The Washington herald., 1917-07-16

10 tne markets. 1t Is largely due to
the railroads that the farmers found
/ 1t practicable to increase the acreage
devoted to the cultivation of corn SO
Z that this year the aggregate is III ,OOO,-
COO acres. AS recently as 1905 the ag-
Sregate acreage devoted to corn was
100000 900. and eight years earlier less
| than lW,OD0,0OO, whereas in 1880 the
acreage was only about 60. 10000 As
railroad construction developed and
opened up new country and made
| available vast tracts OF fertile soil,
especially adapted to the cultivation
of corn, the farmers followed the rails
so that in a generations time the total
acreage devoted to corn increased loo
per cent.
Although it Is no part of the func-
tion of the railway war board to at
tempt to persuade the people to sub
stitute, as far as possible, cornmeaI
for food in place of wheat. neverthe-
less railway managers have for many
years attempted to teach lesson of
that kind. James J. Hill often tried
! TO teach this lesson.
One of the results of the war will
| probably be disclosed in much
| larger use of cornmeal for the do
mestic table than has hitherto been
the case in the United States. As
long ago as 1877 Samuel J. Tilden.
after his return from Europe follow
ing the decision of the electoral
! commission which declared that
| Rutherford b. Hayes and not Gov.
Hidden had been elected to the Presi-
dency, began a campaign in favor of
larger and larger cultivation of In
dian corn. predicting that the time
would some when it would be the
! largest grain harvest in the United
States and serve as well as food for
men, as food for cattle and other
meat animals. 1t was partly as a
result of the campaign begun by Gov.
Tildcn that three years later there
was an increased cultivation Of corn
reported. This increase has steadily
| been maintained. until this year the
| farmers are likely TO harvest con-
| Siderably more than 1900. 10000 bush
| els
In normal times the railway man.
ayers of lines which penetrate the
great corn belts regarded with graft
! fication the reports which showed
that there were to be large harvests
| of corn. That made profitable trans
| portation business for the railroads.
| This year the railroads will. in addi-
ton to corn and wheat and other
grains, including rice, be much oc-
rupied with the transportation OF
| hay. Hay is referred to as an hum
| BILE crop, yet it is of Importance from
many points of view.
For twenty years or more the sta
| tisticians have made estimates of the
comparative money value of the hay
| crop. and of the cotton crop for
there was much interest in the fig
| ures, it sometimes being discovered
that the hay crop was of greater
money value than the cotton crop,
exclusive of by-Qroducts, whereas in
other years the figures showed a
slight balance in favor of cotton.
Hay is to be one of the principal
items this year in railroad trans
portations and 1t is presumed that
great quantities of it will be ex-
ported as fodder for horses and draft
animals employed in France. If
there were no war ii is doubtful
whether the aggregate of the har-
vest for this year woulo, measured
by bushels, be as great as the re-
ports from Washington now fore
cast, for the farmers we're this wear
spurred to extra efforts and they
were aided in these endeavors by the
banks which never before loaned
money to the farmers so readily and
with less calculation of risk. tn an
they have done this year. But the
crops would have been very large
in any event and the railroads. if
there were no war, would neverthe-
less have been concerned about ade-
quate transportation facilities for
moving the harvest. Perhaps as a
result of the war and of the re-
markable efficiency of railroads and
the swiftness with which they were
all co-ordinated into a single unit
for war purposes, the disposition of
legislatures and of railroad COM
missions toward the railroad COM
panies will be more favorable than II
has been or than the recent ruling
of the Interstate Commerce Com
mission shows it now to be.