Remember you do not know the daughter.
=Exercise 300=
Write the following from dictation:
1
MUST REFORM OUR FARMING
The average yield of wheat in the United States for
the five years ending in 1910 was eight-tenths of a
bushel per acre more than in the five years ending in
1905, but it was less than four-tenths of a bushel
more than for the ten ending in 1900. The average corn
product for the ten years ending in 1910 was a little
less than for the ten years ending in 1875.
Thirty-five years had not advanced us a step. European
countries--Great Britain, France, Germany--with
inferior soils and less favorable climate produce
crops practically double our own. In our studies of
conservation we find no waste comparable, either in
magnitude or importance, to this. The farm will fail,
and the foundations of our prosperity be undermined,
unless agriculture is reformed. The percentage of our
people actively engaged in farming had fallen from
47.36 in 1870 to an estimated 32 in 1910. Every man on
the farm to-day must produce food for two mouths
against one forty years ago.
--_J. J. Hill._
2
THE FARMING SPECIALS
One of the latest and most successful activities of
the railroads is the practice of carrying knowledge of
the best farming methods to the farmers by means of
special trains equipped like agricultural colleges.
These trains, bearing experts and all the equipment
for exhibiting the new methods of agriculture, bring
the knowledge to the farmers free, and the railroads
are glad to give it, for every bit of knowledge comes
back to them in a hundred fold profit in freight. In
the summer eager audiences all over the country listen
to the preaching of better methods and larger crops.
Dozens of special trains travel through the
agricultural regions disseminating information. The
"Breakfast Bacon Special" has been run to encourage
Iowa farmers to raise more hogs to take advantage of
the high price of bacon. The Cotton Belt Route
southwest of St. Louis runs the "Squealer Special" to
prove to the Arkansas and Panhandle farmers the
money-making advantages of blooded hogs over the
razor-back variety. Down the Mississippi Valley the
Illinois Central sends the "Boll Weevil Special" to
conduct a campaign against that pest. The Harriman
lines have six trains operating in California every
year. In one year they visited more than seventy-five
thousand people. Better farming specials run in
practically every state south of the Ohio and Potomac
and west of the Mississippi. The New York Central also
has two trains in operation in New York.--_The
Business Almanac._
3
A large proportion of farmers give little or no
attention to the selection of seed; yet it has been
demonstrated that a careful selection would add
hundreds of millions of dollars to the total value of
the crops. If, for example, a variety of wheat were
developed capable of producing one more kernel to the
head, it would mean an addition, so Burbank says, of
15,000,000 bushels to our average wheat crop. It is
possible, however, to do even more than this. At the
Minnesota station a variety, selected for ten years
according to a definite principle, yielded twenty-five
per cent more than the parent variety. Applied to our
average crop, that increase would amount to
185,000,000 bushels, worth about $140,000,000. As for
corn, it has been officially stated that our average
yield could easily be doubled. After exhaustive
experiments the Department of Agriculture says that by
merely testing individual ears of seed corn and
rejecting those of low vitality an average yield of
nearly fourteen per cent could be secured, adding
about $200,000,000 to the value of the crop. Does
scientific seed selection seem worth while?--_The Wall
Street Journal._