Illinois

Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. exports more corn than any other State, or 35,000,000 bushels in 1901. On March 1 of the present year much of the crop of 1901 was held and sold during the spring at 60 and 70 cents per bushel, excessive prices indeed. When the first corn was being gathered in the West the market price in Chicago was 67 to 70 cents.

The average yield per acre in 1901 was 16 bushels; this year, 30. The wholesale price of corn on December 1, 1901, was 72 cents, and in May it touched the high-water mark at 80. There was a corner in corn in July, but this did the farmers little good. Their bins were sold bare before that time.

THE WHEAT CROP.

The average yield of wheat, since a report has been kept, is 15 bushels per acre. In the Southwest, Turkey red wheat has been known to run 40 bushels per acre, and certain expert wheat growers have a system of drought-proof planting which yields 25 bushels. The greatest average of wheat for one State is reported from Washington, with 29 bushels per acre for 1901. Last year 375,000,000 bushels of wheat were exported, there being an overproduction of 200,000,000 bushels above the general average. Farmers in

1901 cleared $205,000,000 on wheat alone. On July 1 of the present year the farmers held in their granaries 52,000,000 bushels of old wheat. The 1901 crop sold for $467,350,156, as against $580,100,000 for 1902. The shortage in bushels of wheat this year was more than accounted for in price. Several million acres of wheat were entirely frozen out during the winter, and this land was ploughed up and sown in corn. But the crop turned out much better at harvest than it was expected to do. Clear dry weather for three weeks prior to cutting time assisted the grains in development. The wheat crop of the world for 1900 was 2,873,000,000 bushels.

PRESENT STATUS OF THE FARMING INDUSTRY.

There are 10,438,922 persons engaged in agricultural pursuits, while all other industries engage 18,845,000 persons. One-third of the entire area of this country is devoted to tilling of the soil. There are to-day 5,739,657 farms in the United Statcs, and the value of farm property, including improvements, stock and implements, is $20,514,001,838. The number of farms has quadrupled in the past fifty years, while the value of the farming land to-day is five times as great as the selling price of fifty years ago. More than 1,000,000 farms have been laid out and fenced in by settlers, principally in the West, in the past ten years.

Fifteen thousand farms were

given away by the Government during 1901. When the Indian Territory is opened for settlement, about 1904, 8,000,000 acres of fine farming land will be offered for sale at low prices, and farming will receive another valuable acquisition to its ranks. There are 306,000,000 acres of unsettled land in the United States ready for immediate occupancy.

The total acreage used for farming purposes is 841,000,000 acres, an area which would contain England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Japan, and the Transvaal, leaving sufficient room for several smaller countries to go in around the edges. None of these countries, or all of them combined, would make a respectable showing with our agricultural products. The value of farm exports in 1901 was $951,628,331.

THE FOREIGN MARKET.

The supply of farm products sold abroad is increasing every year. In 1900, according to the Secretary of Agriculture, the amount was $950,000,000. For years there have been objections raised in the East by farmers against the reclaiming of the arid lands of the West. A reason was offered that the supply would exceed the demand. Experts scout this idea, and say that the new foreign markets being opened, principally in Asia, will absorb the surplus of farm products of the West, no matter how excessive over previous yields. One difficulty in raising farm products with profit on the Western slope is high transportation rates to the Eastern seaboard. James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway, recently said of undeveloped trade in the Orient :

There are a thousand million people off our Pacific coast, with only three million farmers on the Pacific slope to reach out for their trade. To develop this trade national irrigation is necessary, and is the one thing needed to give the United States dominant power of the Pacific Ocean commerce and supremacy of the world's trade in farm supplies. Every business interest benefits by irrigation.

Thus it will be readily seen that the possibilities of farming in the United States have not half been accomplished. But public lands have been opened at a rapid rate since 1892, 112,294,681 acres having been disposed of by the United States, principally to farmer-settlers.

FARM LABOR.

While farming is yielding large profits to the owners, what of the farm workers? In 1900 there were 5,321,087 daily wage earners in the United States. Of this number 1,522,100 were regularly employed farm "hands," working by

the day or month, exclusive of farmers who own and operate their farms. The scale of wages paid them is from 80 cents to $1.25 per day, or $20 to $25 per month and board. The wages for helpers, extra and regular, amounted to $365,505,921, while the value of farm products was over $4,700,000,000. The average expense for each farm, so far as the labor is concerned, was $64 in 1899, while the average value of the products per acre was $4.47. White farmers

paid more for their help, on an average for each farm, principally because their farms were larger. Approximately each white farmer paid $71 for his hired help throughout the year. Of course some of these farmers did not hire any help at all, harvesting their grain in midsummer alone. But, on the other hand, some of the "6 "big" farmers of the corn and wheat belts paid out from $100 to $500 daily for helpers during the garnering seasons. It costs more to run sugar farms, $1,985 being paid for each plantation of this kind which harvested a crop in 1899. In 1889, the price paid for the running of various cereal and produce farms is given by the Census Bureau as follows: per farm, wheat and grain farms, $76; cotton, $25; tobacco, $51; nurseries, $1,136; vegetable, $106; dairy, $105. Besides the regular number of farm helpers,

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about 100,000 are employed in addition during the wheat cutting season in the grain belts. These are known as harvest hands, and are paid from $1.50 to $3.00 per day. These harvest hands are now forming themselves into unions for their own protection from overwork and low wages. Many labor unions for regular farm hands are being organized in Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, and the Southwest. The young man who has made his home on the farm year after year is paid less than any other class of workers. He has had longer hours and no vacations. has brought to his employer larger returns for the work than the coal miner, the steel worker, or the mechanic of ordinary skill. The total expense, for instance, on an acre of wheat is $6. Of this $4.10 goes for horse hire, twine, seed, etc., while the remainder is paid to the two men who gather it and the one who ploughs the soil and sows the grain seeds. The profits upon their $1.90 worth of labor yield from $5 to $8 to their employer. Corn is produced for $5.85 per acre, of which $2.25 goes to the man and his team. Generally the horses are owned by the farmer, and the man is getting $20 per month. The duties and wages of the farm hand of to-day, it may be seen, are not commensurate with the profits of his employer.

HE marked prosperity which has attended

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the industry of agriculture during the past few years has been the occasion of many com. ments respecting its industrial and social significance. In a general way, it is understood that all members of society are partakers of this prosperity. It is one thing, however, to concede in a general way the proposition that the commercial success of one class or interest must diffuse itself throughout the community; it is quite another thing to see clearly in what manner, and under what conditions, this diffusion takes place. Indeed, it is by no means easy to appreciate fully the extent of the mutual dependence of classes and interests in a country whose industrial organization is like that of the United States.

There was a time when the chief significance of agriculture lay in the fact that it provided

raw material and food for those engaged in manufacture and trade. This must, of course, ever remain an important service of agriculture, but it fails to suggest the chief significance of the prosperity of the farmers at the present time. Of greater relative importance is the fact that a series of successful years in the industry of farming increases the purchasing power of a vast body of intelligent men and women whose homes are scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is through this increase in abil. ity to buy goods that the prosperity of its rural districts makes itself felt, for this presents to the manufacturer a commercial motive to employ labor and capital in producing the goods which the farmers demand.

It is doubtless true that this relation of the agriculturist to the manufacturer is in a degree a

reciprocal relation. At whatever point one breaks into the circle of trade he may observe the current of exchanges to move in both directions. The manufacturer buys from the farmer as well as the farmer from the manufacturer. All permanent and healthful exchanges are at last analysis reducible to barter. But while this is true, it is also true that any series of activities must have a beginning, and both analysis and observation lead to the conclusion that the initial step in creating a circle of successful trade must be taken by those producers who, from the nature of their occupation, deal with the primal factors of consumption. The manufacturer will produce nothing unless he sees, or thinks he sees, a market for his goods, for neither he nor his laborers care to consume the things they make. The merchant and the transporter, also, await the appearance of a visible demand before expanding their enterprises. The farmer, on the other hand, will plant and reap whether there is a strong demand for his produce or not. The condition of the market may influence the kind of seed sown, but it will not, at least for a considerable number of years, influence the extent of the sowing. This is why, after a period of com. mercial depression, the manufacturers and the merchants are more anxious even than the farmers themselves for good harvests and good prices.

THE CONSUMER'S POINT OF VIEW.

In what way, then, does a bountiful harvest under propitious conditions of the market diffuse itself throughout the community? To answer in a sentence, this diffusion takes place through the agency of the motive which a prosperous condi tion of agriculture presents to the manufacturer and the merchant. The prosperity of agriculThe prosperity of agricul ture is the center of that spontaneous activity which, when extended to the entire field of human wants, results in what is known as "prosperous times." Thus, a series of bountiful harvests is the starting point of recovery from commercial depression. Other facts there are, without doubt, that should be embraced in a complete explanation, but success in agriculture is the initial factor; it is the fundamental fact. We gain the correct point of view from which to analyze industrial interdependence when we consider it from the point of view of consumption.

While it is true that the above analysis holds for all peoples and all countries, there are certain reasons why it bears a peculiar significance for

the United States. In the first place, notwithstanding the marvelous development of manufactures, this country is still an agricultural country. Success in agriculture touches the lives and interests of a large portion of the population. It means a rise in the scope and standard of demand of a very considerable number of people, and results in the strengthening of a home market of such proportions as to furnish, quite independently of foreign markets, an adequate motive for the development of manufacture and trade. From the point of view of consumption the significance of an industry is measured, not by the amount of capital invested, but by the number of consumers which it supports.

THE FARMER'S ECONOMIC STATUS.

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The intelligence of the agricultural classes in this country, also, is a fact of equal importance, for widespread intelligence is essential to the elasticity of commercial demand. The American farmer does not hoard his cash. He does not, like the peasant of southern Germany, know the system of "blue stocking" banking. perity for him means a rise in the standard of living, or an improvement in the equipment of production, either of which constitutes an effective demand for the labor of the non-agricultural classes. And, finally, it should be observed in this connection that the American farmer is, as a rule, his own landlord. This makes an immense difference in the extent to which agricultural prosperity is diffused throughout the community. Being his own landlord, he receives as a portion of his income the rent that accrues on his land. This not only puts at his disposal a larger sum of money to be expended, but it places the expenditure of this amount in the hands of a class whose demands are for a large quantity of common, ordinary goods. This of itself is a significant fact, for a moment's consideration makes it evident that an increase in the available wealth of a small aristocratic class must be followed by relatively slight industrial consequences as compared with the results of a diffusion of an equal amount among a large body of intelligent consumers. Thus, from every point of view, American agriculture is in a condition to control in large measure the industrial activity of the American people. The prosperity of the farmer, if not synonymous with the prosperity of the nation, is an essential for widespread industrial activity.

AMONG the products of California wonderful

for their bigness is a combined automobile harvester and thresher, now at work on the Pacific slope, doing its part toward garnering the great crops of 1902.

This "department store harvester includes and is propelled by an automobile having a 30horse-power engine. The reaper cuts a swath 36 feet wide; the barley heads are caught on a moving belt 48 inches wide, and carried to the threshing department of the machine. A half minute after the boss sings "all right," and the Juggernaut begins to move, grain comes pouring into the thresher's bin, not only shelled, but carefully cleaned. The grain is transferred immediately to sacks, which are sewed and removed from the machine as soon as twelve are filled.

This mighty product of American machine

making is 66 feet long, weighs over 100 tons, and cuts and threshes under favorable conditions as much as 100 acres a day. Four horses are in constant use supplying it with fuel oil and boiler water. It defies hills of any reasonable grade, and travels at an average rate of three and a half miles an hour. The great wheels prominent in our picture have tires 4 feet wide, with ridges 14 inches high.

These harvesters are made near Oakland, in California. Men that farm on a large scale come from neighboring States, and from as far east as Kansas, to see the machine at work. Three giants of the same type were made in California and sent to Russia for use on the great grain fields of the Steppes, but the train carrying them was seized by the Boxers and side-tracked for two years.

XHAUSTION of the world's supply of coal

is being appreciably retarded by the electrical utilization of hitherto wasted water powers. At no distant date it may be further checked by the corresponding employment of the tides of the air and the sea. In like manner, there now emerges the possibility of maintaining indefinitely by electrical methods, for the enormous benefit of the progressive civilized races of the world, the supply of fertilizers necessary to insure steady and abundant food. Many readers of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS will remember the alarm caused in 1898 by the British Association address of Sir William Crookes, on the serious extent to which the world's wheat supply is threatened by the failing fertility of the available soil. A profound sensation was caused everywhere by that remarkable analysis of the situation. Strenuously controverted as his pessimistic assertions were, they remain broadly true; and may here be summed up in the statement that the world's low average of less than thirteen bushels per acre means literal starvation for the rapidly increasing nations of wheat eaters, unless by large access to cheap nitrogenous manures the quantity can be considerably bettered. The Caucasian has, indeed, consumed fertilizers even more extravagantly than coal and iron.

There are other ways than riotous living to waste one's substance. The nitrate deposits of Chile are swiftly running out. The guano islands are even now cleaned up. The phosphatic beds of the South are quite strictly limited. Normal resources are also squandered with criminal prodigality, and the unrequiting sea is residuary legatee of untold treasure from drains and dumps. In England alone fixed nitrogen worth $80,000,000 a year is chucked away, while the whole Atlantic seaboard of the United States testifies vividly to every eye and nose of equal waste among ourselves.

A prediction has been made that barely thirty years hence the wheat required to feed the world will be 3,260,000,000 bushels annually, and that to raise this about 12,000,000 tons of nitrate of soda yearly for the area under cultivation will be needed over and above the 1,250,000 tons now used up by mankind. But the nitrates now in sight and available are estimated good for only another fifty years, even at the present low rate of consumption. Hence, even if famine

does not immediately impend, the food problem is far more serious than is generally supposed. The starvation that we assume to be periodically inevitable in such regions as India and Russia, and which is not remote in the history of occidental Europe, looms again on the near horizon of the present century, unless we take to sundry husks that the swine do eat. Perchance, the declining increase of population shown by all recent census returns may stave off that grimly evil day. More probably, as this article will point out, relief may come from the application of new ideas and new forces to new ways of winning food. The benefactors of the race who can get three bushels of wheat where one grew before see their golden opportunity.

Dealing with the conditions as they are, Sir William Crookes pointed to an inexhaustible supply of nitrogen to be dug from the air by industry and ingenuity, with the aid of cheap power in illimitable supply, as at Niagara; and curiously enough, his prophetic surmise is already in actual realization. On every square

yard of the earth's surface nitrogen gas, in the air, bears down with a weight of seven tons. What has been demanded is a method that will extract or "fix" this at little cost, and expeditiously, just as it is fixed otherwise by the infinitely minute and slow processes of nature. building the size of the Carnegie Music Hall, in New York City, holds thus about twenty-seven tons of nitrogen, and if that were taken out of the air, and combined in the form of nitrate of soda, it would be worth $10,000.

A

Following up such calculations, Sir William Crookes has estimated that, with the electrical energy of Niagara to burn up the air, nitrate of soda ought to be producible at not more than $25 per ton. This compares, for example, with Chilean nitrate at $37.50 per ton, or the nitric acid of commerce at $80 per ton. Now the greater the consumption of Chilean nitrates or Carolina phosphates the higher the price is driven; whereas, the larger the scale upon which the energy of Niagara is utilized, the cheaper the output of any plant there. The supply of air will be granted to be inexhaustible, and the available energy of Niagara is put at from five to ten million horse power; so that at the spillway of the Great Lakes alone the inventor lays his hand upon all the raw material required for furnishing