270 THE IRRIGA TION A GE, 



As the past success of our nation, in the face of all obstacles, is 

 the result of our energetic development of our natural resources, and 

 as that work in reality is comparatively just begun by us, we should 

 embrace every means that we can discover which will in any way aid 

 us in this work, either in the more rapid development of all resources, 

 or in their more profitable use and distribution among all mankind. 



As a great aid to their distribution, a canal should be built at 

 once, with national funds, from the Hudson river to Lake Erie, so that 

 ocean ships can at all times freely sail to all the ports on our 

 Great Lakes. This would so reduce freights that the market price 

 on all produce would be raised to the extent of at least twenty cents 

 per bushel on all grain, and to a corresponding degree on all other 

 products, stock, fruits, ores, and all manufactured goods, that are 

 now or could then be produced within the whole territory of the en- 

 tire northern half of our country, thus greatly benefitting every 

 farmer, merchant, manufacturer and laborer of every description. 



Of all the vast resources of our country, far the greatest in value 

 are those arising from the development of the soil, in agriculture, 

 stock, poultry and fruit raising and kindred industries. But this 

 work thus far has been very imperfect] y done, from carelessness in 

 trying to work on too large a scale. Land has been -too cheap, thus 

 each family has so much they do not thoroughly work any of it. 

 They think they must work all they have, so they simply skim over 

 the surface and do not at all, or sufficiently, replenish the soil 

 from year to year, as the crops are removed. Thus it soon requires 

 all the land a farmer has to produce the crops his present needs re 

 quire. 



This is all wrong. Look at the farmer in the old country and 

 what he still produces from each acre, although his land has been 

 under constant cultivation for many centuries. As good or even bet- 

 ter results can be obtained everywhere in our country, if the same 

 care and attention is given to the work. Another, and perhaps 

 greater, evil arising from the system in our country, is the false ideas 

 instilled into the minds of each rising generation, for they are led to 

 believe it is now necessary to have more and more land in order to 

 live, with their present enlarged ideas of their needs, or rather the 

 false extravagance of their tastes. These exaggerated ideas of false 

 needs, like everything else, have grown from their constant cultiva- 

 tion, until now there are scarcely any children of the farmer, except, 

 perhaps, those of foreign descent, who are content to continue life 

 upon the farm, for they consider such a life to be beneath them, and 

 are not satisfied until they join the mad throng in our cities, where 

 they delude themselves into believing they are better off, even when 

 cooped up in one small, hot room, breathing only foul poisonous air, 

 eking out a bare existence upon the intensely small salary which they 



