The Wyandotte news-herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1943-1963, 1946-02-07
Michigan Mirror
by gene alleman

| are our forests and our agricultural
land. They are the most important
because they are restorable or eter-
nally renewable. When the others
are gone they are gone.
'We've already utterly destroyed
beyond reclamation, save by pos
sible reforestation, one fourth Of
our agricultural land, and most of
the rest is on the way out through
erosion or the soil depletion which
accompanies a poor agriculture.
I'VE have less than a sixth of
our forests left and much Of this
is in government parks and re-
serves. During the war, we cut
down our forests five times as rap
idly as We are replacing them.
"As our minerals, oils and other
natural resources become exhausted
we are forced to turn more and
more to agricultural land and for
ests for the substitutes to replace
them.
"The claim by the British who
came here to negotiate a loan that
England deserved help because OF
the cost of the war per capita was
greater in that country than in
the United States is simply not
true. The British paid only in
money which, in one way or an
other is renewable, under a bank
ing processing economy.
I'VE paid for the War in the very
life blood of our economy, in. oil.
in minerals, and other metals, in
forests and WORKOUT agricultural
land, In the real wealth which is
the foundation of our economy and
our past and future economy.
'In the sense of the drain upon
the real wealth of the nation
Lend-Lease was the biggest, most
generous and disastrous contribu-
ton ever made by any nation to
war in the history of the world. We
shall be paying for 1t generations
hence. Debts of money can be paid
off, easily enough under initiation,
but nothing can restore to this ma
ton the real wealth which gives
value to that money-the ore dug
out of our mines. the oil from our
diminishing reserves, the forests,
the labor of the men who processed
it all. AL Of this was distributed
lavishly over the world.
american agriculture is sick and
the sickness pervades the whole Of
our economy. It's condition is grow
ing worse, not better. 1t is an agri-
culture of declining production per
acre and increasing production costs
per acre. Our record production
during the war years was the most
expensive production Of food and
farm commodities in the history of
the world, because most of it was
squeezed from already WORKOUT or
non-agricultural land at low pro-
duction per acre. Even at high
prices the production of many COM
modities had to be subsidized by
taxpayers money-a form of eco
nomic deceit and self deception
When the line of diminishing pro-
duction per acre crosses that of
increasing production costs, we shall
have kept agriculture with sub
sides plus high prices plus short
ages which in the end can only ar
rive at the living standards and
diet of the Chinese"
Bromfield's solution is simple.
Instead of substituting inefficient
farming, he would increase produc-
ton per acre by preserving what
good agricultural land remains and
by restoring the fertility to worm
out and second-rate agricultural
land.
"A man who raises 100 bushels of
corn on one acre Is five times as
well off as the man who raises 100
bushels Of corn on five acres" he
said. This Is true especially in
terms of labor, seed, fertilizer,
taxes and interest"
Thus the problem of agriculture
becomes the problem of all Amer
lean economy. BY renewing the
wealth of our forests and our land.
We can maintain sound basis for
industrial prosperity. Otherwise, We
face inevitably q day of reckoning,
just as that In Britain, when a ma
ton bankrupt of natural resources
must turn to state socialism and
other isms as a palliative for its
ills.