interesting to note that thousands and thousands of farmers produce
mountains of wheat in the Canadian province of Toronto and in the
Eastern States, although the land is not prairie-land at all, and the
farms are, as a rule, small.
The force of “American competition” is thus not in the possibility
of having hundreds of acres of wheat in one block. It lies in the
ownership of the land, in a system of culture which is appropriate
to the character of the country, in a widely developed spirit of
association, and, finally, in a number of institutions and customs
intended to lift the agriculturist and his profession to a high level
which is unknown in Europe.
In Europe we do not realise at all what is done in the States and
Canada in the interests of agriculture. In every American State, and
in every distinct region of Canada, there is an experimental farm,
and all the work of preliminary experiment upon new varieties of
wheat, oats, barley, fodder and fruit, which the farmer has mostly to
make himself in Europe, is made under the best scientific conditions
at the experimental farms, on a small scale first and on a large
scale next. The results of all these researches and experiments are
not merely rendered accessible to the farmer who would like to know
them, but they are brought to his knowledge, and, so to speak, are
forced upon his attention by every possible means. The “Bulletins” of
the experimental stations are distributed in hundreds of thousands
of copies; visits to the farms are organised in such a way that
thousands of farmers should inspect the stations every year, and be
shown by specialists the results obtained, either with new varieties
of plants or under various new methods of treatment. Correspondence
is carried on with the farmers on such a scale that, for instance,
at Ottawa, the experimental farm sends out every year a hundred
thousand letters and packets. Every farmer can get, free of charge
and postage, five pounds of seed of any variety of cereals, out of
which he can get next year the necessary seed for sowing several
acres. And, finally, in every small and remote township there are
held farmers’ meetings, at which special lecturers, who are sent
out by the experimental farms or the local agricultural societies,
discuss with the farmers in an informal way the results of last
year’s experiments and discoveries relative to every branch of
agriculture, horticulture, cattle-breeding, dairying and agricultural
co-operation.[69]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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