283 THE PROFESSION 



OF FARMING 



come to the cultivator without intelligent and 

 persistent effort, he is a fool. No owner of land, 

 unless others require it to live upon, can make 

 money by neglecting it. 



There is no scarcity of land to feed the world 

 even at the old wasteful rate, but it is not acces- 

 sible under present conditions, being held by spec- 

 ulators. The cry that there are too many mouths 

 to be fed by the world's supply is no more true 

 than that there is more grown than could be used. 

 It has been one of the anomalies of life that 

 while thousands are starving in the cities, grain 

 is being used for fuel by the farmers. It must 

 ever be so while natural opportunities are in the 

 hands of a few. It is a condition created by mo- 

 nopoly, a monopoly in no danger at present of 

 indictment for restraint of trade. 



But the capacity of the land now under culti- 

 vation has never been tested. That is why agri- 

 culture offers a field for the trained farmer to- 

 day, unexcelled even by the possibilities of inven- 

 tion. All men cannot be inventors like Edison, 

 but he who succeeds in multiplying and improv- 

 ing the ears of wheat which may be grown in a 



