The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
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The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
Railroads -- United States -- Periodicals
PROBLEM OF THE WHEAT.
"That is a little more than twice what you are raising today, and
you haven't any new fields to put a new plow in. From 1882, when
we raised 504,000,000 bushels of wheat, following that time more
than half of Minnesota, all the northern part of Minnesota, was
brought under the plow, all of North Dakota, all of South Dakota,
all of the state of Washington and all of Oregon, except 3,000,000
or 4,000,000 bushels raised in 1882, more than half of California,
two-thirds or three-quarters in Kansas and Nebraska, a large part,
practically all of Oklahoma or the Indian Territory and a large part
of Texas, and take what was raised in 1907 on the new fields that
were opened up, any new territory after 1882, and you will find that
it is approaching 300,000,000 bushels, but the increase in the whole
country in that twenty-five years was only 130,000,000 bushels, so
that the old fields fell off about 170,000,000 bushels.
"Are we increasing our yield per acre? By no manner of means. It has
been a steady and uniform decline for the past thirty years. Now, we
have as good wheat fields as there are anywhere on the continent, and
they will be made better. I am not a disciple of Malthus, because
Malthus was an honest man no doubt, but when he wrote he did not
understand the science of modern agriculture or the adaptation of
the soil or of the seed to the soil, or the commercial value of a
correct analysis of the soil and the adaptation of the soil nor its
commercial value as suited to the crop it is best fitted for. All
these things we have learned, and while you are teaching your young
people let me advise you that the school that is most entitled to
your care and the school that will do the most for the state in
every place and will turn out men and women as they have always in
industry and intelligence and everything else that goes to make good
citizenship, the school attended by the boy on the farm is certainly
as good as the best.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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