54 
Journal of the Mitchell Society. [June 
houses have paid their own prices for meat. Now let a 
drought come and there is absolutely no escape from a meat 
famine. 
But what are we going to do about it ? What is the solu- 
tion of the problem ? We are all familiar with the fact that 
in our older States of the South the annual product per acre 
has greatly decreased, owing to the rapid loss of soil fertility, 
and that even our moderate production is maintained only at 
increased cost; and also, that the comparatively new States 
like Texas, as well, show a rapid deterioration of land and 
loss of fertility. And it may be pointed out that our farmer 
is of all men most miserable; neglected and looked down 
upon; slave to the credit system; servant where he should be 
master; poor and becoming poorer; the prey of sharpers; the 
disconsolate follower of a calling which he has inherited 
with his deteriorating acres, clinging to the past, knowing 
no higher law than chance, planting, rearing, and gathering 
his crop under the leadership of luck, each succeeding year 
seeing his granary heaped fuller of disappointments, leaving 
him poor in purse and lean in hope. None of us can deny 
that this is a true picture of the average farmer of our State 
as we have known him from our youth up. The politician 
who has flattered him biennially that his calling, seen in its 
true perspective, is outranked by no other in power, scope, 
or service to mankind, has gone his way and made laws 
directly opposed to all the farmer’s interests. 
Still, what are we going to do about it ? How are we to 
escape famine if our present source of supply should be 
exhausted ? What is the solution of the problem ? Increase 
the output from the soil that we have by the application of 
science — “that sensible science of our day which has for its 
ultimate aim not merely discovery but application; which is 
not so delighted by the formulating of a new law as it is 
overjoyed at the lifting of a burden;” science, in which 
laboratory investigation goes hand in hand with field experi- 
mentation, the science of our present time, which is applied 
