we raised it. The present wheat acreage of the 

 United States is about 46,500,000 acres on the aver- 

 age. If it gave 25 bushels per acre, the crop would 

 amount to 1,162,500,000 bushels. At our present 

 rate of production and consumption we may cease 

 to be a wheat exporting nation within the next ten 

 or fifteen years, perhaps earlier. With the larger 

 yield we could supply all our own wants and have 

 a surplus of 400,000,000 bushels for export. This 

 is no fancy picture, but a statement of plain fact. 

 Is there any other field where conservation could 

 pro-duce results so immense and so important? Is 

 there any other where it bears so directly upon our 

 economic future, the stability of our government, 

 the well-being of our people? 



Any survey of practical conservation would be 

 imperfect if it omitted the almost desperate neces- 

 sity at this time of conserving capital and credit. 

 This subject deserves full and separate treatment. 

 No more is possible here than to summarize some 

 of the facts and conclusions presented by me to 

 the conservation conference that assembled in this 

 city a few months ago. Conservation of cash and 

 credit is important to the farmer as it saves or 

 wastes results of his work and his work furnishes 

 the greater part of the nation's w^ealth. Our states, 

 including cities and minor civil subdivisions, have 

 run in debt about three quarters of a billion dollars 

 in the last twelve years. Public expenditure is 

 increasing everywhere. Public economy is a virtue 

 either lost or despised. From 1890 to 1902 the ag- 

 gregate expenditures of all the states increased 103 

 per cent. Boston's tax levy, says Brooks Adams in 

 a late article, including this among the serious prob- 

 lems of modern civilization, was $3.20 per head in 

 1822, while now it is nearly $30. The per capita cost 



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