them in special classes for special training is the first step in the
right direction. Here, after sufficient time for observation and
diagnosing by teacher and physician, the defectives so adjudged will
naturally drift to the training schools for the feeble-minded; these,
if relieved of the odium as well as the care of their helpless
population, will then be encouraged to arrange for this brighter class
of defectives industries which will provide not only for development
and happiness, but will largely aid in maintenance. The recognition of
the necessity for this weeding out of the schools, having place first
on the Continent, next in England, and later in our own country, marks
an era in the national as well as in the special schools. Both will be
benefited largely, and formal expression of this, found in the
addition to our National Educational Association of a department
representing the training of all classes of defectives, is one of the
most encouraging signs of the times.
[Illustration: MIDDLE-GRADE IMBECILES.]
The same experience which dictates the separation of the idiot from
the imbecile, the backward from the normal child, urges also that a
permanent sequestration would tend alike to the safety and happiness
of the normal and abnormal classes. The experiment made of preparing
and sending out into the world these irresponsibles has proved, to say
the least, not encouraging, and the advisability of their permanent
detention has become self-evident.
The heads of training schools here are a unit in urging that provision
be made for those who have reached the limit of school progress. That
experience has reached a similar conclusion in England is testified
in the munificent gift lately made to the Royal Albert Asylum, and by
the opinion of its superintendent, Dr. T. Telford-Smith, thus clearly
expressed:
"It is yearly more noticeable that the public mind is coming gradually
but surely to recognize the threefold value of the work of such
institutions as the Royal Albert Asylum. The educational and the
custodial aspects early aroused the sympathies of the charitable; but
the preventive aspect is another which must force itself upon all who
thoughtfully consider the subject. The far-reaching and inexorable law
of heredity is written large for those who study the imbecile."
The following paragraph, from a daily paper, shows that, in America at
least, public opinion and the acts of the legislature have become ripe
for action:
"The State of Connecticut is about to try a curious experiment in
social legislation, having passed a law forbidding any man or woman,
imbecile or feeble-minded, to marry under forty-five years of age, the
penalty being imprisonment for not less than three years; and persons
aiding and abetting are also liable. The hope of the legislature is to
keep down dégenerate families."
That this experiment is wise and justifiable who can doubt?
[Illustration: LOW-GRADE IMBECILES. No. 1, obstinate, perverse,
indolent; No. 2, gentle and obedient.]
To glance at another and sadder, but not less real, side of the same
question, can any one doubt but that the adolescent and adult female
imbecile needs lifelong care and protection? Surely the noble gift to
the asylum by Sir Thomas Storey of a home for forty such cases is a
wise, far-seeing, and statesmanlike act.
It is greatly to be hoped that this noble example may be speedily
emulated on both sides of the sea, and that each State may shortly
possess, in addition to its training school, its own colony farm with
all the industries of a village, drawing its workers from the
well-directed energies of a carefully guarded community. Cottages,
each with its house mother, would insure that sense of home, and that
affectionate and sympathetic oversight so essential to this society
composed of those who are always children, while measures, which
science has already pointed out and experience proved as advisable,
might, if protected by wise legislation, permit less vigilance on the
part of care-takers and consequent happiness because of greater
freedom to its members.
It is a happy coincidence that Massachusetts, the pioneer State in the
work among the feeble-minded, should in its fifty-first year celebrate
the beginning of its second half century by the inauguration of this
most eventful step in the onward progress of the work. The training
school at Waltham has lately purchased sixteen hundred and sixty acres
of land for the establishment of a colony which is to have natural and
healthful growth from the fostering care of the parent institution.
As these colonies increase, drawing from society a pernicious element
and transforming it under watchful care into healthful growth, may not
in time the national Government, finding these homes of prevention a
more excellent way than prison houses of cure for ill, be induced to
provide a national colony for this race more to be commiserated
because of a childhood more hopeless than that of the two others in
our midst on whom so much has been expended?
THE WHEAT PROBLEM AGAIN.
BY EDWARD ATKINSON.
In a recent article in the North American Review, Mr. John Hyde, the
statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, a
gentleman of very high authority and repute, presents this problem in
such terms as to throw a doubt upon the validity of any forecast of
the potential increase in the product of wheat, or, in fact, of any
crop in this country. Without referring to myself by name, he yet
makes it very plain that he does not attach any value to my recent
forecast of wheat production printed in the Popular Science Monthly
for December, 1898.
On the other hand, he rightly says that since Tyndall's address to the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874 no treatise
presented to that association has excited so general an interest or
provoked so much unfavorable criticism as Sir William Crookes's recent
utterances on the subject of the approaching scarcity in the supply of
wheat.
Mr. Hyde disclaims any intention to give his own views, but yet no one
can read his treatise without noting a substantial agreement with Sir
William Crookes, perhaps almost unconsciously to himself. In his
closing paragraph he says: "To discuss the extent to which under
conceivable conditions the United States may, _notwithstanding the
somewhat dubious outlook_, still continue to contribute to the food
supply of other nations, would be little more than speculation."
The Italics are my own.
I venture to point out that the use of the word "speculation" is an
example of many instances. Like a dog, one may give a word a bad name,
yet it may be a good dog and a very good word when rightly used. In
the true and very innocent meaning of the word "speculation" we find
exactly what the public has a right to expect and even to demand from
the Department of Agriculture. In Webster's Dictionary I find that,
when used in such a connection as this problem of the potential of
this country in farm productions, the word "speculation" stands for "a
mental view of anything in its various aspects and relations;
contemplation; intellectual examination."
If any "mental view" has yet been taken in the Department of
Agriculture of the proportion of the land of this country which may be
termed "arable," I have yet to find the record. If any "contemplation"
has been devoted to the proportions of this arable land which may be
devoted to different crops in each section, I have been remiss in not
securing the reports. If any "mental view" has been taken of the
relative area now devoted to each principal crop, and that which may
be so devoted hereafter in order to meet the prospective demand upon
the land, either for the supply of our own population or of other
nations, where is the record? If there is no such "speculation" now of
record, is it not time that a true agricultural survey corresponding
to our geologic and geodetic surveys should be entered upon? I have
reason to believe that such surveys have been made by many European
states in which all the arable land in some kingdoms is classified,
listed, and so recorded that any one wishing to know the best place
for any special product can get the information by reference to the
proper department of the Government.
I have had occasion to make several studies of this kind. In order to
inform myself on the potential of the South in the production of
cotton, I undertook a study of the physical geography and climatology
of the cotton States and of other cotton-producing countries nearly
forty years ago. The results of this research were first given in
Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, published in 1861. In that pamphlet and in
many treatises following, finally in an address in Atlanta, in 1880, a
true forecast or "speculation" or "intellectual examination" will be
found of the production of the cotton fiber, the potential of the
future and of the cotton-seed-oil industry, then almost unheard of in
this country. In 1880 I also entered upon my first "speculation" (not
in the market) on the lines of a "contemplation" or forecast of the
effect of agricultural machinery applied to our wheat land, coupled
with the prospective reduction in the cost of carrying wheat to
England, upon the condition of the American farmer and the British
landlord. That forecast of prosperity to our farmers in the supply of
bread at low cost to our kin beyond the sea has been justified at
every point and in every detail. I therefore ventured to review Sir
William Crookes's address, and I am well assured that what Mr. Hyde
now calls a "somewhat dubious outlook" is subject to no doubt whatever
as to our ability to continue our full supply for domestic consumption
and export for the next century.
Let me now repeat again what I have often said: statistics are good
servants, but very bad masters. I long since ceased to put any great
reliance upon averages of crops, wages, or products covering wide
areas and varying conditions, unless I could find out, _first_, the
personal equation of the man who compiled them; _second_, ascertain
what he knew himself about the subject of which his statistics or
figures were the symbols; and, _third_, unless I could verify these
great averages from one or more typical areas of farm land, or from
one or more representative factories or workshops, of the conditions
of which I could myself obtain personal information.
General statistics and averages of farm products and earnings I regard
with more suspicion than almost any others because of the immense
variation in conditions.
I have sometimes almost come to the conclusion that so many of the
figures of the United States census are mere statistical rubbish as to
throw a doubt on nearly all the schedules. Yet without accurate
statistics on many points, many of them yet to be secured, the conduct
of our national affairs must become as uncertain as would be the
conduct of any great business corporation without a true ledger
account and a trial balance. Hence the necessity for a permanent
census bureau and for a careful "speculation" or "intellectual" and
intelligent examination and "contemplation" or study of the facts
about our land by which our future welfare must be governed.
A good beginning has been made by the authorities of many States, yet
more by the body of well-trained men in charge of the Agricultural
Experiment Station, in whose support too much can not be said. To them
I appealed when trying to get an adequate conception of our potential
in wheat.
When we think of the blunders which have been made in very recent
years, we may well have some suspicion that we may still be very
ignorant on many points about our own country. Who really knows very
much about the great middle section of the South, what is called the
"Land of the Sky," comprising the upland plateaus and mountain
sections of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky? Within this area, as large as France
and twice as large as Great Britain, will be found timber and minerals
equal to both the countries named, and a potential in agriculture
equal to either, as yet very sparsely populated.
Yet under a craze for centrifugal expansion we are now in danger of
trying to develop tropical islands far away, already somewhat densely
peopled, where white men can not work and live, to our detriment,
danger, and loss, while we fail to see that if we expand centripetally
by the occupation and use of the most healthy and productive section
of our own country, we may add immensely to our prosperity, our
wealth, to our profit without cost and without militarism. This
sparsely settled Land of the Sky is greater in area and far greater in
its potential than the Philippine Islands, Cuba, and Porto Rico
combined. Verily, it seems as if common sense were a latent and
sluggish force, often endangered by the noisy and blatant influence of
the venal politician and the greed of the unscrupulous advocates of
vassal colonies who now attempt to pervert the power of government to
their own purposes of private gain.
Witness the blunders of the past:
We nearly gave away Oregon because it was held not to be worth
retaining.
When the northern boundary of Wisconsin was being determined, it was
put as far north as it was then supposed profitable farming could ever
extend, excluding Minnesota, now one of our greatest sources of wheat.
The Great American Desert in my own school atlas covered a large part
of the most fertile land now under cultivation.
What blunders are we now making for lack of "speculation" or
"intellectual examination" as to the future of American farming and
farm lands?
On one point to which Mr. Hyde refers I must cry _peccavi_. He rebukes
the editor of the Popular Science Monthly for admitting an article in
which a potential of 400,000,000 bushels of wheat is attributed to the
State of Idaho. The total depravity of the type-writing machine caused
the mechanism to spell Montana in the letters I-d-a-h-o. What I
imputed to Idaho is true of Montana, if the Chief of the Agricultural
Experiment Stations of Montana is a competent witness, if all its
arable land were devoted to wheat. It will be observed that I
mentioned Idaho incidentally (meaning Montana), taking no cognizance
of the estimate given, because it was at present of no practical
importance.
I have expressed my distrust of great averages in respect to
agriculture and farm products.
In illustration of this fallacy, the figures presented by Mr. Hyde
will now be dealt with. It is held that in 1930, which is the year
when Sir William Crookes predicts starvation among the bread-eating
people of the world for lack of wheat (as if good bread could only be
made from wheat), the population of this country may be computed at
130,000,000. The requirements of that year for our own consumption Mr.
Hyde estimates at 700,000,000 bushels of wheat, 1,250,000,000 bushels
of oats, 3,450,000,000 bushels of corn (maize), and 100,000,000 tons
of hay; and, although other products are not named by him, we may
assume a corresponding increase.
Subsequently Mr. Hyde gives the present delusive average yields per
acre of the whole country, and then throws a doubt on the future
progress of agricultural science, saying, "Whatever agricultural
science may be able to do in the next thirty years, up to the present
time it has only succeeded in arresting that decline in the rate of
production with which we have been continually threatened." Without
dealing at present with this want of and true consideration of or
"speculation" upon the progress made in the last decade under the lead
of the experiment stations and other beginnings in remedying the
wasteful and squalid methods that have been so conspicuous in pioneer
farming, let us take Mr. Hyde's averages and see what demand upon land
the requirements of 1930 will make, even at the present meager average
product per acre.
Mr. Hyde apparently computes this prospective product as one that will
be required for the domestic consumption of 130,000,000 people by
ratio to our present product. He ignores the fact that our present
product suffices for 75,000,000, with an excess of live stock,
provisions, and dairy products exported nearly equal in value to all
the grain exported, and in excess of the exports of wheat. If we can
increase proportionally in one class of products, why not in another?
Whichever pays best will be produced and exported.
_1897 and 1930 compared.--Data of 1897._
------+------------------------+-----------------+----------------------
| Products. |Average per acre.| Area required.
------+------------------------+-----------------+----------------------
Maize | 1,902,967,933 bushels. | 23.8 bushels. | 125,150 square miles.
Wheat | 530,149,168 " | 13.4 " | 61,660 " "
Oats | 698,767,809 " | 27.2 " | 40,200 " "
Hay | 60,664,770 tons. | 1.43 " | 66,290 " "
| | |----------------------
Total in square miles | 293,300 square miles.
-------------------------------------------------+----------------------
All other farm crops carry the total to less than 400,000 square miles
now under the plow, probably not exceeding 360,000.
Prospective demand of 1930, at the same meager average product per
acre, without progress in agricultural science:
------+------------------------+---------------+----------------------
| Crop called for. | Per acre. | Area required.
------+------------------------+---------------+----------------------
Maize | 3,450,000,000 bushels. | 23.8 bushels. | 226,600 square miles.
Wheat | 700,000,000 " | 13.4 " | 81,600 " "
Oats | 1,250,000,000 " | 27.2 " | 70,800 " "
Hay | 100,000,000 tons. | 1.43 " | 109,400 " "
| | |----------------------
Total in square miles | 488,400 square miles.
-----------------------------------------------+----------------------
Assuming all land under the plow in 1930 in the ratio as above, the
area of all now in all crops 400,000 square miles--an excessive
estimate--that year (1930) will call for 667,000 square miles of
arable land in actual cultivation.
I have been accustomed to consider one half our national domain,
exclusive of Alaska, good arable land in the absence of any
"speculation" on that point in the records of the Department of
Agriculture; but from the returns given by the chiefs of the
experiment stations and secretaries of agriculture of the States
hereafter cited, that estimate may be increased probably to two
thirds, or 2,000,000 square miles of arable land out of a total of
3,000,000 square miles, omitting Alaska.
Assuming that we possess 2,000,000 square miles of arable land,
capable at least of producing the present meager average product cited
above, the conditions of 1930 will be graphically presented on the
following diagram:
_Prospective Use of Land in the Year 1930 on Present Crop Average._
[Sidenote: Arable land assumed to be 2,000,000 square miles in the
outer lines of the diagram.]
+----------+----------+----------+--------------+------------+----------+
| Oats, | Wheat, | Hay, |Miscellaneous.| Maize, | Wheat |
| 70,800 | 81,600 | 109,400 |Roots, cotton,|Indian corn,| for |
|sq. miles.|sq. miles.|sq. miles.|tobacco, etc.,| 226,600 | export, |
+----------| | |168,600 sq. m.| sq. miles. | 143,000 |
| +----------+----------| Excessive. | |sq. miles.|
| +--------------+------------+----------+
|Arable land unassigned 1,200,000 square miles.|
|Deduct for cities, towns, parks, |
| and reserves of all kinds 200,000 " " |
| --------- |
| Reserve for future use 1,000,000 " " |
| |
| Forest, mountain, arid, etc., not counted, about 1,000,000 square |
| miles, not included in these lines or squares. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
No reduction on area cultivated on prospective improvement in the
present methods of farming, although it may be assumed that the
prospective increase of crop per acre will exert great influence.
If the facts should be in 1930 consistent with Mr. Hyde's
"speculation" it would therefore appear that our ability to meet the
domestic demand of 1930 with proportionate export of cattle,
provisions, and dairy products, and to set apart a little patch of
land for the export of 1,226,000,000 bushels of wheat raised at the
rate of only 13.4 bushels per acre from 143,000 square miles of land
will be met by the cultivation of not exceeding 700,000 square miles
out of 2,000,000 available.
I should not venture to question the conclusions emanating from the
Department of Agriculture, or the deductions of so eminent a scientist
as Sir William Crookes, had I not taken the usual precaution of a
business man in studying a business question. I went to the men who
know the subject as well as the figures on which statistics are to be
compiled.
Being supplied by the Popular Science Monthly with one hundred proofs
of the first nine and a half pages of the December article in which
the terms of the problem are stated, I sent those proofs to the chiefs
of the experiment stations and to the secretaries of agriculture in
all the States from which any considerable product of wheat is now or
may be hereafter derived; also to many makers of wheat harvesters; to
the secretaries of Chambers of Commerce, and to several economic
students in the wheat-growing States. This preliminary study was
accompanied by the following circular of inquiry:
BOSTON, MASS., _October 5, 1898_.
_To the Chiefs of the Agricultural Experiment Stations and others in
Authority_:
Calling your attention to the inclosed advance sheets of an article
which will by and by appear in the Popular Science Monthly, I beg to
put to you certain questions.
If the matter interests you, will you kindly fill up the blanks below
and let me have your replies within the present month of October, to
the end that I may compile them and give a digest of the results? I
shall state in the article that I am indebted to you and others for
the information submitted.
Area of the State of....................... square miles.
1. What proportion of this area do you believe to be arable land of
fair quality, including pasture that might be put under the plow?
Answer ................... square miles.
2. What proportion is now in forest or mountain sections which may not
be available for agriculture for a long period?
Answer ................... square miles.
3. What has been done or may be done by irrigation?
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
............................
4. What proportion of the arable land above measured should you
consider suitable to the production of wheat under general conditions
such as are given in the text, say, a stable price of one dollar per
bushel in London?
Answer ................... square miles.
5. To what extent, in your judgment, is wheat becoming the cash or
surplus crop of a varied system of agriculture as distinct from the
methods which prevail in the opening of new lands of cropping with
wheat for a term of years?
....................................................................
What further remarks can you add which will enable me to elucidate
this case, to complete the article and to convey a true impression of
the facts to English readers?
....................................................................
....................................................................
....................................................................
Your assistance in this matter will be gratefully received.
Respectfully submitted,
EDWARD ATKINSON.
To this circular I received twenty-four detailed replies, containing
statistics mostly very complete; also many suggestive letters, in
every case giving full support to the general views which I had
submitted in the proof sheets. It has been impossible for me to give
individual credit within the limits of a magazine article to the
gentlemen who have so fully supplied the data. Space will only permit
me to submit a digest of the more important facts in a table derived
from these replies: