Big Things of the West 



279 



the more abundant the growth of trees, 

 the more readily is moisture preserved 

 for agricultural purposes while the 

 intensity and extent of floods is dimin- 

 ished. 



The true principles of fertilization 

 are annually increasing the average 

 product of the older farm lands of the 

 community. The principles of cattle 

 feeding are introducing important econ- 

 omies into the utilization of farm prod- 

 ucts. We have no reason to think 

 that the average wheat crop, for in- 

 stance, in the United States would not 

 increase in the amount grown per acre 

 An increase of a single bushel per acre 

 will give, in round numbers, an increase 

 of sixty million bushels to the crop. 

 The scientific farmer can readily double 

 and treble his crop, and so, without 

 increasing the acreage, supply double 

 or treble the amount of wheat. The 

 same principle is true of other crops. 

 The future soil fertility will increase, 

 not diminish. The average output of 

 each acre will grow. While the capac- 

 ity of the mouth to consume remains 

 constant through all centuries, the ca- 



pacity bf the hands to furnish food is 

 constantly increasing. We need not 

 fear, therefore, a period of world star- 

 vation due to the exhaustion of the 

 food-producing capacity of the soil. 

 If universal hunger does come, it will 

 not be from this cause. It may be — I 

 would not deny it — that the final fate 

 of man on earth is starvation or freez- 

 ing, but the remote future at which 

 such calamities can occur makes their 

 event for practical purposes infinitely 

 removed. We are now feeding, within 

 the boundaries of the United States, 

 eighty million people. When in a hun- 

 dred years from now we are feeding two 

 hundred million people, the quantity of 

 food per head will be no less abundant 

 than at present. In those days now so 

 near at hand agriculture will be more a 

 science and more an art. The fields 

 will all be gardens, and the forests 

 sources of income without destruction. 

 The life of man will be full of amenities 

 which are now denied the tiller of the 

 soil, and the true aristocracy of the 

 earth will be composed of those in direct 

 touch with earth herself. 



BIG THINGS OF THE WEST* 



By Charles F. Holder 



WHETHER rightly or not, the 

 West has earned a reputation 

 for big things — big fishes, big 

 fruit, big trees; and so many really big 

 things come from this section of the 

 country that possibly some of the in- 

 habitants fall naturally into the habit 

 of telling big stories and painting as 

 the}' rise. There are, however, certain 

 peculiar conditions that hold on the 

 Pacific slope that justify the story-teller. 

 The West has the largest trees in the 

 great Sequoias which rear their lofty 

 heads two or three hundred feet in air. 



It possesses the giant redwoods, which 

 possibly rank next in size and useful- 

 ness, great forests extending all along 

 the fog-laden country of northern Cali- 

 fornia. In Alaska we find the highest 

 mountains in America, and the largest 

 and most numerous glaciers, beginning 

 with Muiraud Malaspina, the latter the 

 most remarkable glacier in the world. 

 The stroller through the markets of San 

 Francisco will find the western repre- 

 sentative of the New York weak-fish — a 

 huge creature ranging from eighty to 

 one hundred pounds — and will be told 



Reprinted from the Scientific American Supplement by courtesy of Munn & Co. 



