Norwich bulletin., 1911-10-28


 1 pect that they will know more about
 dry farming in 1859 than we do, just
 as We now know more than they did 1 in 1860. Land which, half a century
 age, was considered hopeless, is now
 growing noble crops Why may not land which We consider hopeless, now, 1 ne dcing something half a century hence. for farmers who know more 1 than we?
 1 1 think it won't quite do to surrender all the remaining ariG and semi-arid ! lanGs to the limbo of inca pablo of | improvement
 ! Moreover how about irrigation !?
 Even the wholly rainIess lands are, some of them turning in phenomenal lv productive farms under the soak , ings of the irrigation ditch. More 1 than 25,000,0 900 acres are now in pro- 1 cess of redemption from the barrenest ! sort of desert by various irrigation projects
 1 A third sort of non cuitivatable l lands are those occupied by noun tains. Well, I own up that some of 1 the western mountains seem to me a pretty discouraging proposition to ! farm. You can't do very much with ] bare crags and snow covered peaks 1 and rock heaps without dirt enough to rile the water that occasionally rains on them. They are not forever hope less. Iney are making the SOIL Ol LIle future. But erosion and dlsintegra- tion are slow processes, and it surely does look as if We should have to ig- nore them for a few thousand years. yet.
 But there are mountains and noun tains. Not all are Sierras. Our mountains, here in the east, are not by any means waste land.
 | It won't do to say that all land which can't be plowed is incapable of improvement It won't do to narrow our definition of crops" just to wheat and corn and potatoes, etc. Where there is de1rand for it, co~dwood is a crop as truly as cabbages where there is demand for them. Lumber is everywhere in demand and at coii- stant.y rising prices. It IS reported that the average profit of the western wheat grower is about s5 per acre. 1T | he makes that amount on land worth $50 an acre, he is making ten per cent. l If you and I can make s5 an acre on not over s10 an acre we're making 50 per cent. And 50 per cent. isn't ! bad business proposition.
 Don't forget that forestry is as much 1 farming as fertilization or irrigation or cultivation. One part of the farm, by intelligent management will grow good corn. Another part won't grow corn so profitably as it will potatoes A third part won't grow either so proftably as it will timber. What thea2 Shall we refuse to grow po- tatoes on the theory that only corn raising is farming? Shall we refuse to grow timber on the assumption that it isn't farming to raise anything but plowed-land crops?
 There is just as ample scope for improving our wooded mountain lands as for improving our gardens. When the farmer of New England grasps the one simple little fact that wood and timber are crops as truly as wheat and apples, when he gives as ratable a share of attention to his forests as to his fields-why, then he will be getting a better income and making more off ] his farm than he generally does, now. We're not anywhere near the ragged 1 edge of national pauperism yet. The land which the gentlemen of the agri- cultural department kick out of court, now, as incapable of improvement ,'' will be hauled back into court, much of it just as soon as the real need for it's improvement demands it's recall. One other thing: Did you know that the average production of average [ land which has been constantly farmed for thousand years, is very much i larger than the average production of like crops in this country? There are lands in England and Germany which have been farmed for more than a thousand years, which produce regu- 1 larly two and even three times the yield. per acre, that our riches soils do in this countrq. The ieda of some that soils are necessarily worn 1 out by constant cropping is not true in any sense. Properly farmed land may produce good crops every year for centuries. and still be richer and better land at the end than it was at the beginning. Of course, mining the soil exhausts it. Robbing the land
 impoverishes it. But real farming is
 neither mining nor robbery. Real farming constantly enriches the land. Even if all our available acres were
 taken up-which they are not-there would be no reason for foreboding. We
 can double the production of the acres we now farm. We shall do it, too whenever it becomes essential that we should.
 THE FARMER