THE WHEAT PROBLEM AGAIN. 7 6 9 



old practice of maltreating- land, and to the renovation of soils that 

 had been partially exhausted. Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, 

 long since condemned the old methods of Southern agriculture by tell- 

 ing his hearers, " The niggers skinned the land and the white men 

 skinned the niggers." We are changing all that by new and pro- 

 gressive methods. I hope that in this recognition of the work of the 

 experiment stations I shall have made some return for the attention 

 which has been given to my inquiry by so many of my correspondents 

 that the space assigned me forbids a list of my authorities being given 

 by name. 



When the suggestion is made from the Department of Agriculture 

 that all that science has yet accomplished has been to stop a tendency 

 to a lessened production from the land now under the plow, and 

 when it is even suggested that in 1930 the present meager average of 

 crops per acre may still exist, it seems to me that little credit is given 

 to the good work already accomplished in the short period in which 

 the separate Department of Agriculture has been represented in the 

 Cabinet, especially in the last five or six years, while the suggestion 

 itself shows very little consideration of the great work of the experi- 

 ment stations. 



Unless it can be proved that my correspondents and myself have 

 entered into a conspiracy to mislead the public in dealing with the 

 potential of this country in wheat production, nearly all the deductions 

 from the figures of the past must be considered mere statistical rubbish. 

 These statistics cover sections and States in which wheat should never 

 be grown or attempted in competition with the true wheat soils and 

 climate. As well might misplaced iron furnaces, built to boom city 

 lots where there are no favorable conditions for the production of 

 iron, be included in an average and held up as a standard of our poten- 

 tial in iron and steel production. 



In my efforts to discover the rule of progress in the arts and occu- 

 pations of the people of this country, it has become plain that in 

 ratio to the application of science and invention to every art the quan- 

 tity of product is increased, the number of workmen is relatively' 

 diminished, the price of the product tends to diminish, while the 

 wages or earnings of those who do the work are augmented. 

 I have investigated many branches of industry, and find evidence 

 conclusive to my own mind that such is the law of industrial de- 

 velopment. This rule is subject to temporary variations under the 

 restriction of statutes. In my own judgment, the so-called protective 

 principle or policy of interference with commerce by imposing 

 fines on foreign imports has retarded the progress of the spe- 

 cially protected arts, and has in some measure obstructed the diversity 

 of manufactures; but the opposite policy of absolutely free trade in 



VOL. LIV. — 58 



