The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1911-07-27

the future of American agriculture,
which has received such world wide
comment and a request that 1t be re-
published, so we give it below: 1t is
BY c. S. FUNK.
General Manager international Har-
vester Company.
The most hopeful sign of our pres
ent day is the stimulation of interest
which is everywhere manifested in
our farming operations and the wide.
spread study of agriculture through.
out the country. Parties may rise
and fall, cities perish by earthquake
or conflagration, banks may fail, bust.
ness may stagnate, and we may suf.
fer all the ills with which civilization
is afflicted, but so long as the earth
can be made to produce sufficient food
nation will not perish. Agriculture
is the oldest employment in the world.
The sustaining of life by the products
of the ground has been the fundamen.
tai business or occupation in every
age and in every nation.
The ancient philosophers realized
even more keenly than many Of our
leaders of this day the paramount i'm.
portance of agriculture.
The great men OF the Roman EN-
pire deprecated the growing tendency
of the people to desert agriculture
and warned them that the Roman EN-.
pire must TAIL with the failure Of agri.
culture.
Centuries ago Cato warned his peo'
pie, Let the soil of the farm be good
and fertile, let there be plenty of la
borers near, let 1t be not far from
large lOWn, noneoNeI' le' lheic oe
sufficient means for transporting pro
duce either by land or water; also
let there be good house and well
built, and let the husbandman see to
1t that his land be we'll managed"
The wisest men of all times have
known that farming underlies the life
of nations.
The future of agriculture gives full
play to the widest flights of the i'm,
agination. Up to this time our farm
ing methods have been largely of the
hit and miss variety.
We have had an abundance of good
land and have not felt the growing of
population, which is so serious a
problem in the older countries. Our
Indifferent farming methods of the
past have been sufficient because the
population to be supported was small
in comparison with the area of till.
able land, but with population growing
by leaps and bounds through immi
grafton and natural increase and with
our acreage remaining the same, we
must learn To conserve the fertility
of our land or our descendants will
pay for our negligence and waste.
Immigrants are coming to us at
the rate OF seven hundred and fifty
thousand to one million per year. We
have population of about ninety-fiye
million. In ten years the population
will probably be one hundred and
twenty millions, in twenty years II
will very possibly be one hundred and
fifty millions
1t Is estimated that within fifty
years we shall have to supply the
wants OF over two hundred million
people. While hundreds of thousands
OF these folks will seek homes on the
land, the vast majority will congre
gate in the cities and will have to be
fed and clothed by the products Of the
same number of acres of land as were
available when Columbus discovered
Ameria
Long before our population ha
reached the two hundred million mari
the land will all be occupied and I
will not support this great population
II our present methods are continued
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