QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 191 



land in the old States held at $100 per acre as compared with $5 land in the 

 far West. 



But an influence greater than the three enumerated is the scaling down 

 of American values of wheat, and by sympathy corn also, to the grain 

 prices of London, in which market are fixed the grain values of the world, 

 Jependent on the crops of Russia, India, Egypt, New Zealand, Australia 

 and South America. It is these crops which fix the value of our crops in 

 America, for if the price in London is low, and it generally is low, the 

 grain can be sent from Europe to the United States at a cost of six cents 

 a bushel, and yet cheaper if sent from point of production. 



1031. Q. What will be the result of the agricultural depression? Agricultwrai 

 A. In our late letter to you we very briefly treated upon the cause of ^^P"*®*®^*"^* 



the agricultural depression. The result is a problem which only time 

 can solve. But certain results are very apparent, notably the frequent 

 sheriff" sales and the abandonment of thousands of farms in all of the old 

 Eastern States, lands once high-priced, and yet, though depreciated, too 

 expensive to cultivate. Much has been written about the abandoned 

 farms of New England, but the same condition exists in the Middle 

 Eastern States. 



In New Jersey and part of Pennsylvania can be seen thousands of 

 abandoned farms with broken-down barns and fences, tenantless home- 

 steads with weedy front-yards. The selling value of these farm lands is 

 only one-third what it was under the better times of twenty to thirty years 

 ago. And though rents may now be based upon the reduced value, they 

 cannot be paid out of the farm profits of ordinary agriculture, if the 

 farmer is of the condition of a proprietor and has to pay wages. 



It seems manifest destiny that the day for big farms in the old States is 

 about over, and that grain, grass and dairy lands will be divided into 

 tracts of thirty to forty acres, and worked by small owners or renters, a 

 less intelligent, less progressive class, men who cannot aff'ord to, or who 

 will not purchase improved machinery, or be in anyway helpful in aiding 

 advanced agriculture. Each holder of this class, by the aid of his wife^ 

 sons and daughters, doing all the work, no cash going out to employes, 

 people satisfied to eat what they cannot sell ; such people will lay by 

 money, but they do nothing to aid in the development of the science or 

 practice of agriculture. This is not a very cheerful prognostication, but it 

 may come true. 



These remarks apply to ordinary farming, not market gardening, under 

 which more intensive system of culture forty acres is frequently enough, 

 as forty acres in truck requires the labor of five or six men and as much 

 outlay in manure, live stock and implements, ability and effort as five 

 times that average in crops of grain, potatoes and grass. 



1032. Q. What is a practical proof of the activity of bacteria in the ^ . 

 soil ? 



A. It has been proven by the Rothamstead Experimental Station that 

 nodules growing on the roots of leguminous plants, as peas or clover, 



