THE PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN 

 AGRICULTURE^ 



By JOSEPH HARRIS. 



I have ben asked to write a short paper on 

 the prospects of American Agriculture. I did 

 not select the subject myself. I am not a 

 prophet or the son of a prophet, and can only 

 judge of the future from the past and the ten- 

 dencies of the present. 



To me the signs of the times are favorable and 

 the prospects bright. Given a soil in the same 

 condition aad with a similar season, no one, I 

 think, will dispute the assertion that a given 

 amount of time and labor will produce more 

 wheat, barley, oats, corn, hay, roots, clover and 

 grass seed; more cotton, rice, hemp, flax and 

 tobacco: and more beef, mutton, wool, pork, 

 milk, butter and cheese to-day than it would, 

 25, 60, or 100 years ago. 



And the same is true, as a rule, of the articles 

 for which a farmer wishes to exchange his sur- 

 plus products. A given amount of time and 

 labor will produce more and better implements 

 and machines ; more woolen, linen and cotton 

 cloth ; more boots, shoes, stockings and gloves : 

 more pins, needles, buttons and thread. 



The same amount of labor will dig more coal, 

 iron and silver, and will saw and plane more 

 boards, and give us more nails, hammers, glass, 

 putty and paint ; will give us more furniture 

 for our houses, and more and better light, and 

 more, if n >t better, books, papers and pictures. 

 In short, owing to the discoveries of science, to 

 increased skill, and to mechanical and chemi- 

 cal inventions, a given amount of labor will pro- 

 duce more of the necessaries and luxuries of 

 Mfe which a farmer needs to procure in ex- 

 change tor his farm products than it would 25, 

 50 or 100 years ago. 



So far as material prosperity is concerned, 

 therefore, we are, as a naiion, or a community 

 of nations, better off than we were 25, 50, or 100 

 years ago. We need not work so hard, or, if we 

 work as hard, we can have more of the neces- 

 saries and luxuries of life. I am speaking now 

 of all classes. 



But, of course, it does not nece sarily follow 

 that one class in exchanging its products for the 

 products of another class gets, at all times, a 

 fair and just equivalent. And no acts ot legis- 

 lation will make a man just and liberal. It a 

 barber in Kansas refuses to shave a farmer for 

 less than two bushels of corn, the farmer can 

 let his beard grow. And if a shoemaker wants 

 60 bushels of potatoes for a pair of boots the 

 farmer may have to submit to the exchange. 

 But such a state of things in a free and intelli- 

 gent community will not last long. The farm- 

 er or his son, will turn shoemaker, and by and 

 by the shoemaker will want to turn farmer. 

 This matter of the exchange of labor or its 

 products must be left to regulate itself. Mo- 

 nopoly, extortion, and all forms of injustice 

 seldom prosper iu the end. 



To me, the prospects of American agriculture 

 never were so bright as at the present time. 

 There is plenty of work to be done. The great- 

 8t curse that can befall a man or nation is vol- 



untary or involuntary idleness. " Nothing t 

 do" means poverty and misery. The less a man 

 does the less he is inclined to do. The more he 

 does the more he can do. Idleness leads to 

 weakness and inability. Work gives strength 

 and skill, it banishes despondency and brings in 

 hope, and hope leads to continued effort. If we 

 fa>l one year we try again. We get to have 

 faith in the soil and in ourselves. We have to 

 compete with our brother farmers and with the 

 farmers of the world. We feel that farming is 

 no child's play and we must try to acquit our- 

 selves like men and be strong. 



Of our many blessings, therefore, not the 

 least is the fact that we have now, and shall 

 have for years to come, plenty of work to do on 

 our farms. 



There are farmers w^ho thought that when 

 their farms were cleared of the forest, and 

 when the barns and fences were built and 

 roads made, there would be little to do. Phil- 

 osophers also told us, and truly, that trees ab- 

 sorbed carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and 

 that when we cleared up a district we not only 

 removed these natural purifiers of the atmos- 

 phere, but when the trees were burnt or de- 

 cayed large quantities of carbonic acid were 

 thrown off, and al-o that man and beast were 

 daily and hourly polluting the atmosphere in the 

 sam^ way. All the processes and operations of 

 civilized life produced enormous quantities of 

 carbonic acid, and we at the same time were re- 

 moving the trees which nature had provided to 

 purity the atmosphere. Now all this was true 

 enough, but the great fact was not then known, 

 that an acre of corn would take up probably 

 five times as much carbonic acid as an acre of 

 forest trees, and that wheat, barley, oats, grass 

 and clover, and all our cultivated plants were 

 much more efficient purifiers of the atmosphere 

 than the native forests. The fear that this con- 

 tinent would become a black hole of Calcutta 

 has proved groundless ; and so the idea, that 

 when we have done the pioneer work of agri- 

 culture there will be little to do; is equally 

 erroneus. The better we farm, the farther we 

 advance ; the more improvements we make, the 

 more work will there be to do. Let us be thank- 

 lul. On my own farm I have little or no wood 

 to chop in winter, and yet I find no difficulty in 

 keeping nearly as many men at work in the 

 winter and spring months as during the month 

 of harvest. In fact, wages being much less, I 

 employ more men in the spring than during the 

 summer. 



Few farmers, 25 or 50 years ago, could have 

 anticipated such a result. The truth is there is 

 scarcely any limit to the amount of work to be 

 done on the farm. The more we do the more 

 there is to be done. Work makes work. And 

 as a rule our profits come not from land but 

 from labor. 



When the duties were taken off foreign grain 

 the English farmers thought their occupation 

 was gone. They thought it was impossible for 

 them to compete with the owners ef cheap land. 

 They really believed that there was, land so 

 rich that in the language of Douglas Jerroldit 

 " needed only to be tickled with a hoe to make 

 it Jaugh with a harvest." Experience has prov- 

 ed their fears groundless. It will be so in this 

 country. Many of us who reside in the older 

 settled states, think we cannot compete with 

 the cheap rich lauds of the West. And no doubt 

 this competition demands our best thoughts, 

 and will tax our skill and energy. We may have 

 to make many and frequent changes in our 

 rotations and general management. But we 

 need not despair. We shall be able to make a 

 livinsf . There is no paradise on earth. "By the 

 sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." There 

 will be found advantages and disadvantages in 

 all sections. More depends on the man than on 

 the situation. 

 I read a remark a few weeks ago in one o< 



