REPORT OF, THE STATISTICIAN. 391 



important to show tlie superior value of the highest learninfj anil skill 

 in practice over the lowest type of primitive cultivation. 



Statistical research shows that a crude agriculture is not abundant 

 in product, that it is deficient in working capital, and that it is com- 

 pelled to pay high interest on borrowed money. A low grade of farm- 

 ing is cursed with mortgages and mildews, with insects and ignorance. 

 Uncertainty broods over its harvests, and famine decimates its people. 

 Famine is unknown in a country of advanced agriculture, though a 

 fourth of its people only may be engaged in rural production. On the 

 contrary, millions famish in India, while most of its people are in agri- 

 cultHre."^ It is said that in 1270, in England, ''parents ate their children 

 wlicn wheat rose to 33G shillings a quarter at the present value of 

 money." Five hundred years ago, when nearly every Englishman lived 

 by agriculture, the product only snfticed for a home supply ; now, with 

 a population of 44G to the square mile, of which only one in eight is an 

 agricultural worker, six-tenths of all the food required for consumption 

 is produced at home, though half the island is occupied for residences, 

 Ijleasure-grounds, and hunting preserves. 



These eras p'resent wide contrasts, the most remarkable of which are 

 those which suggest advances in agriculture through applied chemis- 

 try, physiology, mechanical science, and other developments of modern 

 learning. 



The Latin races of Southern Europe, slower than the Anglo-Saxon in 

 utilizing in rural practice the discoveries of modern science, are still 

 making sure i)rogress towards a higher and more profit;fble agriculture. 

 In Italy lands are more productive, buildings more numerous and con- 

 venient, and the peasant is better paid and better lodged and clothed. 



An official commission has recognized the improvement as a measure 

 of progress in scientific agriculture, and made the future prosperity of 

 Italy dependent upon schools and scientific experiment. 



This Italian commission has learned the lessoa of all lime, that primi- 

 tive, unscientific agriculture is poor, when it declares : 



The experience of all times and of all places has demonstrated tlio fact that purely 

 agricultural countries are never rich, even from an agricultural standpoint, while in 

 those countries where the arts, industries, and commerce flourish private gain creates 

 rural wealth. 



In such countries only can learning and science flourish, for this high 

 commercial and industrial activity is their natural offspring; and only 

 in such countries can the most productive and profitable agriculture 

 exist. 



Spain is mainly agricultural, yet its entire value of rural production 

 could be purchased with the value of the corn crop of the United States. 

 It is because the yield is small and the price low. Russia, with labor 

 employed principally in agriculture, yields but 19 bushels of cereals 

 per head, while Great Britain, with seven-eighths of her people em- 

 ployed outside of agriculture, last year produced 10 bushels of cereals 

 for every inbabitant of the country. In Great Britain the yield per 

 acre of wheat is 2S bushels ; in Russia scarcely more than a third as 

 much. This high yield has been attained by science applied to agricult- 

 ure. A single individual has given his life and his fortune to experi- 

 mental agriculture, and endowed his experimental farm with the income 

 in perpetuity from half a million dollars. 



The average yield of a country is no indication of the natural fertilitj' 

 of its soil. The richest soils of the world under the rude methods of 



