A GREAT SCHEME.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1909, 18 November 1913, Page 5

A GREAT SCHEME.

i ' PROMOTING SOIL FERTILITY. • UNITED STATES PLANS. 1 TWO MILLIONS A YEAR FOR DEMONSTRATIONS, Mr. Howard l H. Gross, who left London last month, to return to tho United States after spending a month in, studying .the, systems of agricultural instruction in England, Denmark, Germany, and Holland, is, according to the London "Morning Post," the author of a scheme which he, and tihe many eminent men who are associated with him, believe will practically double the agri- ■ oultural production of the United States within ten years. The gist of tho scheme was stated 1 by President Wood- . row Wilson, in an address to the New Jersey Legislature before he was a can- • didato for the Presidency;of the United States, but after Mr. Gross's plan had been formulated Dr. Wilson said in re- ' ference to this scheme:— "We have Bet up and subsidised agricultural schools, horticultural schools, schools of poultry raising, and the rest, and theylliave excellent work . . . but a more effective way still has been found by which tho farmer can, be served. Lectures and schools and experimental farms' attached to schools, like laboratories, are excellent, but they do not and cannot of themselves push the work home. The thing ■ that tells is demonstration work. The ; knowledge of the schools should be out to tho farms themselves.'' Tho last two sentences epitomise: the 1 policy of the National Soil Fertility League, founded by Mr. Gross two years 4Kb to .promote legislation in support of his plan to help the farmers to help tlfomselvea by demonstrating to them' by the aid of experts on their own. farms that they can largely ' increase both their agricultural .production and their .financial retorts'.'-'A' Bill legalising! appropriations 'from the Federal. Treasury to the extent of' 10,000,000 dollars' (£2,00.0,000), a year for the purposes' of this! scheme lyas supported by. . Presidtot' Taffc"and 'adopted unanimous-, ly by.tho House of Representatives last year.,tut ;was lost by a, majority of one in the'.Seriate.; Both Houses'are now. overwhelmingly iii favour of. tho Bill, and it's! passage into law 'next .session 1 is' regarded as; a'foregone conctosiori.

• Three Thousand Experts. It; is .proposed to : .employ/at three thousand : experts as resklei.-s in . the three thousand agricultural counties of the United States, one W each-county, 'for. the- purpose jof. demonstrating '- 'by * practical tests the feasibility of increasing both the .quantity and quality of every class of,'.farm product. ,These ex r ' pert®' will -be farmers who - have taken a full course at ah'''agricultural college or collegians who have become practical fanners; they will be the employees ,of the colleges, and will receive salaries ranging from 2000 _ dollars ' to 4000 dollars a year. They will give their services to the farmers for nothing, and will reside in respective farming districts throughout-the - greater part of the year j returning to the colleges only in. the winter to keep .themselves up-to-date in scientific investigation. In, conversation with tlie writer of this article Mr. Gross said; —

This scheme 'has. commended itself to our great railroad and financial corporations and our leading'statesmen. Who are represented on our Advisory Council, becaiise it' is- as big as the country itself. 'It 'is indeedjthe biggest agricultural development,; sjjK^e;v^pi;i. : underr taken in the history of the world. It is national iii character; it has to'b'o administered' by the State 1 through'tho_existing Agricultural-Colleges ;- : it-provides, no jobs for anybody except the experts who are necessary,to it: it serves no private'interests except that.of agricultural production,' which is national, and it must eventually double tliat production. When 1 tell you tliat tho output of. our, farms is valued at nineteen hundred million pounds sterling you may guess what the effect will be, not only on America's food supplies and food prices -if the production of the United States is stimulated by; these agencies

to the extent of only 50 per cent. England now raises thirty-t'wo bushels per acre to our fourteen/and afl wo haye several agricultural Englands within the limits of the Unitea States —each equal in area, soil, and fertility, to Old England—there is no sense in our persisting in a : system of farming which, produces only/ one bushel to England's two. ■ Remarkable Object Lesson. The practicability of our plan has been proved in one county already, and what is practicable in one county can be ex« tendod to every one of the 'three thousand. The transportation companies,' business men, and a few of the more progressive farmers of Do Kalb County, Illinois, refused to wait for the slow movements of legislatures, saying that if the provision of tjiis instruction was »• good thing for tho . State to do for them it was a good thing to do for themselves. So they clubbed together last year and secured the services of Professor Eckhardt, of tho University of Illinois, on a til roe years' engagement at 5,000 dollars (£1000) a year. _ As the result of following 'his instructions t'he corn average on the majority of the thousand farms in that county was increased bv ten .bushels per acre,.and this item alone aclded 500,000 dollars (£100,000) to the cash value of that crop. The county calculates that in the increased value of crops and the enhanced value of farm lands it is 1,000,000 dollars (£200,000) richer as tjie result of that one expert's single year's cooperation of scicnco and practice. This year, fired with enthusiasm by this example, six more counties are putting this plan into operation without' waiting for .tlhe passage of the Bill.; America's Falling Food' Supplies. Population has practically overtaken

production.' Six years ago wo.exported 625,000 head of cattlo; last year we exported only 105,000 "head. On the other hand, whereas six years ago we. importedonly 16,000 head of cattle, last year wo imported 318,000 head. And we are importing various other kinds of food products, not even excepting cereals. Our exports of meat products in six years have .fallen off 97 per cent, and" our dairy products over .75 per cent. Two facts disclosed by our last Federal census were,-first,-that in ten years the population had increased by about fifteen millions; and, that our meat-producing animals actually'decreased by over twenty millions. The food problem confronts us. . Ave •are faciftg a situation and not a theory. We have spent over-much time in piling nn population in our cities. We must turn our attention to the development of tho open country. AVh'en asked in what way it was proposed to effect this change, Mr. Gross and. increasing the fertility of the soil instead of depleting it bv 'building up the W stock industry to the end that we may have an adequate meat and a means of maintaining the fertility of the soil, by providing a simpler and cheaper plan of borrowing for farm ' opera t,o " a jji y simplifying marketing, both as to buying and selling; and by readjusting the relation of landlord and tenant. It was significant that Mr. Gross, in enlarging upon this last-named reform, put forward proposals closely analoeons to tho Land Reform policy of the British Conservative Party. He said: \Vo propose to do nothing to sot wic landlord and tenant classes against each other; on the contrary, wo want to establish a closer relation between them. The tenure of tenant should bo

•sufficiently long to enable him to have an intorest in building up the fertility of the soil aiid in scientific crop rotation. Tho landlord and tenant should co-operate in stocking the farm with meat-producing .animals, and, above all, the industrious and thrifty farmer should have an opportunity to become a farm owner. Schemos that Failed. Mr. Gross's narrative of'the founding of the National Soil Fertility League, the successful results of its propaganda work, and the to translate its proposals into an Act of Congress was fascinating in interest and instructive in its factß:

I have been closely identified for many | years with agriculture and agricultural interests, and have been associated with many projects for improving the lot of the farmer and stimulating profitable agricultural production, and all of thom well intentioned, but no one. of them more than partly successful at the best. We founded agricultural colleges for the farmers which the farmers would not attend, so then wo sent our lecturers to them, but they were not listened to. ' It there were, say, a thousand farmers in the county, probably, only a hundred would attend the lectures, and the majority of those would listen and understand much the same as if it were an address on Greek mythology. Then we sent the farmers sheaves of printed bulletins from the Agricultural Department on farming matters, most of which were never read and fewer understood, for inevitably tliey wero couched in the language of the college rather than the~ language of the farm. Some of the farmers whom I questioned on the subject picturesquely described them as "poppycock," although, as a matter of fact, they were clever little treatises by highly-trained agricultural experts. Then the railroads took a hand at the game. These great corporations practically exist on the agricultural and industrial enterprises of the country, and anything that promotes the development of either '■ makes for their profit. So they equipped demonstration cars, carrying samples of agricultural products best fitted for the districts to which tho cars were sent, analyses of soils and fertilisers, laboursaving * machinery, schemes for cheap marketing, etc:, together, with qualified lecturers to explain all these things at tho wayside stations at which the cars stopped, and to'which'the farmers of the district were, invited. But most of-the farmers stayed away, and even among those, who attended there .were many who were suspicious that the railroad corporations had some ulterior motive, and that :thc only, result would be to""exploit the farmer once .more. Each of these and other plans of a like kind produced some good, of course, but still the fact remained that the. great majority of farmers had not been reached,. ,<>r reached in tile' right way._ .And all

>e time our consumers'were increasing \ iile our' producers remained stationary in numbers;- our production fell off, and we began to be a 'nation of ini,porters of food. -- , • . Formation of the League. The next stage of development was the conception of the National Soil Fertility League. It aims at making two. blades - of grass grow where one grew before; two bushels of wheat where one was produced before; two head of stock where only one'was bred before. And it proposes to achieve thjs aim by proving to the farmer, on'liis own farm, that he can double his'output. The scheme is to map out , the whole of the agricultural counties' of the United States in areas, in which will be installed as a permanent resident an expert .in theory and practice, who will demonstrate on the farmers' own" lands —probably in one' field for cne kind of crop on one farm, and'in. another for a different kind'on ah6therJfariii--i'tHat'.'by the application of scientific knowledge to ordinary farming it is possible to increase the yield per acre, to improve the breed ;of-stock, to cheapen the cost of . raising hogs, to increase the revenue of the ;dairy—in short, to substantially add to the farmer's income.

In doing this (said Mr. Gross) they would be doing nothing that had not' 1 been done before in the agricultural colleges, and on the experimental farms, but they would be doing it undor the farmer's eyes, on his own land, and with his own implements, all the results being subject to .the cash test of his own markets." It is calculated that there are upwards of one hundred million dollars' worth of acquired knowledge lying in cold storage in those agricultural colleges, _ experimental farms, and allied institutions—at least, it has cost the country that much to acquire that knowledge—and the purpose of this new league was to dig out that knowledge and send it into consumption among the farmers by giving practical demonstration in every farming centre in the country—every year and all the year—of the practical value of these results as applied to farming.Mr. Gross-began by enlisting the sympathy of the heads of the great transportation companies, whose interests are so intimately bound up with the success of the agricultural industry, and the first of those to come in was Mr. James J. Hill, the greatest railway magnate in .the United States. Mr. Gross next appealed to the banking institutions, the financial stability of many of -which is' dependent upon pro-

gressive agricultural development, and the presidents'of many of the leading banks became contributors to the promotion of the scheme. He then wrote direct to the editors of over 1200 newspapers in the United States, and from 1080 he received replies promising editorial co-operation. Interview With President Taft. Having thus proved the acceptability of the scheme to' these influential sections of the community, Mr. Gross next appealed to the politicians, with the result that on the list of the members of the Mvisory Committee of the League appear the names of ex-President Taft

(ho was President when ho joined the League), Mr. AV. J. Bryan, Secretary of State in the present United States Cabinet; Mr. Franklin M'Veagh, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the Taft Cabinet; and Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Mr. Gross gives an interesting description of his interview with President Taft at the Whito. House wlien ho went to Washington to arrange for tho introduction of a Bill to create and financo a national organisation to "carry out the League's scheme under tho direction of tho. Government of the United States. Mr. Taft had already'-approved of the plan in principle, but ho was somewhat concerned to know the measure of financial liability to which ho was asked to commit tho nation. "How much a year will the Treasury have to provide to finance this schemo?" asked the President. "Ten million dollars," replied Mr. Gross. "Geewillikins" exclaimed the President; "that's a lot of money to find every year to teach the farmers how to farm I" "It is exactly the cost of a battleship," replied Mr. Gross, "and if it increases tho farm income of this country by only 5 por cent, per annum over its present rate, it will givo the nation a fund of wealth out of which you could build a battleship every month and then have a big cash surplus at the end of tho year."

The argument was apparently convincing, for tho President gave every faoility in his power for tho introduction of a measure to legalise tho adoption by'tho State of tho National Soil Fertility League's plan. The Proposed Legislation. The Lever Agricultural Extension Bill —so called because Congressman Lever was. its suonsor—orovided for (1) an

Extension Department of all Colleges of Agriculture; (2; tho freo use of the mnils; (3) tho appropriation from the Federal Treasury of 10,000 dollars ner year unconditionally to every State in tlie Union, together'with further conditional appropriations on tho basis of rural population, rising by annual increases to a maximum of 3,000,000 provided that the State appropriates each year from its own revenuo a sum equal to tho Federal contribution. All the mouey was to go to and "be expended by tlie State College of Agriculture, at least 75 por cent for actual field demonstrations ; of the balance remaining, 20 per cent, might bo used for cither household economics or for further field demonstrations. This Bill passed the House of Representatives by unanimous vote on August 23 of last year, but it met with unexpected opposition in, the Senate in January last. One of its members, Senator Page, introduced an omnibus Bill, which not only embraced a scheme on tlie lines of the Lever Bill, but many others appealing to tlie support of various sections of the community. Tho ■ supporters of the Lever Bill opposed the other measure on the ground that, by attempting too much, it would probably accomplish nothing, but a motion to substitute tlie Page Bill for the Lever Bill was carried by a majority of one, the voting being 3l to 30. The Lever Bill was formally introduced in Congress in the special session now sitting, and was referred to Committee, but no attempt will be made to proceed with it, for the reason that the session is practically restricted to the consideration of the Tariff Bill. "But it will be again introduced next session," said Mr. Gross, ''and as it is supported by large majorities of both Houses, it will be the law of tlie United States before March of next year."