The farmer and mechanic., 1911-10-03

wants II has Increased in proportion
| to the success Of the inventions ana
/ discoveries
..The oreaniza ton of labor followed
logically the organization OF capllai;
and gave US one OF the greatest ana
most difficult of modern problems,
that Of the labor unions
"In the factory We no longer aim
! TO supply local demands, but State,
| interstate. national and even interna-
! tional For this there must be trans
f! portaton and therefore we have a
railroad problem closely intertWined
| with the labor problem. intimately
| connected with the whole process of
| manufacturing and distribution. The
products of these great factories must
be used by consumers living at long
distances Hence, we have the prob
lem of distribution, or the problem
of the middleman. and all the direct
results of the application of science to
industry. Since the world began the
like has never been seen before.
with corn at from 20 to 25 cents.
wheat so cents, oats Is cents, the
manufacturer could afford to pay
higher wages than the farmer and
give shorter hours. The city could
furnish paved streets, lights, amuse-
ment, society-the joy of living. Is
it any wonder that the farm boys
and girls fed to the cities? The farm
itself finally began to use improved
machinery The farmer used more
horses, better tools. and grew more
crops with less than half the labor.
All this was natural logical. inevita-
BILE. TIE older farming sections do
not have so dense a population as OF
old simply because they do not need
it when farming under the old con-
ditions. They could not use it with
profit when they had to compete with
town wages and town hours.
"What then followed? Inevitably,
soil mpOveriShm The nineteenth
century farmer was, speaking gener-
ally, no farmer at all, but a miner,
a soil robber The nineteenth century
farmer sold the stored fertility of ages
at the bare cost of mining it. With
his gang plow and four to eight sec
ton harrow he could do more soil
robbing in five years than his grand
father could in whole lifetime.
We are now nearing point where
we will need practically all our grains
to provide for the wants of our own
population Our export Of corn is
merely a dribble; in our last census
year, 100 million bushels less than
the average ten years before. Our
exports of meats and dairy products
have strunk in ten years over Is per
cent. We sent abroad last year only
about one-third the number Of cattle
we sent ten years ago. There is not
the slightest indication that this de-
cline will be checked. If checked at
ALL it will be but temporarily. due
to an industrial crisis. Were it not
for the over 500 million dollars worth
Of cotton that we send abroad each
year, the country would be drained
of its precious metals to settle our
foreign obligations, and We would be
on the verge Of national bankruptcy.
Lands in England that have been
farmed for more than a thousand
years produce more than twice as
much wheat per acre on the average
as we do in the naturally better lands
of the Mississippi valley. This Demon
strates the difference between farm
ing and merely mining the soil fertil-
ity.
This condition has been greatly
fastened by our statesmen. The gift
of an empire of land to railroads to
enable them to furnish speedy and
cheap transportation for vast con-
tinent, together with the homestead
law, so excessively stimulated agricul-
tural production that the farmer was
often, and in fact generally until about
| twelve years ago, forced to sell his
products a and often under the cost
| of production. This gave the world
cheaper food than it will ever see
| again, and made possible the wonder
| full growth Of great cities the world
| over
The anxiety of the farmer to find
| a home market instead of having hi
| prices fixed in foreign market under
| competition led to the continuance of
the system Of high tariffs long after
the reason for it had ceased to exist
thus wonderfully stimulating the
growth of the cities of our own land,
cities which with all our boasted abil-
| ity we have never been able to gov
ern decently. When this undue
stimulus is removed. as it will and
must be sooner or later. our manu-
| facturers will have to take the same
medicine which sickened toe farmers
| in the 1O's SOS and early COS
"1naSmuch Is there are no more
Mississippi valleys to be opened up
we are now near the turning Of the
| lane. We must from hencefOrth learn