304 SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY 



every other business, is simply a matter of investment, resulting; in 

 so much profit or so much loss. I suspect if you were to enter care- 

 fully into the calculation, as your neighbor the merchant enters into 

 the calculation of his profit and loss in his system of trade, you would 

 find that the difference in value between one crop of twelve bushels 

 (which it must inevitably come to) and another of thirty bushels to 

 the acre — which, thanks to present and unaided circumstances, it is — 

 would leave a handsome profit to that farmer who would pursue with 

 method and energy the practice of never taking an atom of food for 

 plants from the soil in the shape of a crop without in some natural 

 way replacing it again. And this, of course, I mean, after deducting 

 all the extra expense necessary to such practice. 



The evils of land exhaustion, and the principles of restitution, have 

 been demonstrated over and over again; but, I must say, the diffi- 

 culty is to get farmers to fear the one and believe in the other. 

 Because you can get crops from a given soil year after year, you seem 

 to think it only necessary to plant; Providence will take care of the 

 harvest. What a mistake; what a short-sighted policy! 



I have spoken of England, France, and Holland as European coun- 

 tries where, what I may call feeding the land that the land may feed, 

 is carried on; now let me add that it is the pursuit of the very same 

 ungenerous system we practice that has rendered the plains of Italy 

 and Spain desert wastes, although they were once as fertile as Michi- 

 gan and Ohio used to be, and as California and Oregon now are. 

 To-day Spain looks to us for bread, or at least wheat, and although 

 that demand makes a market for our supplies, the time will surely 

 come when home consumption will abbreviate the list of exporters, 

 and then it will cease. Surely these lessons are pregnant with 

 meaning. But there is no need to go to Spain to seek the text for a 

 homily; the worn-out farms of Virginia are a sad proof of my asser- 

 tion. We must look ahead, for unless a more liberal and more 

 enlightened system of agriculture does spring up and extend itself 

 over the country, when we reach the goal of a hundred millions, we 

 shall reach a famine soon afterwards. How to establish and dissemi- 

 nate such a system, then? The only way, I believe, in which this 

 can be done, is through a practical agricultural education. For years 

 and years the Legislatures of our great agricultural States voted down 

 every bill reported by the friends of agriculture to establish schools 

 devoted to such an education. V^ery gradually and only at rare inter- 

 vals the Eastern States have openecl their eyes to the almost absolute 

 necessity of such colleges. Still there is a lack of earnestness shown 

 about the whole matter, the future is so very far off, and instead of 

 going heartily into the establishment of a universal process of 

 refructification, it is so much easier to say, " Oh, well, the Great West 

 is the granary of the world; time enough to think more seriously of 

 these things when there are signs of exhaustion there." I should be 

 glad to think that the existence of a State College of Agriculture in 

 California is a proof that we are not so short sighted as to imagine no 

 change needed, or that our crop resources are inexhaustible, did I not 

 see that the patronage of that college, compared to what it should be, 

 is a nullity. 



It is now an acknowledged fact, I take it, that upon the intelligence 

 and prosperity of the farmers, the strength and security of our gov- 

 ernment and the well working of most of its best institutions very 

 largely depend. Where, then, must we look for the explanation of 



