170 PLANT PRODUCTS 



Contrasting the state of affairs in the British Isles, where 

 there is a fairly conservative system in vogue, with that 

 prevailing in the more recently developed parts of the 

 United States, where the farmer is largely living upon 

 capital originally stored in the soil, and also with that 

 prevailing among some of the aboriginal tribes of India, 

 who merely burn a patch of waste land and move on, and 

 taking into account the relatively new lands of Australia, 

 we may see that the system of farming will have much 

 effect upon the suitability of fertilizers. The Western 

 American farmer may often go on growing maize and wheat 

 and burning the straw, and putting hardly any manure upon 

 the land. For a time such a process may be suitable, but it 

 cannot represent a permanent condition of agriculture. The 

 type of pioneer farmer on the Western parts of America 

 only represents a particular period in the opening up of the 

 country. The American pioneer has turned out the redskin, 

 only to be in his turn replaced by a farmer who works a 

 mixed farm. The aboriginal Indian has originally replaced 

 tha wild animals of the forests, and he himself has been 

 turned out by the more progressive Hindu, who to-day is 

 being blamed for his relatively unprogressive character, and 

 the Australian squatter, with his sheep, has turned out the 

 aboriginal, who only hunted the kangaroo, and the squatter 

 is feeling aggrieved because he is being replaced by the so- 

 called " free selector." Agriculture will need to progress 

 in all countries, and what is suitable for one step in the 

 process is not at all suitable for another step. Further, as 

 agriculture passes through the stage of mixed farming, it 

 goes further, and produces the intensive farmer, who 

 endeavours to produce the maximum amount of food from 

 his land, and we now have to consider the question of the 

 industrialization of agriculture, so as to induce still further 

 improvement in the manufacture of plant products from 

 the soil. Although it is quite impossible to set down any 

 rigid relationship between fertilizers and plant products, 

 it is, nevertheless, quite feasible to adopt some general 

 principles. 



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