is the use instead of the abuse of the soil; the practice of that knowledge which agricultural schools and experiment sta- tions have already formulated and are daily putting before the people The fu- ture of this nation, political and moral, as well as financial, is bound up with the future of the farm By that will our char acter and our institutions be tried By it, in the long run, all wealth Is meas ured conditioned and supported. The work of education has been begun but it must be enlarged. supplemented and ad- vocated all the time. The institutions that are doing most for the country today are the agricultural colleges. They should grow in number. in attendance and above all in the expert knowledge and freedom from all political or other influence of their chiefs and instructors You can help see to that"
 Prof. Herbert W. Mumford of the Uni versty of Illinois gave an illustrated lec- ture on Tive stock and agriculture in Argentina
 The American Breeders association also met here today.