EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 878, 7 February 1879, Page 3 (Supplement)

EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL.

Wc commend the following article, from the Boston Advertiser (United States) to the earnest attention of our agriculturists : The wheat crop estimated at 300,000,000 buahels, subtracted from the soil of the country 360,000,000 pounds of mineral matter. The corn crop, estimated at 000,000.000 bushels, made a subtract ion of 810,000,000 pounds ; total, 1,170,000,000 pounds. Until this is returned to the soil it represents the destruction of so much capital, of so much Btock-in-trade. Of the food material produced, that alone is precluded from the possibility of returning its fertilising elements to the home soil which 13 exported. Agriculture, accordingly, when associated with the export of food material, becomes eminently and inevitably a destructive process. The result is read in a deterioration of the S'dl so rapid, over an extent of country so vast, that the history of the world, affords not the parallel. In New York, where thirty bushels of wheat per acre were formerly commanded, now only fourteen are realised. Ohio now yields less 'than twelve bushels of wheat per acre. The great grain-growing States of the ! remoter interior, as statistics assure us. ! and as their agricultural journals deplorj tnglv attest, are rapidly falling off in pro- ! dtfetiveness per acre. By consequence the cultivator, finding his harvests failing, pushes on to occupy new land. Much ! territory comparatively recently opened ' has already become the scene of migration ! and partial abandonment. Meantime the j nsowrcea of the country are swallowed up ! in building more railroads through which | the products of the interior can be more swiftly and in greater quantities brought |to the seaboard to be sent acro3s the ! ocean. The continuation of this process will inevitably destroy the value of land, of tabor, of wagc3, and last of all the laborer himself, or, if it does not exterminate him, will at least expel him. "The nation that begins with exporting raw produce ends with exporting men." Of course, as we import, wo must export; hut we ought to put ourselves in a position to export something else than raw materials. Wo havo this matter in our own hands. We are not obliged because we have much good land, to cultivate the of it at once. We have coal, waterpower, iron, cotton, as well as fertile land. Upon the basts of these we should by a persistent national policy directed to this nt, establish vast industries, favoring rlietu as may be required, as England favored hj» rs" for generations, until with great establishments erected, great capitals accrtmntated, and ample force 3 of skilful workmen created, we can compete with the world. Diversification of industry, thi*3 is the urgent necessity of the nation and the time. This will bring the laborer here to his subsistence instead of sending subsistence across the ocean, to the laborer. Bv a diversion of capital and energy, it will put a atop to the insane fury, that so tons; its » fertile acT»? of land remains nnharveated, now drives us to it, however remote, and then raises the cry for railroads and ship canals to export its life to the ends of the earth. However great may be the natural productiveness of a country, without variety of employment its impoverishment is certain. S-icb «ir similar will be the inevitable fortune of any country that neglects to diversify its industries; that attempts to get its living from the ground alone, leaves unused its coal and water-power, and derives its supplies of manufactured goods from foreign countries. Turkey tried it ;v country of immense resources, yielding wool, silk, cotton, corn, oil, tobacco, and alt grains in profusion, with coal and iron in abundance, and whole bills of rich carbonate of copper, —she tried it, and soon land so fell otf in price that an estate in what had been the garden of the empire, twelve miles square, sold for 5000 dots. ; an estate near Smyrna 3old for six cents an acre ; wages went down to four cents a dav for women and five cents for men; landed proprietors were ruined, villages disappeared, and the whole districts were depopulated. Just in proportion as a country taking a similar course is civilised, in proportion sis its standard of living is higher and its demands for elaborated products more urgent and various, in the Bamc proportion will its exhaustion of nature bo rapid, and its decline in wealth and power be swift and hopeless.