Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1919-01-04
Must Raise More Food
imperative Need of Greater Efficiency
in Our Farm Work.

Imperative Need of Greater Efficiency
in Our Farm Work.
"Our little systems have their day"
on the farm, as elsewhere. some
times. like habits. they stick arouna
long after they have ceased to be well
come or useful, but soon or late they
find their way into the discard.
If there is at this time one fac OF
agriculture that stands out more
plainly than another. and in q nan
ner not to be mistaken. it is this:
The agriculture of the nineteenth
century will not do in the twentieth:
There is a call for change in method
and system that is insistent, that Will
be more insistent as the years go by.
| That the agriculture Of the United
States during the last hundred years
has been more or less a h~aphazard
! business probably no observant man
familiar with farming conditions In
this country. will deny. The farmer
planted as extensively as his circum-
stances permitted, cultivated accord
ing to his time. his resources, and his
inclination. and harvested whatever
the great gamble with the forces of
nature yielded in the way Of a crop.
He did exactly'what all of US, similar
~ circumstance, would have done.
The farmer today is cry much dis
posed to go on with the old system.
The conditions that made the hap
hazard agriculture of the nineteenth
century possible and practicable NO
longer eXist-at least, they are pass
ing and will soon be wholly gone. In
the century just past we of America
settled and developed something like
thirty new agricultural states. That
magnificent farming domain was
there ready-made blythe Creator and
waiting for our plows, and since we
could make better use OF 1t than the
redskins, the reds were dispossessed.
The readily productive lands Of those
states now are in private hands.
In the twentieth century hat per-
Torrance canno by any means by re-
peated. At the best, there is in the.
west an irrigable area, the equivalent
perhaps of n average state. That,
substantially, is the limit. Meantime.
] the population of the country and the
world demand for food have grown
and are still growing.
For q hundred years the farmers Of
this country have increased the till
able acreage to the limit of their
ability, n in all that. time their
farming operations seem to have been
predicated on the existence a little
further westward of illimitable new
acres, ready and waiting for them.
Hence the "scrapping" of old and
supposedly farms and the
plunge westward for new ones: hence
the general absence Of care and
economy in the handling of land,
which has earned for us the Judgment
that we are the least efficient farm
ers in the world.
The American farmer apparently
proceeded on the theory that his farm
was merely a sort of mine CARRYING a
oennite measure Of wealth, which it
was his business to get out as speedily
as possible and with the least posi-
PIE expenditure Of energy. Hence
big-scale, bonanza farming. hence
hurried scratching Of the soil instead
OF cultivation; hence an overhead
charge for machinery and other farm
equipment that has carried number
less farmers to the verge of bank
ruptcy n kept them there; hence
twelve bushels of wheat to the acre.
Ons conclusion, and only one, there
Is: lfe acre in the twentieth century
VIII nave to produce more than it did
in the nineteenth,
New fields nowhere are they?
" DSoI tAcy are OUT ira m
mere and there, and none too promis-
ing at that-a negligible factor so,far
as farming is concerned.
AND mar farming-vast acreage
and the veriest fraction of a ron
VIII have to give way Tor something
better. The acre will have to do more
man 1t has yet done. which means
more attention to that acre. and that.
~. .urn means fewer acres for the in
dividual farmer. " -
The American farmer. IN some mil.
s"f1e,e OF cases. is farming" an estate
families. and barely making q living
for n e The importance OF acre
yleid' is something that will he
realized more keenly as the wear. e
Fthls century go on. The tendance n
= twentieth century will be toward
smaller farms and better %cultivstion
keneraiiy: 1t is inevitable. Our. If
tie system of splurge asricuitnre.
wnicn was good enough and service.
ape enough when We hac more land
tnan we could make any economscai
use OF, has had its day.-orerontan
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