The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-02-09

become a very solid industry; the .
profits it is showing are attracting
from the outside scores of solid, !
suuare-headed folks-largely Ger /
mems. You may guess as much from
the names of the towns they're build
ing: Weiner, Waldenburg, Altheimer,
Stuttgart-and a lot of other rich in
gutturals. They're all built on rice.
The language of rice farming is their
speech. Rice is with them almost a
religion.
Well, that's no wonder, is it? Il
has spelled prosperity over a wide ar
ca where there was none before. 1t
has increased land values ten times
or more in half dozen years; and, |
of vastly more importance to outsid-
ers, it has, by a complete reversal If
old-fogy notions about the handling Of
a great staple, added millions of acres
to the worlds available food farms.
That doesn't happen every day.
Year in and year out, the average
wheat farmer of today isn't doing
much more than breaking even" on
his crop. Wheatland prices are go
ing steadily up and up, and wheat
}, yields to the acre are going down,
down, down. Occasional big crops
don't signify; neither does the result
secured by the exceptional farmer.
It's the average we must reckon with;
and the average now is rather less
than fifteen bushels to the acre in the
wheat empire of the Northwestern
state. That's smart contrast to the
yields from virgin soil. Let there be
further drop of couple of bushels
to the acre-and away go the profits
To repeat: there's no more new
wheatland in the country. The acre
age of next year can be increased ov-
, er this year only by decreasing the
acreage now given to some other crop.
That's true, too, of the big corn belt.
It's occupied.
A Slow-Moving Revolution.
Until a revolution in methods shall
increase the yields to the acre of
these grains, we're about at the end
Of our rope in our boosted mission of
feeding the world" 1t simply can't
be done by growing the old standby
crops. You'll have to own that revo-
, buttons get get in their work very
} slowly in a business as old as farm
ing. It's all right to talk of the BEN
4 efits to come through modern farm
:. ing; but modern farming is now be-
ing practiced by only a small per-
+ centage of all the farmers. 1t will
r take a generation to work up to the
1 Point where these new methods viii
II show any appreciate effect upon our
2 gross harvest figures; but, with no
: more than normal increase in popu-
g lat1on, a few years hence we'll be
I. needing bigger crops than we're now
It growing
Feed the world!"-will we? Soor
o Wen have excellent reason to be sat
n isfed if our own home cupboard ha:
r bone in it.
Il To be sure, that's still a little way
a off; and so, after the careless Ameri
1t can habit, it's not to be taken toe
d seriously today. But-stick a pin il
+" here-one of these times, before on
VI children have crowded us to one side
h wheat farming will have ceased t
4 be profitable over most of the presen
wheat area. What do you suppose
n will happen then? Why, wheat grow
it ing will be gradually abandoned, >
n course-at least until such time as TIL
Is fertility of the land can be restored
II and then, what shall we do for a sub
v sritute?
Is Rice? Oh, know how you fee
- about it. You hate to think that an,
g of your flesh and blood may actual!
Ie be driven into eating the commo
N food of those peoples who can't picl
IL and choose, but must live according
% to the stern rules of necessity. Hung
er, though, has a way of reconcilin
TX one to almost any wholesome foo
or that's handy and within ones means
Is We may come to rice for the sam
ID reason that has made it the mainsta
m o. the crowded Orient-because a
81 acIe of ground fit for rice culture vii
err Yield so much more for the stomac
ID than can be got from an acre d
m wheat. We ship a little wheat hou
he to those Orientals once in a while
70 hut it's a delicacy for the wealthy. ]
- will be with us, too, some day
1e Since the new impetus has bee
is given to rice culture in Arkansas an
in other parts of this South, you
or often hear the croaker fussing abou
in the danger of "overproduction." %