The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1917-04-19
LEAVE NO ACRE IMPLANTED
Major J. S. Murphy, 500 Immigration
Agent, Gives Some Very Timely
Advice for 1917 Activities

The Independent is in receipt of
very interesting little booklet, pub
finished by the 500 Railway company
under direction Of j. S. Murphy, gen
eral immigration agent containing SO
many valuable facts that the Inde-
pendent deems it worthy of publication
in it's complete form, which follows:
President Pennington directs me to
call your attention to some of the
manifest conditions facing the Amer
lean farmer-and more especially, the
farmer of the Northwest this mo-
ment.
AS preliminary, permit me to say,
and the saying is becoming trite, that
the successful farmer of today is the
man who puts brains into his business.
The farmer of the Twentieth Century
must have his system full of facts
agricultural, economic, educational and
historical facts.
In the many letters and circulars we
have sent you from time to time since
you established your home in our ter
ritory, we have assumed that you knew
the business of farming, and we have
refrained from preaching at" you. To
patronizingly coddle the kind of farmer
tory, or to treat him as sort of de-
pendent, which he certainly is not,
would be foolish. The success or fail
ure of railroad in an agricultural
region is inevitably bound up with the
that particular territory.
ing and railroading) Americas two
ntncf ctp.n I,> ,%1lx
der all circumstances dependent
upon each other and this is why the
experienced and public-spirited rail-
road executive is so vitality interested
in the development and permanent
progress Of agriculture along his lines.
The thinking business farmer realizes
that the interests of the producer and
the distributor run on parallel lines
that they should be allies, auxiliaries
and friends for when this condition ex-
lists, the farmer will find the railroad
more than willing to carry it's share
of the top-load.
Here are a few of the things that
the producing farmer of the
Northwest should give heed to at this
time, and to which President Penning-
ton desires your attention called. New
er in modern times was the contents of
humanity's market basket so nearly
exhausted as at the present time. It
is not necessary in this letter to dis
cuss the war, or the reasons for this
condition. Suffice to say that at is
condition and not theory" that con-
fronts the world.
Taking the world over, the year 1916
was short crop year. For example,
economists of note figure that the po-
tato crop for 1916 for the United
States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
Germany, France, the Netherlands and
Switzerland, all great potato raising
countries, was only 1888, 100000 BUSH
els, while for the year 1915 it was s.
16C,70O,000 bushels. Mr.. Bellows,
careful observer, finds that during the
three last crop years, as compared
with the three years Immediately pre-
ceding, the worlds wheat crop declined
159,0O0,0OO bushels; barley, 49,0O0,000
bushels; rye, 144,00O,O00 bushels, and
oats, 66,00O,000 bushels. Supplement-
ing this cereal shortage, it is estimat-
ed, that the shortage in meat produc-
ing animals in the warning nations
during the past three years has been
appalling. In our own country, while
the value of animals increased for the
year ending January 1, 1917, $443,-
75S,000, bringing the total value of all
classes Of farm animals to the unpre-
cedented figure of 1886, 024, 900, this
increase in value was due to the con-
tinued and sustained rise of beef, pork
and mutton. Actually during the year
1916 beef cattle decreased in number
1,762,0OO, or over five per cent, while
hogs decreased during the same period
4,O82,OO0, or nearly seven per cent.
The law of supply and demand will
transcend every other law, natural or
man-made. The shortage of European
farm labor, caused by the war, the
frightful waste and destruction of all
food supplies, together with the natur-
al shortage of 1916 in grain, potatoes