Perth Amboy evening news., 1910-02-10
PITH OF THE MAGAZINES CO
WHERE AN ACRE


NOURISHES 40 PEOPLE.
Prof. F. H. King, of Madison.
Wis, in writing on soil cultivation
in the Far East in Farm and Fire
side, makes these interesting com
ments:
1t could not fail to be a matter
of the highest industrial, educa-
tional and social importance to all
nations, were it possible to bring to
them a full and accurate account
of all those conditions and practices
which have made 1t possible for such
dense populations to be maintained
so largely upon the products Of
Chinese, Korean and japanese soils.
Many Of the steps, phases and prac-
tees through which this evolution
has passed are irrevocably buried
| in the past, but such remarkable
maintenance efficiency attained CEN
turies ago and projected into the
past with little apparent decadence
merits the most profound study, and
the time is fully ripe when it should
| be made.
With our population increasing
at the rate of nearly million year
during the last half-century it is
clear that we can hardly learn too
soon or too thoroughly our probable
limit of soil and crop production, and
the best methods of insuring and
maintaining 1t. Probably nothing
can give a safer measure of the
maintenance capacity Of the farm
and farmers of nation than the
number Of people they feed per unit
acre of cultivated field, and 1t is
doubtful If there is a better place to
study this problem than inChina and
Japan at the present time.
According to official statistics pub
lished in 1908, Japan has in its main
islands, exclusive OF Formosa and
Karafuto, a population of 48,542.736
and the area Of it's cultivated fields
| is 21,321 square miles. This is
2,277 people to the square mile, and
| besides these there are also main
| tanned 2,600,0 900 cattle and horses,
nearly all of which are laboring ami
mails, giving population of 142 peo-
pie and seven horses and cattle to
each 40 acres of cultivated feld-a
condition sufficiently different from
our most fully occupied 40-acre farm
to make the busiest man among US
stop and do some thinking.
| The old farmer who permitted me
| to hold his plow told my interpreter
| that there were II in his family and
| that he owned and was cultlvating
lis NOW of land, which is 2 u acres.
and that besides his team-a COW
and small donkey-he usually fed
two pigs This is at the rate OF
1872 people, 16 cows, 6 donkeys and
32 pigs on a 40-acre farm; and
population density of 3,072 people,
I256 cows, 256 donkeys and 512
swine per square mile.
| Japan is making rapid strides
along many industrial lines, and
great attention has for many years
been paid to her agriculture, in
which rapid progress is being made.
AS early as 1872 she had established
an agricultural college. For several
years the soil survey of the main
| islands has been completed with
| large scale maps and is made the
| basis of values for national. perfec-
tural and local land taxes. She has
an admirable system of road main
| tenance in effective operation. She
has many agricultural experiment
stations, nine of which we visited,
and the equipment at Toxic for soil
investigation is superior to anything
yet provided in this country. We
have more pretentious buildings, but
their resources are more largely
used in providing appliances and
men for rigid, accurate research
| work. 1 visited one of their dormi-
tories at the agricultural college con-
nected with the Fukuoka Expert
ment Station, and here young men
are provided with room and board
at $4.00 (gold per month. From
the two colleges of highest rank they
had graduated. IN 1907, 1,041 stu
dents; from their 13s A and B
classes of agricultural schools of Sec
ond rank they had graduated, in
1906, 1871. and from the still
lower grade of third rank they
graduated, in 1905, from the 2,450
supplementary agricultural schools,
| t14,927.