Daily Kennebec journal., 1912-05-28
OF Course 1t Is Harder to Live.

On the evening of May 20, at Dali
congress had been called to order,
President Col Henry Exall gave ex-
preston to manx sentiments that
should live in the minds of Intelligent
and practical people; but chief
among these, it seems to us. the fol-
lowing:
$50 general has this method of
spoliation become that 1t has been
stated upon good authority that more
than half of all lands in cultivation
| in the United States have greatly de-
Perforated in their power to produce.
Despite the fact that we have, within
the past forty years. put under the
plow the choicest part of what is
known as the prairie plains, extending
| from Ohio west through the Dakotas,
down the Mississippi Valley and
southwest through iowa, Nebraska.
Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and
| despite the fact that we have had
better agricultural implements for
lcultivating and for harvesting than
ever before, SO universally have we
robbed the earth milking without
feeding, subtracting without adding,
checking without depositing. that we
now produce less wheat and corn
combined per acre than we did forty
years ago. In extracting everything
| from the earth we have failed to
create a sinking fund 20 pay this
debt, and have in many instances de-
stroyed both principal and interest.
Forty years ago the population of
the United States was about forty
| millions; ii now approxima;es one
hundred millions. At the present
rate of increase there will be three
hundred million people in this coun-
try well within this century Ten
years ago we raised five hundred mil
| lion bushels of wheat and exported
| thirty seven and one-half per cent. of
| it. We now, by increased acreage,
| raise seven hundred million bushels
| of wheat and export seventeen per
cent. Of ii. Ten years ago we raised
two and one-fourth billion bushels of
corn and exported twelve per cent of
| lit-almost buying proposition.
Thirty or forty years ago hundreds
| of thousand of cattle We're annually
driven from Western Texas to the
Northwestern pastures. They had
been raised on free grass; the main
cost of producing them was the wa
ges of the few cowboys necessary to
ride the lines of the almost boundless
range. They We're grazed practically
Tree to their destination. If 1t had
been necessary TO fatten them in the
grain states, corn could have been
bought on land that could have been
purchased at $40 per acre. The corn
| is now worth sixty or seventy cents
| at the crib. and the land which pro-
| duces less now than 1t did then be-
cause it has been mined Instead of
| iarmed, is worth one hundred gold
| dollars per acre and there is no more
Tree grass in all this mighty Nation.
| lhe bread and meat of the people are
| largely represented in this incident,
and these are live factors in the high
cost of living"
In word, the world doesn't grow.
but population does grow and, what
is stll more significant, the span of
human life is lengthening. Nova
days the average human being has to
be fed twice as long as he did two
centuries ago.
Whlie we are reeklessly squander-
ing Natures bounty. we are doubling
the demand by living twice as long.
through more sane. sanitary ana NOR