TOPICS OF THE TIME 



* 



Irrigation Gradually it is dawning on 

 in the the farmers of the older 

 East. States that the benefits of 

 irrigation need not be confined to the 

 plains of the West. There are few farms 

 in the eastern States that are not " well 

 watered," and every such farm may have 

 its product increased and insured by a 

 comparatively small expenditure, mostly 

 in labor, by conducting the water from a 

 running stream or from an artificial reser- 

 voir, which may be cheaply constructed. 

 A farmer in New York recently stated that 

 he had never known a year when there was 

 rainfall enough to produce one full crop. 

 A few plow furrows supplemented by the 

 use of a common scraper will carry the 

 water along the hillsides into the main lat- 

 erals for the fields to be watered. Lay 

 out the rows so that water will run between 

 them, not too rapidly, and turn it in when 

 it is needed. There is almost always a 

 week or two during the growth of a crop 

 when a little additional water would add 

 largely to the product. It should be re- 

 membered, too, that the preparation for 

 irrigating will provide for carrying off sur- 

 plus water as well, a matter of hardly less 

 importance. Every farmer ought to, and 

 every progressive farmer will, read up on 

 irrigation and its benefits. It will pay. 



Adjustment American farmers, by their 

 Necessary. prompt adoption of im- 

 proved machinery and methods, are pro- 

 ducing so much of the general products of 

 the farm as to compel a dependence on 

 foreign markets for the disposal of the 

 surplus. In those markets they are meet- 

 ing competition from countries where 

 cheap labor and the silver standard enable 

 the production of this class of products at 

 a price which will not afford our farmers 

 any such profits as they have formerly en- 

 joyed. So long as we offer our surplus on 

 the European markets, the price for our 

 entire product will be fixed by the price at 

 which we must sell the surplus. The only 

 practical remedy is to reduce our produc- 

 tion in those leading crops to the home 

 consumption, or else to so stimulate the 



home consumption as to make a market 

 for all that we do or may produce. If, for 

 instance, a portion of the land devoted to 

 wheat should be turned to sugar producing, 

 there is room for the substitution of nearly 

 $150,000,000 of sugar that is annually im- 

 ported. A similar substitution may be 

 made as to many other products which we 

 now import largely, but which might be 

 produced at home. The curtailing in one 

 line and expansion in others would seem to 

 be the sensible thing for our farmers to 

 consider. 



Industrial Bursting granaries and 

 Paradoxes. 8tarv i ng tramps, low-priced 

 corn and hay and neglected animals, full 

 crops and widespread destitution, un- 

 equalled manufacturing facilities and re- 

 stricted consumption, a wonderful progress 

 in invention and inability to profit by it, 

 stockholders of corporations getting richer 

 and their employes getting poorer. These 

 are existing conditions that none can dis- 

 pute. There are reasons for it, and there 

 are remedies. Where are the statesmen 

 who can grasp and change the situation ? 



Controlling When the river and harbor 

 the Floods. bill wag under digcU88ion in 



the senate, on motion of Senator Warren 

 of Wyoming, an amendment was adopted 

 providing that engineers of the war de- 

 partment shall make examinations in 

 Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, and report 

 to Congress whether it is practicable and 

 desirable to impound the rivulets and 

 streams of the mountains in reservoirs, and 

 thereby prevent the erosion of the banks of 

 the great rivers of the Mississippi valley 

 and prevent damage from floods, the water 

 to be used for irrigation of lands now arid. 

 The word irrigation had to be eliminated 

 as not germane to the purpose of the bill, 

 but with that left out the amendment was 

 adopted. It matters little how such an 

 examination is accomplished. It can 

 hardly be done intelligently without show- 

 ing the vast benefits to flow from the hold- 

 ing of the storm waters for the double 



51 



