The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1911-09-08
Covers Six Per Cent Of Worlds Area
and Has Five Per Cent of
[ Population.
GRAIN DEALERS TO TAKE ACTION
Will Hold Convention at Omaha,
October Ninth, Tenth, and
Eleventh.

statistics for you. Everyone likes
statistics if they are not presented
in a dry form, and these are not dry.
We have land acreage of SOC
million acres, Of which probably $50
million acres are in farms, improved
and unimproved, $50 million acres
in desert, barren and grazing lands
and 500 million acres, more or less,
covered with forests. We have less
than 6 per cent of the worlds area
and but little more than 5 per cent
of its population, yet we produce
more than one-third of the worlds
output of coal, three-fourths of it's
corn crop, two-6fths Of its pig iron
and 20 per cent of it's wheat crop.
The equivalent of so billion board
feet of timber products, exclusive of
fire wood is taken from our forests
every year. Our total farm products
approximate and annual value of 3
billion dollars and our manufactured
products an annual value Of 20 bill
lion dollars.
& In 1870 there were bllt So cabs.
carriages and chaises in New York
city. Today our factories turn out
annually more than 100000 family
and pleasure carriages.
Doesn't this record read like
fairy tale, but the cost has been ter
rife. Half of the coal is left in the
mine: half the tree never reaches the
form of lumber; 1 billion cubic feet
of gas, with a heating value equal to
10000 tons of coal, is wasted daily.
Twice the quantity of material that
will be eXcavated from the Panama
canal is eroded from our soils and
goes down the Mississippi ever year.
Here are the problems for the pres
ent generation to solve:
"How are we to conserve our ma
tura1 resources and to increase the
yields of our fields SO that produc-
ton will keep up with consumption 20
The Grain Dealers National Asso-
citation, which is one of the most pro-
gressive organizations in the country,
has tackled these problems. 1t is
not so much interested in the con-
servation of the forests and mines OF
the United States as it is in the soil.
The National Conservation Commits
sion, appointed by President Roose-
Welt, is quite capable of looking after
the forests and streams of the coun-
try, but the Grain Dealers National
Association, which holds its annual
convention at Omaha Oct. 9, 10 and
II next, is vitality concerned about
the grain growing possibilities of the
future.
The organization has lifted the
grain trade to a high plane. It has
abolished nearly all the abuses of the
business and now it is entering wider
fields of activity. It wants to assist
in the great work of making the arid
regions of the west and the swamp
lands of the south blossom as the
rose and add millions of bushels of
grain to the country's supply.
About 1000 delegates will attend
the convention from all over. the
country. They will be addressed by
some of the most prominent political
and educational leaders in the United
States while several officials from the
department of agriculture will tell
the delegates what Uncle Sam is do
ing to increase the yields of grain by
irrigation, by teaching dry farming
and by showing the farmers the val
ue of planting good seed.