advantage of this is that it forces small holdings 
and a more thorough tillage. The average wheat 
yield in the Netherlands is 34.18 bushels as against 
our 14; she produces an average of 53.1 bushels 
of oats per acre, where we are satisfied with 23.7 
bushels in 1907 and an average of less than 30 
bushels for the preceding ten years; her farmers 
gather 232 bushels of potatoes from every acre 
so planted, while in this country, with soil capa- 
ble of fabulous yields, we took in 95.4 bushels 
last year and averaged a trifle less than 96 bush- 
els for the last six years. The difference between 
95 bushels and 230 bushels, at 50 cents a bushel, 
is over $60 per acre. Rather a heavy loss to pay 
for poor farming! It is not to be wondered at 
that the Netherlands hardly larger than a big 
county out West, after deducting enough for 
home consumption, exported more than $140,000,- 
000 worth of cereals, flour, butter and cheese; and 
that her people do not have to pay any poor rates. 
To such a height we can bring the productivity 
of many of our own fields. When we have done 
so, and only then, will the specters that haunt our 
future vanish and the questions that it now puts 
to us receive an answer worthy of men careful of 
their future and thoughtful for their race. Ev- 
ery respectable authority on agriculture in the 
country will indorse this statement. But at pres- 
ent we are doing little practically, out on the land, 
among the farmers, to accomplish the change, the 
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