Newark post., 1913-08-27

- 'r---E--tt ~ II : A'-ttt az al ttt3-lt1-
tions. This said President Roose-
welt when he called the Country
Commission together. IS the great
National Task. Each succeeding
year proves the truth Of the OBJ
servation.
The question is worthy of the at
tention and its solution demands
the consideration Of every citizen
Of the Republic.
The life Of the Nation depends
on Agriculture.
The editorial follows:
An ancient Chinese philosopher
said: The well-being Of a people
is like a tree. Agriculture is its
roots. manufacture and commerce
are its branches and life. If the
root is injured the leaves fall. the
branches break away and the tree
dies.
When We stop to think that the
capitalization Of agriculture in this
country amounts to forty-one bill
lions Of dollars and that the farm
output totals nine billions annual
ly-that is, capitalization is three
times that Of all the railroads-and
that 50 per cent Of the population
is engaged directly or indirectly in
agriculture, upon which every
form Of commercial enterprise de-
pends, we begin to see the truth Of
such saying.
And when we know that little
Denmark, with one-third the area
Of Illinois and having more than
one and half times the population
Of Philadelphia county, not only
feeds itself, but annually exports
So worth of farm products per
acre, the most uniformly fertile
State in the Union, have averaged
only $11.40. we must begin to ap-
preciate the importance Of paying
immediate attention to this root of
our being.
As matter of fact which should
be seriously pondered by every cit
izen. this country today. with an
uneQuaIled area Of arabic soil and
general climatic conditions more
favorable than elsewhere. and with
the greater part Of this soil in use
for less than a century, is by no
means the agricultural leader
which nature clearly intended it
should be.
As Congressman Lever, Of South .
Carolina, chairman of the commit
tee on agriculture in the present .
house. said last month to the mem
bers Of the National Soil Fertility !.
League in Chicago. eve boast Of |
our great agricultural resources, |
we pat ourselves Oh the back about |
it and contend that we are the |
greatest agriculturally producing
people on the earth, but there never |
was a greater mistake.
Il can show you that agricult- |
ural production in this country in !
the last ten years has really de- |
creased" " he continued. Il can
show you that the acreage planted,
per thousand people, in the ten
principal crops has decreased in
seven instances and increased in
only three during that period. "
Then he amazed his hearers by
citing the following figures for the
years 1901, on the basis men,
toned:
Corn decreased IA per cent in
acreage; wheat decreased 30.5 per
cent; oats, II per cent; buckwheat
Ill per cent; rye, 1O.1 per cent;
hay and forage, 3.2 per cent; to-
bacco, 20 per cent, and the only
increases we had at all were in bar
ley, 4.3 per cent; potatoes, 81 per
cent, and cotton, 81 per cent.
And yet we are boasting that
production is increasing" he said.
We are Dragging to ourselves
along those lines, and here are the /
cold figures, showing that the acre
age for the last ten years III the !
principal farm crops has actually .
decreased. What are we up against !
gentlemen? Population has in t
creased; population is continuing
TO increase and yet acreage is de-
creasing What is the solution ? !
What have we got to do?
The answer he gave is the only
possible one. S
1T is absolutely necessary that a
we should increase production per a
acre to keep up the food and cloth s
ing supply of this nation" He i
might have added that this is abso-
lutely necessary in order to avoid D
the fate that has overtaken every e
nation which neglected agriculture. Il