ONE REASON WHY FARMING DOES NOT PAY. 



73 



north of this line the pressure ranges from 

 100 to 185 pounds to the square inch, ac- 

 cording to location and other conditions. 



The flow of the wells vary largely, from 

 a few hundred gallons to nearly or quite 

 4,000 gallons per minute, according to the 

 location of the well, its size, the thickness 

 of the sand -rock, its character, whether 

 fine or coarse, and many other conditions 

 I cannot discuss in this paper. It may be 

 that this basin will soon be emptied, but 

 it seems to me that as long as the rains 



and snows continue to fall, and the moun- 

 tains continue to lift their majestic heads 

 high above us, the danger is remote. 



With a sheet of water under us thirty or 

 forty feet thick, with a head reaching back 

 hundreds of miles and thousands of feet 

 above us, and being constantly increased 

 by a fresh supply, it seems to me there is 

 no cause for alarm. The resistance of the 

 sand-rock holds this water back, so that 

 we cannot draw this water off rapidly if 

 we would. 



ONE REASON WHY FARMING DOES NOT PAY. 



BY W. C. F1TZSIMMONS. 



"THE following facts and figures show 

 A the stupendous folly of raising wheat 

 for export at recent low prices: For the 

 first eleven months of 1894 there were ex- 

 ported from the United States 65,465,292 

 bushels of wheat and 14,762,232 barrels 

 of wheat flour. Reducing the flour to its 

 equivalent in wheat at the rate of 4^ 

 bushels to the barrel, the entire export 

 was equivalent to 131,895,336 bushels of 

 wheat. The average price of wheat at 

 points of export was 59 cents per bushel, 

 making a total value of $77,818,248 for 

 the eleven months ending with November 

 of that year. 



It should be remembered that the above 

 sum was not what the farmers received for 

 that amount of wheat exported. Not by 

 a long way. The wheat buyers, the trans- 

 portation companies, the elevator compa- 

 nies, the warehouse companies and other 

 handlers as well as the men who produced 

 the wheat are all paid out of the amount 

 received. The 59 cents, therefore, repre- 

 sented what the farmers received plus all 

 the charges attaching to the grain from 

 the time it left the farmers' hands until it 

 was put aboard ship in New York or San 

 Francisco. 



It is not recorded that the transporta- 

 tion companies or other agencies having to 

 do with this wheat after it left the farm 

 lost anything by the transaction, but how 

 was it with the farmer ? 



We shall say nothing about the cost of 

 land and improvements; nothing at all 

 about the labor and expense of plowing, 

 sowing, reaping, threshing and hauling to 

 market. To be sure they are generally 

 regarded as the main costs involved in the 

 production of wheat; but our purpose is to 

 show here an enormous item of loss to 



farmers which is seldom, if ever, taken 

 into account. 



To reduce a large amount of "cipher- 

 ing" to a few figures it is this: At the 

 prices of 5 cents a pound for potash, 6 

 cents a pound for phosphoric acid and 15 

 cents a pound for nitrogen, every bushel 

 of wheat produced cost the farmer who 

 produced it 23J cents for these ingredi- 

 ents alone. To be sure he may not have 

 paid out that much hard cash for these 

 substances with which to fertilize his crop; 

 but that amount of such ingredients was 

 withdrawn from the soil, which is practic- 

 ally the same thing. No man who raises 

 wheat can possibly escape these inexorable 

 facts of chemistry. This being a fact then 

 the amount of wheat sent across the sea 

 during the first eleven months of the year 

 1894 carried away from our soil potash, 

 phosphoric acid and nitrogen to the value 

 of $30,995,400, and for the first eleven 

 months of 1893 the amount was $40,219,- 

 964. 



The farm value of the entire wheat crop 

 of 1893 was. given in round numbers by 

 the Department of Agriculture at $213,- 

 000,000, and that of 1894 at $225,000,- 

 000. From this it appears that during 

 the first eleven months of 1893 the value 

 of the potash, nitrogen and phosphoric 

 acid exported was equal to 19 per cent of 

 the value of the entirp wheat crop har- 

 vested that year. In 1894, owing to a 

 greater aggregate farm value for the crop 

 and smaller exports, this percentage was 

 reduced to 14. But in spite of these 

 facts, which can tell but one story of inev- 

 itable disaster if persisted in, the farmers 

 increase their acreage in wheat from year 

 to year while the price goes lower and 

 lower. 



