Agricultural productivity

“ The staple crops do not yield as largely as before, and less crude methods of using the soil must be resorted to. Manures have to be applied, and the rotation and selection of crops practised. Meat and dairy products, vegetables, fruits, and the miscellaneous agricultural articles, must take their place in rural economy. ”

“ Let us conduct a campaign for increased production, at least one more cavan of rice or corn per hectare of the’ thousands we are now cultivating. The plans are ad­vanced for the setting up of a fertilizer plant to encourage larger agricultural production. ”

“ The price of wheat rose to an average of 14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was steady inflation.
With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more innovation and more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be chosen. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals as a result. The complications of the open system with its endless quarrels and lawsuits were avoided. Now noblemen talked about manure and drainage, rotation of crops, clover, and turnips instead of hunting, horses, and dogs. The breed of horses and cattle was improved. ”

“ This unprecedented growth in food production has been achieved partly by an extension of the production base: larger cropped areas, more livestock, more fishing vessels, and so on. But most of it is due to a phenomenal rise in productivity. Population increases have meant a decline in the area of cropped land in most of the world in per capita terms. And as the availability of arable land has declined, planners and farmers have focused on increasing productivity. ”

“ Better agricultural treatment may easily make half-cultivated land bring forth double its previous produce; but the highest pitch of farming once reached—as it comparatively soon is—the produce cannot be further increased; and even before this limit is reached, the return for each additional application of capital and labor becomes less and less proportionately bountiful. ”

“ The chief drawback to this method in the case of wheat-farming, however, is the low yield per acre. The average yield per acre for the United States, a little more than twelve bushels, is scarcely half the average yield in Europe. Although the farmer has done much to reorganize his business methods, he has done but little to maintain the productivity of his land. ”

“ Corn will not be grown in this country unless you give it an adequate market. Admit foreign corn, and you not only put a stop to agricultural improvement in reclaiming waste land, by means of which production may be carried to an indefinite degree, but you also throw a vast quantity of the land at present productive out of bearing. ”

“ The time is not far distant when greater production will be required of the agricultural area in North America in order to meet the home demand for foodstuffs, and many thousands of tons will be needed for export. This need can only be met by agricultural methods that will increase greatly the present yield of the soil. ”

“ The hay crop is almost entirely used in this way, and the tendency is to convert more and more of these crops into these higher-priced products. Still, the time is far distant when domestic consumption will come anywhere near overtaking domestic production, especially of wheat and the other cereals. The certain extension of acreage with the growth of demand and price, the increased use of agricultural implements, and the improvement of methods will be sure to keep up a large surplus for export for many years to come. ”

“ It is preferable that they should produce farm crops instead of tree crops if the land is best adapted to agricultural use. It is an economic necessity that all lands in this country best suited for farming purposes should be tilled. Our ever-increasing population demands that every acre of land useful for growing crops should be cleared and devoted to farming. ”

“ We think we have developed intensive and perfected systems of agriculture; but as a matter of fact, and speaking broadly, a scientifically permanent agriculture on national lines is yet unknown in the world. In certain regions, as in Great Britain, the productivity of the land has been increased over a long series of years, but this has been accomplished to a great extent by the transportation of fertilizing materials from the ends of the earth. ”

“ Will raising the average produce from twenty-five to fifty bushels per acre be the utmost limit to which improvement can be carried? I believe not. In conclusion, I would urge on all owners and occupiers of land, the importance of devoting at least a small field to agricultural experiments, as I think there can be no doubt that, if these are carefully and systematically made and followed up by agriculturists generally, we shall be so far from needing an importation of corn in average years that we shall have a large surplus to spare for our neighbours. ”

“ So much for agricultural skill. "Nothing can be so excellent as the crop which precedes and that which follows it." The wheat "is thrashed by a cylinder, drawn by a horse, and guided by a boy, while the labourers turn over the straw with forks. This process lasts nearly a fortnight; it is quick and economical, and completely gets out the grain..... In no part of the world are the economy and the management of the land better understood than in Piedmont, and this explains the phenomenon of its great population, and immense export of provisions." All this under metayer cultivation. ”

“ The soil was rapidly exhausted by planting the same crop year after year, for it was easier to take up fresh land than to restore productivity to the old. Indeed, the comments [Pg 127] of foreign travelers at the close of the century suggest doubts as to whether the American farmer understood the importance of rotating his crops and of fertilizing his fields. The farming implements in use showed little of that mechanical ingenuity which is now characteristic of the American people. ”

“ Right methods of farming, without which no agricultural country such as this can hope to remain prosperous, or even to escape eventual poverty, are not complicated and are within the reach of the most modest means. They include a study of soils and seeds, so as to adapt the one to the other; a diversification of industry, including the cultivation of different crops and the raising of live stock; a careful rotation of crops, so that the land will not be worn out by successive years of single cropping ”

“ The object then is, not to produce the largest crops, but those which make the largest money return, and thus it may be practically economical to grow a crop of high commercial value more frequently than is theoretically advantageous. In such cases the farmer must seek to do away as far as possible with the disadvantages which such a course entails, and this he will endeavour to accomplish by careful management and a liberal treatment of the soil. ”

“ The cost of growing the crop, the specialized farm machinery and equipment needed, the availability of labor, the distribution of the seasonal labor demand, the time of the critical cultural practices or of harvesting, the potential market, and the expected price of the saleable product must all be considered.
The staple farm crops of the region are often preferable to specialty crops, particularly from the labor standpoint. Corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, and legumes can all be grown with a minimum of labor and the use of power machinery. ”

“ At present, while we have so much land in proportion to population, we must, perhaps, be content with large crops of grain, and few of them. We must adopt the slower but less expensive means of enriching our land from natural sources, rather than the quicker, more artificial, and costly means adopted by many farmers in England, and by market gardeners, seed-growers, and nurserymen in this country. Labor is so high that we can not afford to raise a small crop. If we sow but half the number of acres, and double the yield, we should quadruple our profits. ”

“ There is a good deal of elasticity in farm work, and in the ability of farm labor to do considerably more or less even with manual and animal work. But if increased mechanicalization has really played any important part in agriculture there is evidence indicating that it has not offset the effects of land impoverishment. In 1909 the average yield of wheat in the United States was 15.44 bu. per acre. ”

“ The ordinary high-priced, manufactured, acidulated, so-called "complete" commercial fertilizers, in the small amounts that farmers can afford to use, and do use quite generally in the older states, serve in part as soil-stimulants and commonly leave the land poorer year by year; and if the farmers of the great Corn and Wheat Belts are ever to adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be done in the near future, or they too will awake to find their lands impoverished beyond self-redemption. ”

“ Sales off the Farm.—The day is now here when the major portion of human food must be provided in grain and vegetables and fruit, and the demand for hay and grain for animals off the farm is very large. Fiber products likewise must be supplied. The draft upon the soil is heavy, but it must be good farm practice to supply bread and vegetables and fruit to the 70 per cent of our population that is not on farms. The great majority of farmers do not feed all their crops to livestock, and the amount of food-stuffs, for human beings and animals, that is now going off the farms is none too great. ”

“ Paucity of arable land in mountain regions leads to the utilization of the untillable slopes for stock grazing. This industry is always a valuable ally to mountain agriculture on account of the manure which it yields; but in high altitudes, where the steepness or rockiness of the soil, cold and the brevity of the growing season restrict or eliminate cereal crops, it becomes the dominant occupation of the inhabitants, while agriculture takes a subordinate place, limited to the production of hay and fodder for the winter feeding of the stock. ”

“ Our arid lands will be made fertile by irrigation, but they will add only a small percentage to the amount already in quasi-cultivation. Our future food supplies must be drawn largely from the six million farms now under fences. These farms must be made to yield fourfold their present product, or they will fall short, not only of the demands made upon them, but also of their possibilities. That is why I preach the gospel of intensive farming, for grain, hay, market, and factory farm alike. ”

“ The area devoted to such sales will grow greater because human needs are imperative. Livestock will become more and more a means of working over the material that man cannot eat—the grass, hay, stalks, by-products in manufacture, and coarse grains. The demand for meat and milk will lead to careful conversion of material into this form of food, and the animals on eastern farms will increase in number for a time, while sales of grain and vegetables grow greater. The draft upon soil fertility through sales must increase because every pound of material sold from the farm carries plant-food in it. ”

“ High farming aims to get large crops every year. Good farming produces equally large crops per acre, but not so many of them. This is what I am trying to do on my own farm. I am aiming to get 35 bushels of wheat per acre, 80 bushels of shelled corn, 50 bushels of barley, 90 bushels of oats, 300 bushels of potatoes, and 1,200 bushels of mangel-wurzel per acre, on the average. I can see no way of paying high wages except by raising large crops per acre. ”

“ That on the estates of the nobility the average yield of wheat amounts to what can be got from the soil without the application of manure, while on capitalistic farms the average is nearly on a par with that which is raised from fertilized land. ”

“ It is a rule with few exceptions that the absence of livestock on the farm is an index of gradual reduction in the productive power of the land. Generally speaking, the farmers who feed the most of their crops on the farm are maintaining fertility, and those who do not feed their crops on the farm have been making drafts upon the soil's stores of available plant-food that are evidenced in a reduction of yields. ”

“ In his present situation it is undoubtedly sound to advise the farmer to curtail his production of wheat, which he is already starting to do by cutting down his acreage under cultivation, but it is not so good advice to recommend him to reduce his aggregate production unless we are in a position to reduce the number of farmers. In that connection there would be many things to study. Wheat is relatively an easy crop to raise and the grain is easily capable of transportation, wherefore remote land may be cultivated for this purpose. The direct labor in raising the wheat crop is small. ”

“ The change made in British agriculture towards the close of the last century, by the introduction of turnip husbandry, is spoken of as amounting to a revolution. These improvements operate not only by enabling the land to produce a crop every year, instead of remaining idle one year in every two or three to renovate its powers, but also by direct increase of its productiveness: since the great addition made to the number of cattle by the increase of their food, affords more abundant manure to fertilize the corn lands. ”

“ On this depends the advantageousness of intensive agriculture (high farming) in every higher stage of civilization. There land is dear and labor cheap. Hence, efforts are made to get along with the least amount of land-surface, and this minimum of land is made more productive by a number of expedients in cultivation, by manuring it, by seed-corn, etc., of course also by the employment of journeymen laborers, oxen, etc. ”