The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1913-06-12

the Eastern states for the purpose of
studying farming conditions"
1T was a beautiful country that We
passed through, but the farms general
ly did not show prosperity. Many of
the districts looked depopulated. We
saw plenty of children in the villages,
but few in the rural regions. The
country looked deserted"
The United States Bureau of Census
reports similar conditions. Thus the
latest report contains the following
statement in regard to the farm land
of Massachusetts,:
The area of improved land decreas-
ed without interruption until in 1910
it was only about one-half what it was
in 1880"
| recently negotiated the purchase
of a 5O0-acre farm of gently undulating
loan soil Of almost perfect physical
composition lying at the door of our
greatest markets, within two miles of a
railroad station, within an hours ride
of Baltimore and only sixteen miles
from the capital of the United States
land that ought to be worth $500 an
acre when land a thousand miles far
Their west is selling at 5000 to $500;
but it was bought for $40 an acre, and
thousands Of similar farms have sold
for less. The statement that this
country has no more cheap agricultural
lands is wrong, for there is plenty of
cheap land, well located, we'll watered,
easily tillable, and of good topography,
but with depleted fertility-millions
of acres of such land, not in the West.
but in the Eastern and older Southern
states.
Do you know that the Dakotas pro-
duced more wheat in 1909 than the
combined wheat production of all the
states east of the Mississippi, save only
Illinois?
And let me repeat that here the west
ward course of empire must turn back
upon itself. Thus far, the census shows
more bushels of grain produced in the
Dakotas than in all the states farther
west, comprising almost half the total
area of the United States, and many
of them older than the Dakotas.
Public prosperity is like a tree: ag-
riculture is it's roots; industry and
commerce are it's branches and leaves.
If the root suffers, the leaves fall, the
branches decay, and the tree dies
These words represent the philos-
.ophy of the Monaghan people who have
maintained in China a national exist
ence and a permanent agriculture for
thousands of years; while the Aryan
race has despoiled n country after
another, and even now the most COM
mon practice of American agriculture
may be truly described as working the
land for all that's in it.
"If there is one lesson of history that
that is unmistakable", said Daniel
Webster, lit is that national strength
lies very near the SOIL"
1t is James j. Hill, himself a great
railroad builder, a captain of COM
merce, who says:
"The farm is the basis of all industry
but for many years this country has
made the mistake of unduly assist
ing manufacture, commerce, and other
activities that center in cities, at the
expense of the farm"
These are truthful words, and not
only is the farm the basis of all in
dustry; but likewise the fertility of
the soil is the basis of all agriculture;
and the foundation of permanent pros
perity is found in the first chapter of
the book CT books where God said unto
them:
BE fruitful, and multiply, and re-
plenish the earth, and subdue it,"
Of these four commandments we
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