The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-05-03
ATTENTION TO THE FARM.

The New York Journal of Commerce
comments on a recent New York eff
fort to excite interest in the farm,
as follows:
The agitation over food prices and
the high cost Of living has directed at
tention with renewed emphasis to the
decline in agricultural production in
this country and the need of improved
methods for getting more value from
the soil, while restoring it's exhausted
capacity for production. At the con-
ference held at the produce exchange
Secretary Wilson and others repeated
the familiar tale of the failure of farm
production to keep pace with a grow
ing population and the consequent
dwindling of the surplus for export I'M
til it is in danger of vanishing. AS
this resource for meeting obligations
abroad diminishes the cost Of raising
food products for home consumption
increases and their prices go up under
the pressure of increasing demand and
relatively decreasing supply. This ne
cessarily affects the cost of produc-
ton in other industries and impairs
ability to compete to advantage with
other countries.
This story is often repeated nova
days and has become tolerably famiI-
lar 1t is plain matter of fact story
which everybody can appreciate. It's
moral is also clearly pointed out. The
situation which brings penalty upon
the whole country is due to prodigality
and neglect in the treatment of the
soil Of broad domain of vast capa-
bility We are told that the ranges of
government land that could be had al
most for the taking have become &C.
cupied, and population cannot spread
and open up new farming areas as
formerly. But surely there is no lack Of
land in these United States. There is
land susceptible of fruitful cultivation
capable Of supporting many times the
present population and supplying a
surplus foreign trade for generations
to come. When there was room to
wander off and take UP new areas of
virgin soil 1t was the habit to cultivate
carelessly. The practice was to get
from year to year by slovenly culti-
walton all that the soil would yield I'M
der that process, regardless of the
exhaustion of its productivity, and
much of it has been impoverished and
abandoned and more has had it's ca
pacity seriously impaired.
1t is not necessary to dwell upon the
trite story of the drift of population
from the east to the new lands of the
west and from the farms of the east
and the nearer west to the cities and
industrial centers. All this came from
an irresistible tendency in human ma !
ture and marked an era in the deveI-
opment of new country. we must
realize now that that era is passing
and the new one creates a demand for
a different movement. We have heen
building up Industrial communities
constructing means of communication
and developing trade for long time
Capital and labor from abroad have
been directed into that kind of work
and it has drawn native energy, intel.
ligence and ambition from the fields
while the wealth of land has continued
suf1cient to keep up the supply of
food for multiplying population. with
q large surplus to sell abroad, in spite
OF needless and improvident methods
of cultivation. we are waking up now
g the fact that this cannot go on In