THE IKKIGATION AGE. 



263 



The rapid settling of the new states and the suc- 

 cessful gathering of their immense harvests has been 

 made possible by improved farm machines. The exist- 

 ence of great farms where the furrow is plowed for 

 miles and where the line of binders sweep across wheat 

 fields covering thousands of acres, has been made pos- 

 sible only by the genius of American inventors. The 

 disposition of the farmer to test alleged improvements 

 and adopt labor-saving expedients has given a great 

 impetus to invention. So successful have been our 

 farming implements in repeated contests on European 

 soil that their rapid introduction into foreign markets 

 is only impeded by the constantly increasing demand at 

 home. During the first twenty years of agricultural 

 invention, the number of patents issued annually in- 

 creased from forty-three to seventeen hundred and 

 seventy-eight, and there has been a proportionate in- 

 crease since that time. It is stated by the Department 

 of Agriculture that the amount of human labor re- 

 quired to produce a bushel of wheat from beginning 

 to end is only ten minutes, whereas before the intro- 

 duction of improved machines the time was three hours 

 and thirteen minutes. During the same interval, the 

 cost of the human labor required to produce a bushel 

 of wheat has declined from seventeen and three-fourths 

 cents to three and one-third cents. 



Notice the contrast between the two methods. 

 Originally the heavy, clumsy plow was used, the seed 

 sown by hand, harrowed into the ground by the draw- 

 ing of bushes over it, the grain cut with sickles, hauled 

 to a barn and some time before the following spring 

 was threshed with flails; the winnowing was done with 

 a sheet attached to rods on which the grain was placed 

 with a shovel, then tossed up and down by two men 

 until the wind had blown out the chaff. Now, on the 

 contrary, the ground is plowed, pulverized with a har- 

 row, the seed sown with a mechanical seeder drawn by 

 horses, the reaping, threshing and sacking of the wheat 

 are done with the binder and thresher, the latter being 

 operated by steam, and then the wheat is ready to haul 

 to the granary or to market. Corn also is planted, 

 cultivated, harvested, husked and shredded by machines. 

 Hay, potatoes and all other farm products, except cot- 

 ton, are grown and handled in a similar way. Hence 

 farming has become a science requiring as much ability 

 knowledge and skill. as any of the so-called "higher 

 professions." 



$2.50 will secure for you one year's subscription to THE 

 IRRIGATION A(iE and a finely bound volume of the Primer 

 of Irrigation which will be sent postpaid In a few months, 

 when volume Is completed. The Primer of Irrigation will be ] 

 finely Illustrated and will contain about 300 pages. Send post 

 office or express money order for $2.50 and secure copy of first 

 edition. 



( 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



JOHN MITCHELL, whose constructive and executive 

 ability has done so much for coal miners of America, 

 might extend his field of usefulness and establish a 

 condition in which operators would hardly presume to 

 provoke a strike, and at the same time improve the 

 moral, social, intellectual and financial affairs of his 

 contingent and heterogeneous forces. 



IF every coal miner in the United States owned, 

 or occupied and tilled well, one acre of ground, the 

 usual thirty days before starvation and violence would 

 be materially extended. The acre would contribute 

 much toward, if not entirely sustain, a family suffi- 

 ciently long to compel operators to come to reasonable 

 terms. 



"BACK to the land." Back to the fundamental 

 basis of all food stuffs. Back to the homes not tem- 

 porary huts and hovels but real homes of cottages, 

 and trees, and flowers, and gardens, and happiness, and 

 good citizenship ; and miners' wives and children would 

 rejoice, and willingly assume more than their share of 

 cultivation. 



HYSTERICAL millions is fully as menacing to the 

 American public as imperial millions and frenzied 

 finance. When it is able to employ master minds of 

 fiction in delineating "The Treason of the Senate," 

 which is one of the most irrational and irresponsible 

 effusions of modern times, its power may include mo- 

 mentous consequences. 



AT ANT rate it endangers, and renders more diffi- 

 cult the work of a safe adjudication of present wrongs. 

 Its tendency is to stampede the public to overdoses of 

 reform, which will eventuate reaction, and other ex- 

 cesses later. 



PERHAPS the most regrettable contingent incident, 

 however, lies in the shattered reputation of a star 

 literateur. From the summit of a profession, appar- 

 ently the allurement of gold has caused David Graham 

 Phillips to descend among haranguers in the arena of 

 politics. 



AN objection to federal control of the range arises 

 in sections sixteen and thirty-six of each township, 

 which are school lands belonging to the school property 

 of various states. Extensive forest reserves embracing 

 whole townships naturally must include these isolated 

 sections, nearly all of which are now leased and con- 

 tributing a revenue to support public schools. 



