The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1915-06-03

VIA for, when you could get Swedish
tenants to work them on the half-and-half
crop sharing plan?
lncessant questioning during a journey
or thousands OF miles brought me In touch
with not a single farmer who had given
up a western farm because the land was
worn out" The swing OF migration over
the edge of the prairies Is part of a great,
SLOW milling round OF the farming popu-
lation under economic pressure.
Potential settlers are still eddying out
across the middle west, where the high
price or land keeps most Of them who arc
not content to be renters moving on n
on. The Rockies split them into two cur
rents-a relatively small stream into Can
!, ada and a wide, strong river that swings
down into and Arkansas, cir
cles across the thinly worked lands of the
south, and Is then slowly sucked oack into
the agricultural vacuum OF the east
New England.
Europeans Get Rich on Deserted Farms.
For these older regions dotted with
abandoned farms are ripe for resettle-
ment. Skilled European Neasants. by q
close application OF brains and labor to
specialized crops, are getting good values
from soils that our easy going, quick-prof-
it-loving American stock has not taken
the trouble to master. The dean Of a west
ern agricultural college recently bought
land for his son In Connecticut, because
he believed that under a more stable n
intensive agricultural practice even New
England offers bigger returns than the
freshly broken p~rair!es OF Canada.
Before this accumulation of facts the
popular superstition that soils necessarily
wear out with cropping Is giving way to
the far sounder view that intelligent cul-
t~ivation Is to the soils what exercise Is to
the human body. The crop records Of
Europe Immensely strengthen this i'm
| preston.
celebrated for their fertility more than
1000 years ago. Cato. Vergil, and Hor-
ace prized agriculture above all other
arts; and Pliny put together a series Of
naxims that show a truer insight into the
essentials OF agricultural practice than the
teaching OF many Of our present day ex-
perts.
The soils Of italy were under intensive
cultivation before. the birth OF Christ; but
after all these years Of constant cropping
they remain among the most productive In
the world. In 1905, ItAly's harvest OF Ger
eals alone was five times that Of New
York, though her area II but twice as
great. Counting her systematically
cropped forests, 81 per cent OF her terri
tory Ia worked by men and women who
understand the uses OF their land as thor
oughly as a mechanic understands his
tools.
In France. too, the soils have improved
with cultivation. Back In the days Of
Napoleon her average per acre yield OF
wheat was 12.5 bushels; 1t was more than
20 in 1906. In the same period her per
acre production OF barley rose from N.S
to "a, Of rye from 1915 to 1s.S, of oats from
r7.6 to a. And II In interesting to- note
that the great increase In the yield Of GER
cal crops In France occurred before 1850
before the vast potash deposits OF Ger
many or the phosphates of South Caro-
lima had entered into
Go from rance ard Italy to Belgium
and Holland and Germany, TO Austria and
Hungary, and down to the Black Sea, and
still the story OF the crop records 10 al
ways the same: the longer the history Of
cropping, the higher the yield Of the har-
| vests,