The improvement of methods on the farm has been discussed to some extent in speaking of implements and stock, as their use involves better methods; but there are other points worthy of notice. One of the most important of these is drainage. The first attempts to remove surface water from farm-land were by the construction of open ditches; but as these had to follow the natural water-courses which often zigzagged through the fields, they were objectionable, not only because of making bad shaped lands to plow and cultivate, but also because they caused a waste of land, and usually had to be bridged to be crossed with the wagons. Other objections to them were that they produced crops of weeds to give trouble in the fields, and there was a constant tendency to fill up, which soon impaired their usefulness; or, if kept cleaned out, it had to be done at heavy expense. The first attempt at underdrains, or “blind ditches,” as they were called, was by making an underground water-way with stone or timber; but both these materials were found objectionable, because such drains were easily damaged by the action of craw-fish and rarely continued to do good work for more than a few years. It was after the middle of the century that drain tiles made of burnt clay were introduced, resembling good hard brick in material; but the first drains laid were usually with tiles of too small caliber, two-inch being largely used, which were not only easily choked but failed to carry the water off rapidly enough in a wet time. Large sections of many of our States were originally swampy and so nearly level as to make it necessary to construct open ditches, almost like canals, as an outlet for the water flowing into them from the drains. These could not, of course, be constructed by individuals, as no man had a right to go on his neighbor’s land to open a ditch for this purpose; so, in many cases, this was made a matter of legislation, and the large open ditches were built by taxation equitably levied on the lands. By this means the farmers were enabled to thoroughly drain large areas of country which otherwise would have been nearly worthless for agricultural purposes. In some instances the earth taken from these large ditches was graded up several feet high at the side, and on the top of this levee a turnpike road was constructed, thus giving a double benefit from a single operation. The first draining of farms was in the wet spots where, usually, a single line of tiles, laid for a moderate distance, would bring the parts of the field under cultivation that otherwise would be waste; but gradually the farmers learned that there were other valuable effects from drainage, and that most heavy clay lands would be benefited by it sufficiently to justify the expense. The following incidental advantages have been learned: first, drainage deepens the soil; second, it prevents the killing out of grass and grains during a wet season; third, it makes the land warmer; fourth, it improves the texture of the soil and makes it possible to work and plant it earlier in the spring; fifth, it prevents washing and waste of manure; sixth, it often prevents failure of crops in excessively wet seasons, and enables them to endure drought better in dry seasons. Although drainage is expensive it is a permanent improvement, and in many cases the increase of the wheat crop in a single year has defrayed the expense of tilling the land.
Another improvement, which seems to be the opposite of this, is the irrigation of arid lands in those parts of the country where the annual rainfall is small and every summer brings a drought. In these cases, water stored in large natural or artificial reservoirs, or that furnished by snow melting on the mountains, is utilized to carry the crops through the dry season and to enable the farmer to grow large crops where nothing could be produced without this aid.
Perhaps in no other line have the methods changed for the better more than in the care of domestic animals, and this includes both shelter and feeding. In the first half of the century, cattle and hogs were usually exposed to the severe weather of the winter with no other shelter than that afforded by a straw-stack, and this often was found leveled to the ground by the first of March, leaving them entirely without shelter at that changeable season of the year. They were allowed at all seasons to roam over the farm and gather their own living, and were turned into the cornfields as soon as the ears were removed, where they lived well as long as the stalk pasture lasted, after which they depended on straw for food until spring; and it was common to have the cattle so poor, as spring approached, that many died of actual starvation, while others became so feeble that they would have to be lifted to help them on their feet. Then the stables for horses were constructed apparently with the idea that ventilation was the chief thing, and the horses stood and shivered in their stalls from the drafts that blew through the sides of the barn and up through the floors of their stalls. Gradually these things have changed, until the larger part of farm stock is warmly sheltered, and well fed with a variety of food. Succulent food is now largely furnished from ensilage preserved in silos, from beets and other roots grown and stored for winter use, and, more recently, from sorghum, which has been found to retain its succulence and sweetness during the entire winter. Farmers have learned what is meant by a balanced ration, which is a combination of foods that will give the proper proportion of heat and fat producers with those which make bone and muscle, and that it means both health and economy to substitute to a certain extent bran and oil meal for corn, and clover hay for hay made from the grasses, and straw.
Another great improvement has been along the line of fencing; and, in this respect, the most economical step of all has been in reducing the amount of division fence on the farm, keeping only a portion of it divided into fields for pasture, and leaving half or more of the best parts to be cultivated in a single inclosure on which stock is never turned. In most States, laws have been passed obliging each farmer to fence in his own stock, and no one is compelled to fence out his neighbor’s. The substitution of wire for wood as a fencing material has reduced the cost of fence construction about one half, and the waste of land occupied by fences is reduced in about the same proportion.
V. IMPROVEMENT IN AND AROUND THE HOME.
The change in this direction in a single generation has been most marked, and is one of the surest signs of prosperity. The log cabin has given place to a substantial and, in many cases, an elegant home. The irregular and ill-shaped yards, fenced with rails, which surrounded both house and barn, and in which hogs and cattle were kept, with no shelter but a rail pen with straw roof, have disappeared, and rectangular lots enclosed with neat fences and good barns and piggeries have taken their place. The wood-pile has retired from the front yard, and is now sheltered in a woodshed adjoining the kitchen; and a neat lawn with flowers and shrubbery is no longer the exception, but the rule. A good garden, in which the newer and improved vegetables have taken the place of the old sorts, and a berry patch, well cared for, afford the luxuries which they alone can give for a period of many weeks each season. The water is no longer carried from a remote spring, but good wells and cisterns are placed conveniently, many of them so that the pump is in the kitchen or under a porch attached to the house. The cellar is usually floored with cement, and the stairs leading to it are of easy grade; while good walks of plank or cement make it a pleasure to pass from the house to the surrounding outbuildings.
Another line in which very great improvement is shown is in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The old method was to exhaust the fertility of a field and then clear a new one; and it is doubtful if one farmer in a hundred could have answered the question, “Why does land become sterile after long cultivation?” for they had no conception of what the chemical elements of the soil were which are necessary to its fertility. There are two theories of fertilizing and fertility: one, that the soil is a mine to be worked out, and which will inevitably become unproductive in the process; the other, that it is a laboratory in which, under the intelligent management of man, forces can be set at work which will maintain and develop a perpetual fertility. Malthus, more than a century ago, announced that the time would come before long when the people of the earth would starve because they had outgrown the fertility of the soil and its productive capacity; but after long cultivation, we find it possible to produce on less than half the cultivatable land enough not only to feed our own nation, but the world at large, and there is no questioning the accurateness of the laboratory theory as opposed to the mine theory.
The first improvement along this line was in the better saving and utilizing of animal manures; but when it was found that these were insufficient, science came to the help of the farmer. The chemist analyzed both crop and soils, ascertaining what was needed, and then the world was searched for the materials necessary. The elements which formed our plants were found to be fifteen in number, but of these it was found that it was necessary to furnish only three,—nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. Nitrogen was known to exist in inexhaustible quantities in the atmosphere, forming seventy-six per cent of its composition; but the question was long unsolved: “Can growing plants appropriate atmospheric nitrogen?” Finally, it was discovered that plants of the Leguminosæ family—of which clover is the best type and of greatest value for this purpose to the farmer—could appropriate nitrogen from the atmosphere; and after careful research, with the aid of the microscope, it was discovered that this appropriation came about through the agency of bacteria in the roots. This fact connected with the clover plant is one of immense importance to the farmer, because nitrogen is not only the most expensive element of fertility to purchase, but is likely to be lost both through evaporation and leaching. So it can be seen that clover is one of the most valuable plants which can be grown on the farm, for the reason that the crop can be utilized as food for stock, while still great benefit inures to the soil, as the fertility is largely stored in the roots, which cannot be used for any other purpose, and as by the action of these roots the mechanical condition of the soil is greatly improved. Further, the dense shade the plant affords induces chemical action in the soil, which makes plant food available that would otherwise remain inert. One of the most wonderful things connected with fertility is that God has so locked it up in the earth that no greedy generation can exhaust it, and that the greatest source of fertility is the atmosphere, whose secrets are just being discovered.
An English scientist has recently announced that by the aid of electricity, furnished by cheap water-power, nitrates can be manufactured directly from the atmosphere so as to reduce their cost to less than one fourth what it has heretofore been. Again, the intelligent use of clover will enable the farmer to produce his own nitrogen and reduce the cost of chemical fertilizers to one half what it usually is when containing nitrogen. This brings us to the question of commercial fertilizers. With the single exception of guano, they are a product of the last third of the century. The first step toward the use of commercial fertilizers was by analyzing our barnyard manures. When the chemist discovered that a ton or more which the farmer drew out laboriously with two horses to the field contained but twenty or thirty pounds of actual plant food,—the remainder being water, sand, and other dead matter,—the next step was to combine the three elements essential to a perfect fertilizer in such proportions that a single sack would hold enough manure for an acre of ground; and in tens of thousands of cases, the application of this amount of fertilizer has increased the wheat crop from five to fifteen bushels per acre, doubling the grass crop which followed, which in turn, and through the influence of the fertilizer, formed a sward which, by its decay, fertilized a third crop when it was turned under in the rotation.
The element in fertilizers of next importance to nitrogen is phosphoric acid, and the first source from which this was obtained was the bones of animals. But the supply from animals slaughtered was entirely insufficient; and so the great plains of the West were gleaned, and tens of thousands of tons of buffalo bones were gathered and shipped East to fertilize our farms. But soon this source began to wane; then two other sources, practically inexhaustible, of this indispensable element were discovered,—the phosphate rocks of the South and the iron slag from furnaces, each of which is found to contain a large per cent of phosphoric acid; and when the rock is dissolved by acids and the slag ground to an impalpable powder by machinery, the fertilizing elements in both are found to be as available and valuable as that from bones. The supply of potash was obtained at first from wood ashes, which the clearing of the farms and the universal use of wood as fuel made abundant. But later, when these sources were no longer sufficient, potash salts were found in large quantities where they could be mined from the earth, so that now there seems to be in sight an inexhaustible supply of the elements needed for plant food. Like almost every reform, the use of commercial fertilizers was opposed bitterly by many farmers, and statements were made by them that their effects on the soil were like those of whiskey or other stimulants on the body, and that the ultimate result of their use would be that the soil would become barren. Many refused, to use them at all; others, after a single trial made without intelligence, denounced them as humbugs. But as they saw on the farms of their neighbors the wonderful results from their use, they have been gradually led to adopt them, until now, with most farmers, the question no longer is, “Can I afford to use commercial fertilizers?” but rather, “Can I afford to do without them?”
VI. IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.
To one who has followed the writer to this point, it must be apparent that the farmer of to-day has made progress in the knowledge of his calling to at least as great an extent as he has improved in his methods, and that the terms “farm drudge” and “clodhopper” are misapplied and should be obsolete. There is no other industrial calling in which one touches nature and science at so many points, or which gives such good opportunities to develop the perfect man,—“the sound mind in the sound body,”—as that of the farmer. Admitting that not all farmers understand this and live up to their privileges, does not alter the fact that the farm offers a great opportunity to develop and broaden the mind; that the last quarter of the century has brought into active operation forces which have touched and influenced a large per cent of the tillers of the soil; and that the leaven of education is working mightily. The intelligent, studious farmer becomes a practical botanist as he studies the growth and habits of plants. As he is dependent more than any other man upon the weather and must change his plans frequently to correspond with climatic changes, he becomes a meteorologist. Myriads of insects, which include both enemies and friends, make him a student of entomology; and the wonderful alchemy of the soil by which offensive and poisonous matters are transmuted into golden grain, luscious fruits, vegetables, and flowers, calls for a knowledge of chemistry. The use of modern machinery develops his mechanical powers; and the man on the farm develops in more directions and has an opportunity to acquire a broader education than any other man who earns his living by his own labor. To sustain this statement, it is only necessary to enumerate the educational opportunities and privileges now open to the farmer and which are, to a great extent, utilized by him. First, what the government is doing for him. No other calling is represented in the cabinet of the President, and time and experience have demonstrated the wisdom of a Secretary of Agriculture. Not only are we distinctively an agricultural people, but the prosperity of the nation depends on the intelligence and prosperity of the farmer more than on all other classes combined. Not only must the food supply of our people be furnished, but the foreign demand must be met; and this gives to the farmers money to spend, so that the industries which contribute to their wants shall share in the general prosperity. While there are many honorable and useful callings, agriculture seems to be the only one which touches and affects all others. The financial importance of agriculture is shown by the fact that, after the wants of the nation were supplied, in the year 1897 we exported in round numbers $690,000,000 worth of agricultural products, or nearly 67 per cent of the entire exports; and notwithstanding an enormous increase of imports of wool and sugar, in anticipation of increased duties, the balance of trade on agricultural products for the year was $289,000,000, and the export of agricultural products for the current fiscal year would show still larger figures.
Considering the specific educational influences which are elevating the farmer and his calling, we enumerate the following: Agricultural literature, farmers’ organizations,—including farmers’ clubs, farmers’ institutes, and the Grange,—agricultural experiment stations, and agricultural colleges, all of which have contributed their share to the intelligence and prosperity of the farmer, and all are products of the last half of the century. To give an intelligent idea of the help which these influences have brought to the farmer, it is necessary to treat them to some extent in detail. First, agricultural literature. All that is necessary to an understanding of the progress in this direction is to get one of the very few so-called agricultural papers of fifty years ago and compare it with those of to-day. Not only have they multiplied a hundredfold, but while the former largely contained stilted articles written by theorists, to-day every page is full of practical instruction written by farmers, and often by specialists who have spent years in improving some line of farming or stock breeding. Most of our agricultural papers have a staff of paid contributors, nearly all of whom have made a success in some branch of farming; and so anxious are the publishers of these papers to give their readers all the help possible, that they search out the men who are prospering on the farm and engage their services as instructors for their readers. The journals devoted to agriculture are numbered by hundreds, some of them devoted to a single line,—such as sheep, poultry, or gardening,—and others with well classified departments which give instruction on all points. In addition to this, nearly all of the weeklies have a page of agriculture, usually conducted by a farmer or some one with practical knowledge of farm work. There are no secrets in agriculture, and every farmer is ready to impart to all any valuable information he acquires. Farmers appreciate the value of these helps and make large use of them, and the circulation of these papers is enormous.
By Farmers’ Clubs we mean those organizations of farmers, governed by constitutions and by-laws, who meet at stated times for the discussion of topics connected with the improvement of their calling. There are no statistics available from which can be gathered the extent of this movement, but Ohio reports fifty clubs and has formed a state organization. In Michigan, where the clubs are organized on a different basis, 30,000 members are reported; they have also formed a state organization, which was attended by 200 delegates at the last meeting. Indiana is but little, if any, behind these two States, and the club idea is rapidly spreading through the Northern States. There are two forms of these clubs, one of which limits the membership to twelve families, and the meetings are all held at the homes of the members, one each month. The advantages of this plan are several. First, with the club thus limited, the horses can be stabled and cared for during inclement weather of winter. Second, the wives need prepare but one meal in the year for the club; while with the large club it is necessary that each should contribute to a basket dinner for every meeting, which often causes as much trouble as to prepare the meal for the entire club once a year. Third, the attendance is sure to be more regular in the small club, and one condition of membership is that every member shall be present at each meeting unless providentially detained. Fourth, with a club of this size every member can take part in the discussion, and there will be less danger of a few “talkers” monopolizing the time. Fifth, the social features in the small club are very much better than in the large. Most of the clubs in Ohio and Indiana are organized on this basis, while in Michigan it is probable that most of the clubs have an unlimited membership. The objection is sometimes urged that the small club seems selfish, but as any twelve or even six families are at liberty to organize a club this objection is not valid.
As many farmers who would like to organize may not be able to find a form of constitution and by-laws, it seems proper to give one here.
Preamble.
Recognizing the fact that farmers need an opportunity to compare methods and to cultivate their social qualities, and considering that “As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” in order that we may be mutually helpful to each other in matters relating to husbandry, home comfort, and economy, we do form ourselves into an association known as the —— Farmers’ Club [fill the blank with the name you wish to use for your club], and adopt for our government the following:—
Constitution.
Article 1. The officers shall be President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Librarian, who shall be elected annually in November, and assume their duties in January of the following year.
Article 2. The duties of these officers shall be such as pertain to the offices in other organizations and are indicated by the name of the office.
Article 3. The active members of this club shall be engaged in agricultural pursuits, but honorary members may be elected by unanimous vote. Honorary members are not obliged to attend all the meetings, but will be welcomed to any.
Article 4. Application for membership must be submitted at the meeting previous to their being balloted for, and members will be admitted on receiving a two-thirds vote by ballot; but the membership shall be limited to twelve families.
Article 5. Amendments may be made at any regular meeting by a two-thirds vote of the active members.
By-laws.
1. The club shall meet at the residence of one of the members on the third Thursday of each month, at ten o’clock, invitations to which shall be limited to the hostess of the day.
2. The club shall be called to order by the president, after an hour spent in social intercourse, and the order of exercises shall be as follows:—
a. Reading and approving minutes of last meeting.
b. Monthly record of current events.
c. Selections, recitations, essays.
d. Adjournment for dinner and social intercourse until two o’clock.
e. Discussion; so conducted as to avoid all questions of politics and theology.
f. Question drawer.
g. Miscellaneous business.
In order that the work of the club may be systematic and the time fully occupied, a programme covering the entire year is prepared and printed so as to be ready for distribution at the December meeting of each year. That the reader may understand the working of this plan, a few topics will be given, taken from the programme of the club of which the writer is a member:—
January.
The club will meet at the home of Mr. ........
Thursday, the 19th.
Selection ....................... Mrs. ........
Paper ........................... Mr. .........Topic: A review of the previous year.
Each member will give in writing a statement of profits and losses for the year under the following heads:—
1. General crops grown and acreage and yield thereof.
2. What special crops have been raised.
3. Stock raised or handled.
4. What experiments have been made on the farm.
5. What losses of stock, or crops, and the cause thereof.June.
The club will meet at the home of Mr. ........
Thursday, the 15th.
Selection ...................... Mrs. ........
Paper: “Hindrances to sheep raising and how to avoid them.” Mr. .........Topic: The Farmer’s Barn.
1. Relative size to farm.
2. Location and ground plan.
3. Arrangement of stabling, feeding, and water conveniences.
4. Plan for saving manure.
Either a gentleman or a lady is appointed to open each topic, after which the subject is opened for question or discussion by any member of the club. During one month of the summer, usually July or August, a picnic takes the place of the regular meeting, at which a basket dinner is served.
Farmers’ institutes are, in the best sense of the word, a farmers’ school, and while it is less than twenty years since their first organization, nearly all of the States, at least in the North, are conducting them to a greater or less extent. As Ohio claims the honor of inaugurating this movement, and the writer is more familiar with the plan of organization and the work of institutes in that State than any other, some facts concerning them will be given. The first attempt to teach the farmers by lecture courses was made late in the seventies at the Ohio State Agricultural College, when a course of eighty lectures on subjects connected with farm interests were given, all of them by professors of the college. This first course occupied five weeks; and as it was found that but a limited number of farmers could be induced to leave their homes and care of their stock in the winter, and that the attendance was only about forty, the next two years the course was shortened in hopes that a larger attendance might result, but such was not the case. Then some one suggested, “If the farmers will not come to the lectures, why not take the lectures to the farmers?” and the outcome of this suggestion has been a wonderful success; the State holding three hundred institutes in the winter of 1897 and 1898, under a law providing a fund for that purpose, and over a hundred independent institutes in addition, by which is meant institutes in which the local organization pays its own expenses and chooses its own lecturers and subjects.
The work in most of our States is thoroughly organized, a fund provided to meet the expenses of the work, placed in some States under the charge of the Secretary of Agriculture, and in others in charge of a superintendent of institutes. The farmers have met this effort for their improvement with great enthusiasm, and the attendance is usually limited by the size of the hall provided. All partisan and sectarian questions are rigorously excluded from the discussions. A bulletin is issued in the fall, which gives the names of a large corps of lecturers and a list of subjects, and these are sent to the officers of the local organizations, from which they can select such topics as they wish discussed. Half of the time of each session is allotted to the state lecturers, while local talent is expected to fill the other half. The greatest possible freedom is allowed in asking questions and discussing the work of the speakers, and no other educational influence which has come to the farmer has equaled that offered by these meetings. At the close of each year the best papers and discussions are printed in a bulletin for free distribution among the farmers, and are given out at the meeting the ensuing year, or are mailed from the office of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture on application.
The Grange was organized at Washington, D. C., in 1807, but existed only on paper until January, 1873, when the first meeting of the National Grange convened at Georgetown, D. C., with delegates from ten States. It was started as a secret society, with a ritual and degrees, and seemed to catch the popular fancy among the farmers. At the meeting of the National Grange in 1874, thirty-two States were represented.
Probably no other organization has made so rapid a growth as this. A large element, however, of the membership was attracted to it by the rallying cry of “Down with the middleman!” and had little or no conception of its educational possibilities. Little country stores with very small capital, and managed by men with no business training, sprang up at every cross-road, which, contrary to the expectation of their founders, did not save money, but resulted in some valuable business education for which a good tuition fee was paid. The reaction which set in made it seem for a time as though the entire order would disintegrate; but fortunately there were wise leaders who had caught the true idea, that the organization must be kept on an educational basis to save it from extinction, and through their efforts it has become a power for good in most localities, and has been of great service to the farmers. County, state, and national societies have been organized, and no other large bodies of farmers can so quickly and thoroughly coöperate in measures pertaining to the interests of the farmer as those belonging to this order.
Another educational force of immense value to the farmers is found in the experiment stations, which are established in every State of the Union. This work was started by an act of Congress, approved March 2, 1887, and known as the “Hatch Act.” By this act the sum of $15,000 per annum was appropriated for each State in the Union, to be specially provided by Congress in the appropriations from year to year. In addition to this sum, most of the States have made large appropriations for the purchase of suitable grounds and the erection of buildings, and to cover the expense of printing the reports and pamphlets which are sent out free to the farmers who apply for them.
To go a little farther, the questions requiring investigation by the agricultural experiment stations may be divided into three principal groups, according as they are related to the soil, to the growth of crops and vegetation, or to domestic animals and their products.
I. The soil is studied—
(1) In its varieties, as found in different parts of the farm and of the State.
(2) In its physical properties, as affected by tillage, drainage, irrigation, etc.
(3) In its chemical properties, as related to the maintenance of fertility by the use of fertilizers and otherwise.
II. In vegetation and crop production some of the objects of study are:—
(1) Varieties, including the selection and dissemination of new sorts; the elimination of synonyms; the comparison of strains of varieties; the production of improved varieties, etc., etc.
(2) Vegetable pathology, including studies of rusts, smuts, blights, rots, mildews, etc.
(3) Control of injurious insects.
(4) Forestry, embracing the culture of forest trees for wind-breaks, for timber, for nuts and incidental products.
III. In the study of animals some of the problems are:—
(1) Breeds and their comparative values for different purposes.
(2) Foods and feeding, for growth, for meat, for milk and wool.
(3) The diseases of animals, especially those of contagious, epizootic, or parasitic nature.
The stations have done most valuable work along these different lines, and have contributed in a large measure to the introduction of improved varieties of cereals, forage crops, and fruits. In the case of wheat especially, there can be no doubt that the work of the stations has been a factor of great importance in producing large yields, by stimulating the farmers to a more careful comparison of varieties and of methods of culture.
A plan of purchasing and testing most of the so-called new varieties of fruits and grains has been followed by some of the stations, thus enabling the farmers and fruit growers to judge whether such varieties are likely to be superior to sorts already cultivated. It has been part of the work of the stations to expose fraudulent sales of fruit, stock, and fertilizers. Much other work has been and is being done, but the instances given show the value of the investigations made. As has already been stated under another heading, the officers of the experiment stations take an active part in the work of the institutes, and by the frequent issuing of bulletins and their annual reports convey valuable information to the farmer in every department of his work. In many States they have established reading courses for the study of Nature, which are conducted similarly to those in the Chautauqua courses.
In the same connection the work of the Bureau of Animal Industry should be noticed. Possibly no other organization of the government is doing so much to save farmers from loss through disease of stock and educating them to the same extent as this. The organization is made up of men of the highest scientific training, whose lives are devoted to the study of diseases of domestic animals and whose work extends to the testing of remedies, the inspection of meats, the study of foreign markets, and everything that pertains to the interest of the stock growers. No disease can break out in the herds of live stock in any part of the country without this bureau being at once notified of it, and trained officials are sent to study all the circumstances connected with it and to prevent, if possible, such disease from becoming epidemic. Some years ago, when contagious pleuro-pneumonia had secured a foothold in this country, the Bureau of Animal Industry set to work to stamp it out. The Old World was paralyzed by the enormity of the undertaking. Veterinarians in England and Continental Europe laughed at us and considered us fit subjects for lunatic asylums. “Hadn’t they always had it? It cost them millions of dollars annually in cattle, yet they had been unable to stamp it out, and most assuredly we could not do what European veterinarians could not.” They forgot that we were Yankees. It cost us many good hard dollars that were represented by large figures; but we stamped it out, and it has now been years since “Uncle Sam” officially declared the country free from it.
Another work which this bureau undertook was the regulation of vessels in which cattle were exported, and they reduced the losses so as to save from two to three million dollars annually in the insurance of export cattle. The greatest possible care is taken to disinfect vessels in which cattle have been shipped, and strict regulations are established regulating the size of stalls, ventilation, the number of cattle to be carried on any single vessel, and every point which has a bearing on the health and comfort of the animals.
It was not until after the Civil War that such a thing as an agricultural college was known in this country, but through the action of Congress very liberal appropriations were made, which in most States were supplemented by the action of the State Legislatures, and an agricultural college was started in every State of the Union. In the beginning there was much criticism, and without doubt many mistakes were made by those to whom the work was assigned; but now that a generation has passed, the farmers have come to understand better the objects of these schools, and scientific men have been trained to do the work; and these men have gone out into other departments, such as those already described, and have made possible the splendid achievements which have already been hinted at in what has been written. The teachers and officials of these colleges have been exceedingly friendly to everything that could help the farmers, and are in close touch with them; aiding in the work of local, state, and national organizations, and, in most States, carrying on the work of the experiment stations through their professors and graduates; and in many of them courses of lectures by practical farmers have been established. Without question they are becoming more and more helpful as the years go by, and their power for good is constantly increasing.
A SUMMING UP.
What has agriculture gained, or rather along what lines, in the century’s progress? A brief summary would seem a fitting close of this chapter:—
(1) The marvelous advance in methods and means of transportation, and the consequent opening of the markets of the world.
(2) The knowledge of the chemical constituents of the soil and its management in the line of maintaining fertility.
(3) The appliances to lighten labor and shorten processes in the production and harvesting of crops.
(4) Increased knowledge of plants, as to their growth and cultivation, their feeding qualities, and the combination of these qualities in feeding our domestic animals, by which we are able to reduce the cost of production through the early maturity of the animals and the maintaining of vigorous health.
(5) Increased knowledge of the value and power of organization and of agricultural literature in helping to a practical education for the duties of the farm.
(6) In an increase of home comforts and a higher ideal of living, and an appreciation of the fact that the work of the farm should be subservient to the life on the farm, as “The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.”
(7) In no other country on the globe are there so many tillers of the soil who own their homes, and, as a consequence, there is no country where there is so much of patriotism. When Matthew Arnold visited the United States, nothing that he saw delighted him more than the beautiful farms, with their comfortable dwellings and outbuildings and the evidences of high cultivation and fertility. But one thing puzzled him, and that was the absence of tenant houses, and he asked, “Where do the men live who cultivate these farms?” When told that in most cases the farmers were their own tenants, he could scarcely express his astonishment.
Prince Kropotkin, of Russia, who has traveled in this country and paid particular attention to the condition of agriculture, says in his summing up: “American agriculture offers an imposing sight; not in the wheat fields of the far West, which will soon become a thing of the past, but by the development of rational agriculture and of the forces which promote it. Read the description of an agricultural exhibition in a small town in Iowa, with 70,000 farmers camping with their families in tents during the fair week, studying, learning, buying and selling, and enjoying life. You see a national fête, and you feel that you deal with a nation in which agriculture is held in respect. Or read the publications of the scores of experiment stations, whose reports are published by thousands and scattered broadcast over the country, and are read by the farmers and discussed at countless farmers’ meetings, and you will feel that American agriculture is a real force, imbued with life, which no longer fears mammoth farms, and needs not, like a child, cry for protection.”
The future of agriculture in this country seems safe, and no class of men can look the future in the face with more of confidence than those who till the soil.