yoL. LXI
PUBLIC LIBRARY
(^^o^S^W^rf
£
DIANAPOLIS, JULY  14, 1906.
NO. 28
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THE AMERICAN FARM.
The World Turning to It for all the Comforts of Life.
Heat, Light and Power, 83 Well as Pood
and Raiment.
"Every farmer boy wanta to be a school
teacher, every school teacher hopes to be an
editor, every editor would like to be a
banker, every banker would like to be a
trust magnate, and every trust magnate
hopes some day to own a farm and have
chickens and cows and pigs and horses to
look   after.       We   end   where   we   begin."
What tbe Farm Will Furnish.
1. Food  and  Raiment.
2. Heat, light and Power.
3. Paper Fiber.
and more attractive phases of agriculture
is seen in the added value to our acres of
about fifty per cent in the last ten- years.
The possibilities of the soil are coming
to be better understood. Good acres are
seen to be the foundation of a home life
that cannot vanish in the sharp competitions, aud speculations, and hazzards, and
fluctuations incident to other business
pursuits. Congress has just taken
a step in behalf of agriculture
that has awakened more interest
in this great industry than anything that has been done in years. Taking the internal tax off of alcohol throws
the production of that article at the feet
of agriculture for the utilization of many
of its raw products.      It now looks as if
creases the supply of timber, coal, oil
and gas resources diminish and. must increase in price, and this country is on the
threshold of new sources of supply, and
the soil will provide the new heat, light
and power, as well as the paper upon
which is printed daily and weekly the
news of the world carried to every home.
This restource is stored in soil fertility,
r.nd the product is to be annual and inexhaustible under the highest order of cultivation.
There are two essentially great factors in the growth of crops, nitrogen and
organic matter or humus. .Prof. Hopkins has shown that there is enough nitrogen in the air above every quarter section of land to* produce the annual crops
None of the great industries have advanced
more rapidly than that
ofagriculture in thepast
decade. In its scientific aspects, as in a wider
appreciation of its resources and capabilities
for more and more blessing of the world, is this
4'U".  In   the   nianuipula-
tioii of soils
Burbank is
new species
ling    their
and   plant*.
producing
and   doul*-
prod notion;
growing forests of black
walnut and other useful
timber trees in one quarter of the time unaided
nature has been able to
grow them; turned the
hated cactus of the
plains to bearing nutritions fruit, and produced fruits, flowering and
foliage plants in wonderful variety. In the
past ten years the agri-
cultural scientists of
(he college and experiment stations have
shown how, by selection
and breeding, and soil
manipulation, wheat can
be nearly doubled in
production; that the
protein in corn cau be
greatly increased and its
yield per acre increased
15 to 18 bushels; beef
cattle grown to 13001bs.
in twenty months on
one-half the food formerly required ia three
and a half years; how
by legume rotations
with tho staple grain
crops the soil may draw
from the air tho nitrogenous elements of fertility, annually producing profitable crops and
also enriching the land.
These and other great
advances in soil culture
have attracted to the
farm    thoughtful      men
everywhere     who       are 	
studying these things and buying homes to
which tliey may retire from the exacting
duties and burdens of the more strenuous
life of the city street aud offlce.
This accretion of interest in the    new
A new Product of tht Farm.   Through the Chemist*s  Retort   the   Field  Supplies   the   Factory With Heat, Light  and Poiver
the new source of heat, light and power
were also to be dependent upon the farm.
The soil is thus to be relied upon not
alone chiefly for food and raiment ns in
tbe past.     As population and industry in-
of the world. By the growth of the
legumes in rotation with the other crops,
he says it will be possible in all future
years for farmers to gather from the air
snd maintain a sufficient supply of nitro
gen in the soil for all kinds of crops. The
organic matter or humus is afforded in
equal abundance in the rotation with legumes and the fertility supplied in the consumption of the crops on the land. Without an exact knowledge in the concrete
aa to how and why these things are so,
ia all the years past farmers have noted
and fully recognized that wheat or corn,
or oats in the rotation following one of
the great legume crop, clover, the soil produces in much greater abundance, and
v, hen attended with the other well-known
precautions and methods of fertility, yield
double the productions of soils not so managed. And so we have the assur-
ris-ce of continued annual fertility aud
production  nnder well  noted  methods  of
  culture.
Under the new order
of things in making alcohol free, the soil may
he relied on in the course
of a few years to provide for the diminishing quantities of coal,
kerosene and gasoline,
and to supply an
annual product for heat,
light and power. I.ast
year this country consumed, for these purposes chiefly, 796,873,-
200 gallons of kerosene
and gasoline. It is stated that one bushel of
corn will produce three-
to four gallons of alcohol, leaving also valuable by-products. The
United States produces
annually about 2,400,-
000,000 bushels of
corn, of which we
annually export from
one to two hundred million bushels. By diverting to the production- of
alcohol 400,000,000
bushels it would provide 1,200,000,000 gallons for heat, light and
power. On the best authority it is shown that
one acre of good corn
will make 150 gallons
of alcohol, and the
stalks of corn on one
acre, cut and used just
when the ear is well
matured, will produce
170 gallons of alcohol.
Thus it is seen that au
acre of ear corn and
stalks will produce 320
gallons of alcohol,
which at a price as low
as 10 cents a gallon
would in the gross be
$32 per acre, not counting cost of manufacture. As the corn area
of the United States is
about 95,000,000 acres
it is seen that we have
wonderful resources for
the alcohol product.
It is shown that one
acre of good yielding
Irish potatoes will produce 300 to 400 gal-
ions of alcohol, according to the kind of
potatoes grown, as one large white variety, not so finely flavored for table use,
yields much more than the finer varieties.
An acre of southern yams and sweet potatoes will produce about the same num-