XIX 



AGRICULTURAL WASTES 



THE Department of Agriculture from time to time 

 publishes bulletins showing agricultural wastes 

 and losses. Typical among these are the bulletins re- 

 lating to losses produced by insects, including the boll 

 weevil, and to animal diseases of all kinds. Other 

 great agricultural losses are produced either by exces- 

 sive or deficient rainfall or very extreme vicissitudes of 

 temperature. It appears from a cursory study of this 

 class of literature that the yields of agricultural crops 

 are materially lessened by these losses of various kinds. 

 In other words, the common crops of the country are 

 not so wholly dependent as one might suppose upon the 

 fertility of the soil and methods of culture, but are 

 largely determined by accidents, diseases, epidemics, in- 

 fections and vicissitudes of the weather. 



MAGNITUDE OF LOSSES. 



The comparison of the average yield of the principal 

 crops of the United States, from year to year and by 

 periods of five or ten years, indicates that the magnitude 

 of these losses must be pretty nearly uniform. To be 

 sure, there are seasonal variations of considerable im- 

 portance from year to year, which decrease or increase 

 production, but these causes are chiefly due to the 

 weather and not to the other losses to which I have re- 

 ferred. In the fruit business, especially, the unsea- 



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