174 STATE BOARD OF AGEICULTUEE. 



are not able to realize any more, if as niucli, did Ave only raise sufficient for the 

 supply of the home demand. This excess ex2:»orted has no donht been the means 

 of demoralizing the carrying trade because as the case noAv stands, that for every 

 bushel of corn upon -which a price is realized two bushels more must be sent 

 along with it to pay the transportation upon the one. Its bulk taxes the rail- 

 roads to carry it to the seaboard, consequently there is no inducement left for 

 competition, by "which the charges could be reduced. It therefore places them 

 in a position to exact all that they dare and still leave enough to the producer 

 barely to keep soul and body together. How long do the farmers of the great 

 grain belt of America propose to submit to this ruinous extortion? The only 

 really effectual remedy is to raise no grain for exportation, but consume it upon 

 our own soil and export nothing except those net products. They therefore 

 hold in their own hands the weapon which will effectually sever this Gordian 

 knot which binds them to this juggernaut of monopoly, whose wheels are grind- 

 ing them into the dust. 



We found in our efforts at economizing plant food, and from our calculations 

 ascertained that we should be minus only the amount which our animals 

 absorbed, which we computed at ten j^er cent of the ash constituents of our 

 crops, counting no additional loss in handling the manure. Then if the farm- 

 ers of the great prairies west of us shall still persist in growing corn to sell, and 

 so long as we caii purchase it from them at something near the cost of growing 

 it here, no doubt we would find it an object to procure enough to feed with that 

 of our own raising, or by supplementing it by the i^urchase and use of a suf- 

 ficient amount of chemical or commercial fertilizers to make good all of this 

 loss. 



When we come to sum up this matter, the difficulties do not look so insur- 

 mountably great as many no doubt view them. If the soil is really capable of 

 growing ten bushels of wheat annually, or its equivalents in other crops, then if 

 we could return this or its equivalent all back again, we Avould possess 100 per 

 cent more of available farm capital, from which we could reasonably expect to 

 raise certainly fifty per cent more in products the next year, and should this 

 also be returned in the same manner, to be followed by a proportionable increase 

 the next year, and so on for a number of years in succession, Ave should perhaps 

 finally be able to reach a point — a maximum — beyond which it would not be in 

 our poAver to attain. Should we l^e able to reach this j^oint, Ave will find that 

 the labor and expense necessary to keep it there Avill be much less in comparison 

 to that Avhich Ave found to brins^ it to this condition. 



Instead, then of conducting our farming upon those loose principles AA'hicli 

 would convey a seeming impression, at least, that ^\e realize that our farms are 

 capable of furnishing sufficient sustenance for our oAvn maintainance Avhile we 

 liA'e, and that there our solicitude should end, let us, on the contrary, manifest 

 that we are influenced by those higher motives AA^hich every farmer, Ave doubt 

 not, is capable of feeling, by conducting it upon those nobler and more just 

 principles of philanthrojiy Avhich comprises not only the present, but the future 

 Avants of the human race. The present is an auspicious time to inaugurate 

 them, Avhen our Avhole country is preparing, upon the most stupendous scale 

 ever witnessed, to celebrate in an apjjropriate manner the noble deeds of our 

 ancestors. Let us, then, as the proprietors and tillers of the soil comprising 

 this great country, appropriately sigiiify by our Avorks that Ave, too, desire to 

 deserA'e the grateful remembrance of the generations of the future. 



When, at length, Ave shall have thoroughly discussed all of those questions 



