350 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



of heat for warming his habitation and growing his 

 green vegetables under cover in winter. 



EXTENDING THE BOUNDS OF TILLAGE. 



There are good reasons, therefore, for believing that 

 both in respect of moisture and temperature, the agri- 

 cultural science of the future may open up large areas 

 to tillage that are now abandoned to desolation and to 

 frost. Even in Alaska we read accounts of gardens 

 and fields of cereals and of meadows for grazing cat- 

 tle. In the recovery and utilization of waste products 

 the farmer of the future has spread before him a field 

 of richest promise. It has been shown that with proper 

 culture and feeding the yields of our fields may be in- 

 creased threefold. Scientific feeding of animals is yet 

 a new science, but it has already shown how to put beef 

 and pork in the market at less than two-thirds of the 

 cost of 50 years ago. The science of man feeding is 

 only in its primer. The science of field feeding is 

 still learning its alphabet. 



From the streets and sewers of cities, from the deserts 

 of Chili and Arizona, from the islands of the Pacific 

 and from the oceans and seas the future farmer will 

 draw the food to feed his fields. 



In the geologic ages of the distant past, before the 

 dawn even of primitive agriculture, provident nature 

 garnered the migratory elements of plant food in stores 

 whose extent and richness are yet but little known. In 

 the case of potash, only one locality in the whole world 

 has been exploited, and that only partially. But even 

 in the deposits of Stassfurt and vicinity are found 

 stores of potash which our successors at the end of a 

 thousand years may freely draw on. The conditions 

 which determine the deposits of potash in that locality 



