WEALTH IN NEW CROPS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2281, 15 November 1889, Page 2

WEALTH IN NEW CROPS.

(Indianapolis Newt.) The oereals are exhausting a good deal of the boU of this oountry of the constituents required for their speolal.produotlon and the original fertility oan be regained or retained only by the addition of expenoive fertilizers that m a measure, render the crops lno»pable of competing with European gralna, and throw our production baok upon our own markets snd power of consumption. Id many oases it Is thought that this will not pay for tbe extra trouble, and as the wear of tho boU goes on the chance of profit goes off rod It la likely to be a aecloua question of oor sgiioultural eoonomy if It won't be an ndvantage to reduoe the aortal orops and repleoa the difforsnoo with other products. On this point Professor Ireland, aaid to bo famlilsi with tho cultivation aid manufacture of flix fcr fifty years p«.st, wcltea to Profaßsor v7itllau>B, As-.Btaut Sooretary of Agriculture, ih.. tn this direction imy be the compensation of the Amorioan farmer for ihu deterioration of his land na a oeroal producer. There are but two flax matnnfactarlng establishments In the United (StuteH, ho Bays, one ln Mft»Baohuß9ttß, the other m Wiooonoin — tho latter doing little of any kind of work, and neither making anything fines than orash'—and jast as good fhx and linen m*y bo made here as m any European oountry. Here, then, are two governing considerations : the almost ontlre deficiency of flax mannfaoluro, and an ample field for flax oulti7atiou. * There is every reason,' bo aaya, l why tho Amerioan farmer ahould produce 1,000,000 acres of flax m exoeas of tho present produot, snd this would divide Into 12,000,000 to 15.0.0,000 bushels of seed, worth one dollar « bushel, or 12,000,000 dollars to 15,000,000 dollars annually, and 2,600,000 t.us of flax straw worth 60,000,000 dollars. From tha fl»x straw. 50,000 tuns of flax fibre would be made worth 200 dollars a ton or a total of 100,000,000 dollars. Iv all forms of produot flax thus Introduced to replace the falling yield of oereals would yield 115,000,000 dols a years for every 1,000,000 aorea cultivated with reasonable o*ro and success. No cereal now grown on any kind of 0011, with all pcssibie aid of fertilisers will pay 150dols an aore. Of oourse flax oould not hope to hold up to theae flood prices for moro than a few oropu. but while the changes from the old claou of prcdaota was still comparatively ne n It wonld pay ' big money ' aud later m more fami-.*.. conditions It would have a bettor ohancj of successful oompetltion than oropa that had loaded the inarko.a at homo and abroad for half a oontury. Sj it would look to us that there w_s matter for oareful refleoilon In the old agsloultuiisti'B letter to the Agricultural facorotary. We can't go on raiding wheat and oom for oven with so muoh competition at homo and abroad, and if we oould ft would not pay with io large a proportion of fertilizers to buy. Bo the time Is ' on tbe wlnga, no doubt, when we shall have to r_»ry our orops, and he Is wise who first earns to do It timely.