Glass. 
 Book 
 
 1*5 i 
 
 J^± 
 
2 > V 
 
 [Reprinted from " Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 
 
 1904," Vol. VI.] 
 
 , ° CT;i H906 * 
 
 THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO OTHER SCIENCES 
 
 BY CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY 
 
 [Charles William Dabney, President, University of Cincinnati, b. June 19, 1855, 
 Hampden Sidney, Virginia. A.B. Hampden Sidney College, 1873; Ph.D. Got- 
 tingen; LL.D. Yale and Johns Hopkins, 1901; Post-graduate, University of 
 Virginia, Berlin, and Go ttingen. State Chemist and Director of Experiment 
 Station, North Carolina; Professor of Agricultural Chemistry and Director of 
 Experiment Station, University of Tennessee, 1887-90; President, University 
 of Tennessee, 1887-1904; Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, 1894-97; President 
 Summer School of South. Member of Washington Academy of Science; 
 Southern Education Board; American Institute of Social Scienee; Fellow of 
 American Association for the Advancement of Science, etc. Author of scientific 
 and educational papers in periodicals and pamphlets and addresses on educa- 
 tional subjects.] 
 
 The subject assigned me is Agriculture in Relation to Science. 
 For this subject, almost cosmical in its vastness, I offer no apology, 
 but ask your indulgence while I attempt to point out a few of the 
 achievements of the new agriculture and to show their relation 
 to the advancement of civilization. While the progress has con- 
 sisted partly in opening up such lands as are not highly cultivated 
 to people who can cultivate them, its chief progress has been in 
 the improvement of man's methods of cultivating the soil and of 
 using plants and animals to support his ever-increasing numbers. 
 Since population is increasing rapidly and more food is required 
 each year to support the life of the people born into the world, 
 unless the production of food becomes greater in proportion to the 
 unit man and the unit acre, starvation awaits the race. In 1899 
 Sir William Crookes argued seriously, before a meeting of the 
 British Association, that the world's wheat-supply is already threat- 
 ened by the failing fertility of the available soil. As the low aver- 
 age of less than thirteen bushels per acre means starvation for the 
 rapidly increasing population of wheat-eaters, when he found the 
 limit of available wheat-lands nearly reached, he saw no hope for 
 the race except by increasing the fertility of the soil. 
 
 Man has, however, shown a wonderful ability to utilize the different 
 
SSll 
 
 2 AGRICULTURE 
 
 food-materials and to produce increased supplies from a limited area 
 when he has been compelled to do so. The Harlemer polders support 
 nearly two and a half persons to the acre, and in portions of China 
 and Japan five or six persons often get their living from this extent 
 of soil. These lands, however, are exceptionally fertile. But even on 
 an average acre of land, where the ordinary farmer would make only 
 five dollars' worth of produce, gardeners can easily make five hundred 
 dollars' worth. For these and many other reasons we cannot be very 
 much alarmed about mere food for the race. 
 
 It is a narrow view of agriculture, however, which regards this 
 great art only as a means of providing men with the simplest means of 
 existence. We are interested in the progress of agriculture not only 
 as the means of supplying the food necessary for the increasing 
 peoples of the earth, but as the art which chiefly supports man's 
 advancement along all lines, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, as 
 well as physical. "Man shall not live by bread alone." It is a con- 
 dition of civilization that man is not satisfied with a mere subsist- 
 ence, but that his wants increase with his development. The modern 
 man is not satisfied with the simplest food or the plainest raiment, or 
 the barest shelter. He wants attractive and delightful food, because 
 such food promotes health, happiness, and the development of his 
 finer nature. Hence there have been developed the various special 
 branches of agriculture and horticulture and the many arts of milling, 
 manufacture, preparing, and preserving the products of the soil so as 
 to make food-substances tempting and delicious, as well as conven- 
 ient for use. The American people, for example, owe much of their 
 success as purveyors to the clever methods of preparing food-mate- 
 rials of all kinds, and to their skill and taste in presenting them to the 
 public. It is not enough that quantity alone should be considered, 
 for, in these days, quality plays an increasingly important part in 
 food-production. Hence the arts of producing choice meats, " hygienic 
 milk," cereals of greater food-value, etc., which arts may properly 
 be termed the "higher agriculture;" hence also the arts of pomology, 
 viticulture, etc., with the resultant practical arts of wine-making, 
 canning, and preserving, which may be properly considered as a 
 "higher horticulture." These arts, with the important domestic art 
 of cooking, have all been developed in response to man's demand 
 for more refined and delicious food, a demand which is certain to 
 grow more exacting with the progress of civilization. The same law 
 of progress characterizes our demand for raiment and for shelter. 
 With the development of the esthetic sense and the growth of truer 
 ideas of hygiene and comfort, the demand for more beautiful clothing 
 and more sanitary houses will grow steadily. 
 
 But this is not all that can be said about the higher results of the 
 new agriculture. Progress in agriculture contributes largely to the 
 
 ]j0 fcrai i 
 14 F 
 
RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 3 
 
 intellectual, moral, and spiritual development of a people, as well as 
 to their physical evolution. Perhaps the most encouraging character- 
 istic of the times is the improvement in farm-life in respect to the 
 means of culture. Formerly the isolation and loneliness of country 
 life was the chief cause of that exodus from country to city which 
 until recently continued to depopulate our rural communities. It is 
 a sad fact that the majority of the inmates of our insane asylums in 
 these states are women, a large per cent of them farmers' wives, sent 
 to the hospitals as a result of melancholy induced by the narrowness 
 and monotony of their lives. But now all these conditions are im- 
 proving. The consolidated school and free transportation of pupils 
 is fast converting the little "red schoolhouse" into a centre of vital 
 community life. The rural free delivery of mails takes not only the 
 letters of friends, but the daily papers and illustrated magazines, 
 into all the farm-homes; the telephone makes visiting easy for lone- 
 some women; and the traveling library stimulates many to improve 
 their minds, who would otherwise live in stupid ignorance. Many of 
 the features which formerly made farm-life so distasteful and narrow- 
 ing, even maddening at times, are thus being removed; and many of 
 the advantages, which heretofore could be had only in the city, are 
 being put within the reach of those who spend their lives on the farm. 
 
 Every one concedes in a general way that the prosperity of one 
 class diffuses itself throughout the whole community; but good 
 harvests are far more valuable and important to the people than 
 prosperity anywhere else. Agriculture not only provides food and 
 raw material for those engaged in manufacture and commerce, but 
 good harvests increase the purchasing power of the largest and most 
 intelligent body of our citizenship, scattered throughout the whole 
 land. The relation of the farmer to the merchant, the miner, and the 
 manufacturer, is indeed a reciprocal one. Each consumes what the 
 other produces. In the circle of trade, whatever produces a demand 
 at any one point accelerates the amount and velocity of exchange in 
 all directions. Good crops, by supplying the manufacturer, mer- 
 chant, and miner with food or raw materials, are, the world over, the 
 chief factor in profitable exchange. 
 
 But abundant harvests signify even more than this. Every series of 
 exchanges must have a beginning, and the first step in starting the 
 movement of products must be taken by those who supply the ele- 
 mentary and vital wants of the race. The miner will dig no ore, the 
 manufacturer make no machinery, the merchant store no goods, until 
 he knows or thinks he knows that somebody wants these things ; but 
 the farmer, being very sure that everybody wants food at all times, is 
 sure to plant and to reap, whether there is an expressed demand for 
 his produce or not. The nature of the demand, it is true, will decide 
 for him which seed he should sow and whether on one or two acres; 
 
4 AGRICULTURE 
 
 but sow he will, as surely as the spring comes; and when he sows, he 
 is almost certain to reap. As nature does more work for the farmer 
 than for any other producer, he finds it easier to turn out an almost 
 regular supply of his products. The sun himself is the commander- 
 in-chief of the agricultural army. The changing seasons order the 
 farmer's plowing, sowing, and reaping, and fundamentally every 
 series of human exchanges starts with the farmer. 
 
 Good crops are always and everywhere makers of good times. 
 While this is true for all peoples and all lands, it is particularly true 
 of America, which from natural causes is the greatest agricultural 
 country in the world. In this country agricultural prosperity touches, 
 and for a long time to come will continue to touch, the lives and in- 
 terests of a larger proportion of the people than in any other land. 
 It causes immediately an advance in the standards of living and 
 a broadening in the scope of the demands of the largest number of 
 intelligent, progressive people; and it produces a home market of such 
 tremendous proportions as to furnish independently of foreign nations 
 a sufficient motive for the development of gigantic manufactures 
 and enormous trade. Further the American farmer is a man of so 
 much intelligence and such large wants that his standards of living 
 increase very rapidly with the improvement of his financial con- 
 dition. He is liberal to his family, ambitious for his children, and he 
 desires above everything else to raise their standard of living and to 
 increase their advantages in all ways beyond those which he himself 
 enjoyed in his youth. 
 
 Another cause of the great economic influence of the American 
 farmer is found in the fact that as a rule he owns his own land. In 
 addition to the profit upon his labors he receives the rent on his land. 
 This not only puts a larger sum at his disposal, but it also creates a 
 motive for additional expenditure for improvements and equipments 
 upon that land. The American farmer, moreover, seldom hoards his 
 money, but promptly expends his surplus for improvements, or else 
 puts it in the bank, where others can use it. He is, all things considered, 
 the wisest and safest investor among us, and his prosperity is 
 therefore the greatest blessing that can possibly come to the nation. 
 Our conclusion is thus that the progress of agriculture is the greatest 
 practical concern of civilized man, and especially of the American. 
 
 We have found that the problem of agriculture is to produce more 
 and better supplies for the support of human life under conditions 
 that will enable the farmer and his family, and with them the people 
 of the whole country, to live the happiest and most complete life 
 possible, a life which, as the decades and centuries pass, shall be con- 
 stantly expanding, strengthening, and growing deeper and richer. 
 The question, then, is " How shall agriculture do this ? " What pros- 
 pect is there that this art shall be able to supply these ever-increasing 
 
RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 5 
 
 demands, not merely for food to keep the body alive, but for all the 
 resources needed to support a life growing ever more true and beau- 
 tiful? What encouragement, then, can we find in recent progress, for 
 believing that this world-old art will improve with the years and the 
 demands of the race ? 
 
 The improvement of agriculture depends, of course, upon the soil, 
 including location as to latitude, longitude, climate, etc., upon the 
 plants and animals used; but most of all, after these things are pro- 
 vided, upon the farmer and his methods. The most we can do here is 
 to give a few illustrations of the advances made in recent years in 
 improving the soil and increasing its fertility, in developing plants, 
 and in training the farmer himself and improving his methods. We 
 hope in this way to give some idea of what we may expect to accom- 
 plish in the future for the advancement of agriculture. 
 
 Agriculture, the oldest of the arts, was the very latest to apply the 
 discoveries of science. This is due to two causes. In the first place, 
 agriculture is the most difficult of the arts, and involves, one way and 
 another, directly and indirectly, the application of all the sciences. 
 Secondly, its workers have in the past been less trained in scientific 
 methods than those in other callings. Until recently agriculture has 
 been almost wholly an empirical art and only in very recent times has 
 the farmer received any special' training for his profession. Always 
 intensely conservative he has learned new methods very slowly. 
 Many breaches have, however, been made in the wall of empiricism 
 which has surrounded him for centuries and the farmer who formerly 
 derided book-farming has now opened his mind to the lessons of 
 science. 
 
 Since the farmer commenced to use the teachings of science, the 
 progress of agriculture has been extremely rapid; and as we may 
 expect that agriculture will make gigantic strides in the next decade, 
 the new agriculture, which is based oh science rather than empiri- 
 cism and which is just now being introduced, is destined to advance 
 all the other industries and give the race a new forward impulse. 
 
 This we must believe from the progress already made. Consider, 
 for example, the progress made since the time of Liebig in the study 
 of soils. Liebig based all his proposals for the conservation of fertility 
 and the improvement of the soil upon chemical composition, and his 
 teachings did much to improve our agricultural methods. According 
 to his theory the soil was composed of dead, inert matter, and the 
 question was how to provide the so-called mineral food of plants in 
 sufficient quantity and available form. For fifty years all methods of 
 soil improvement and culture were based upon this idea. The soil 
 was supposed to be devoid of all vitality until the crop appeared, 
 and the chief business of the farmer was to destroy every other form 
 of life. The question of nitrogen-supply had come to be looked upon 
 
6 AGRICULTURE 
 
 as lying at the very foundation of agriculture and demanding the 
 most careful consideration because the conditions of life in the civil- 
 ized quarters of the globe were thought to cause a constant loss 
 of nitrogen. Every collection of animals, brute and human, was 
 destroying the combined nitrogen-supply; every town and city was 
 dissipating enormous quantities of it through its sewers and into 
 the atmosphere. Tons of this valuable element were being burned in 
 explosives, and nitrates enough to grow bread for a whole city were 
 being destroyed in single battles. At one time there were many 
 who, like Sir William Crookes, predicted a nitrogen famine in the 
 soil which in time would lead to a bread famine throughout the 
 world. 
 
 One does not have to read far in the agricultural literature of to-day 
 before finding that all these ideas have been entirely changed. The 
 soil is now known to be filled so completely with living things as to 
 entitle it to be considered a vital mass itself, and even those ele- 
 ments in it not endowed with life now have the highest significance 
 as the necessary environment of the living organisms which they 
 help to nourish. We know that there are countless organisms in the 
 soil, rendering many different kinds of service in preparing it to be the 
 home of the plants, and, what is more important, in preparing the food 
 for the plants themselves. Some of these organisms dissolve the 
 mineral matter of the soils, others exert their activity on the organic 
 nitrogen in the humus of the soil; others develop parasitically or 
 symbiotically with growing plants, like the legumes, herding in 
 colonies upon their roots and securing by their vitality, in a way we 
 do not fully understand, the oxidation of the free nitrogen of the 
 atmosphere. Still others have the ability, independently, apparently 
 without the aid of plant vitality, either to secure the oxidation of 
 atmospheric nitrogen or to produce ammonia. Investigations along 
 these lines, which have now led to the systematic distribution of 
 nitrogen-fixing bacteria for inoculating the soil, have, for a time at 
 least, dispelled all dreams of early famines, and have given the world 
 an assurance of a sufficiency of bread for at least an indefinite period. 
 The refined scientific investigations of Nobbe in Germany have now 
 been made practically effective in fixing nitrogen in the soil. Soil 
 or seed can now be inoculated with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria 
 just as dough is inoculated with yeast. 
 
 Mention might also be made in this connection of the proposals to 
 combine the nitrogen and oxygen of the atmosphere by the electric 
 spark, as is now being actually attempted at Niagara. Definite 
 reports of results are not yet obtainable, but if this can be done on 
 a large scale, we shall be able to utilize the great water-powers to 
 make this valuable food for plants from the inexhaustible stores 
 of the atmosphere. 
 
RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 7 
 
 Great progress has also been made in this country in the study of 
 the physics of the soil, with the result that vast new areas, like the 
 alkali soils, are being reclaimed; and crops have been found for many 
 other soils which were supposed to be useless. The proper compre- 
 hension of the relation of the soil to moisture has expelled many of 
 the empirical methods of culture, and has given us a new conception 
 of the meaning of tillage. The same may be said of the relation of the 
 soil to heat. 
 
 The main object in all farming being the production of larger 
 yields and better quality of crops, scientific men have given a large 
 share of their energy in recent years to investigations having these 
 objects directly in view. This work has included the testing of field- 
 crops, fruits, and vegetables, for the purpose of finding those best 
 suited to given regions and conditions; the improvement of methods 
 of culture, the production of improved varieties by selection and 
 breeding, and the better utilization of the product. Burbank's mar- 
 velous work in new flowers and fruits, trees and plants of all kinds, 
 has at last received the popular recognition it has long deserved. 
 The possibilities in this direction now appear almost limitless. 
 
 The staple crops of the country, such as wheat and maize, or 
 Indian corn, have been the subjects of much investigation, covering 
 every phase of their improvement by selection, breeding, tillage, 
 fertilization, harvesting, curing, preparation, and utilization. The 
 results have been of vast practical value. Those in the cases of wheat 
 and corn will illustrate the progress made. 
 
 Not only has it been shown that the quality of wheat for special 
 purposes can be materially changed at will to suit necessary con- 
 ditions or special wants, but the productivity of races or types of the 
 grain can be fixed by systematic seed-selection. For plants can be 
 bred just like animals. Burbank's wonderful work is so well known 
 now that we need not describe it. At the Minnesota Experiment 
 Station new varieties of wheat have been produced by breeding and 
 selection, which, we are told, will increase the yield in the hard-wheat 
 region of the Northwest by 'from three to five bushels per acre. Re- 
 duced to a practical basis, this means an increase in the wealth of the 
 three states, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota, of from 
 $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 annually. The yield and quality of wheats 
 in that region has already shown a marked improvement as a result of 
 the distribution of seed of two or three improved varieties. As varie- 
 ties suitable for other sections will undoubtedly be originated in due 
 time, the results that will accrue when these methods have been 
 extended to all the wheat-producing areas of the United States can 
 hardly be imagined. The wheat crop of this country for the year 
 1902 was 675,000,000 bushels, valued at $425,000,000. The average 
 yield of wheat is only a little over thirteen bushels per acre, con- 
 
8 AGRICULTURE 
 
 siderably smaller than that of England where it is twenty-six, and 
 that of Germany where it is thirty-one. If, by the introduction of 
 these improved varieties and of better methods of tillage, the average 
 yield of this country can be increased no more than two bushels per 
 acre, the total increase for the entire country will be 100,000,000 
 bushels per year, worth about $100,000,000. This would seem to be 
 entirely practicable. If the excellent prospect of increasing the 
 nitrogen-supply in the soil for cereals does not allay all anxiety re- 
 garding starvation, the results in breeding new varieties of wheat and 
 other food-plants should certainly put that fear to sleep for a long 
 time to come. 
 
 No less interesting and instructive is the recent work in corn- 
 breeding conducted at the Illinois and Kansas stations. Although 
 corn, which is this year yielding probably two and three-fourths 
 billions of bushels, worth approximately one and a half billions of 
 dollars, heads the list of cereals in value, until the valuable work of 
 these experiment stations was announced there had been no mate- 
 rial improvement in the production of this crop in twenty years. The 
 Illinois station has shown that if the methods of selection practiced 
 by it, which are quite feasible and within the reach of every farmer, 
 were followed throughout that single state, the increase in production 
 in one year would amount approximately to $20,000 x 000. 
 
 Methods have also been found for changing the composition of the 
 grain itself to meet special requirements : such as an increased yield 
 of oil or of protein. Since the manufacture of oil from corn has 
 become an industry, the amount of this constituent is a matter of 
 considerable consequence. By selection the oil-content has been 
 doubled in some varieties. 
 
 The most important question, however, connected with the im- 
 provement of corn is that which relates to its value as a well-balanced 
 food. Its relative deficiency in protein has probably been the chief 
 reason this grain has not been more extensively used as a human 
 food in continental countries. It has, therefore, long been a question 
 how to increase the protein in a grain of corn at the expense of the 
 starch and fats. As the nitrogen, like the other constituents in the 
 grain, varies in the different varieties, the way is thus opened for the 
 control of the variations in this important element. The Illinois and 
 Kansas stations have been engaged for some time upon this problem. 
 By the selection of varieties containing a high percentage of protein, 
 it has been found possible to develop strains containing an increased 
 amount of this desirable substance. The protein-content of some 
 varieties of corn, now apparently well fixed, has been increased fully 
 2.5 per cent, that is, from about 10 to about 12.50 per cent, which 
 makes corn equal to the average wheat in this respect. In special 
 cases it has been increased to even as much as 17 per cent. Should 
 
RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 9 
 
 wheat then fail us, Indian corn will be ready to take its place with an 
 equal amount of protein. 
 
 The development of the rice industry in Louisiana and Texas fur- 
 nishes a good example of the building-up of a new industry by the 
 introduction of a new type of seed and of improved methods of cul- 
 tivation and harvesting. Rice was one of the earliest introductions 
 into this country and was grown for nearly two hundred years in 
 South Carolina and the adjacent states with little improvement of 
 method. It was thought that these states were the only ones that 
 possessed the requisite irrigable lands. It has recently been discov- 
 ered, however, that the prairie lands of southern Louisiana and 
 Texas will produce large crops of rice, if provided with the requisite 
 water, which is now obtained from bayous or artesian wells. The 
 water is drained off in time to permit the ground to dry and the crop 
 is then harvested with machinery similar to that used with wheat. 
 As a result of these improved methods, the total rice-production of 
 this country has increased in five years from about 100,000,000 
 pounds to about 400,000,000 pounds. The two states mentioned 
 produce over 90 per cent of this. As the American people import 
 some 40,000,000 pounds of rice annually, there is still room for 
 the development of this industry. It is estimated that there are 
 available in these two states alone 3,000,000 acres of land suitable 
 for rice-growing. This is perhaps the best single illustration of the 
 introduction of new races of seed and the use of improved methods 
 of cultivation in their production. 
 
 I wish next to suggest another place where scientific investigations 
 of a similar character are greatly needed. Cotton-culture needs pre- 
 cisely the same sort of attention from scientific men and expert 
 agriculturists as has been given to wheat, corn, and rice. Con- 
 sidering the immense importance of this crop, it is remarkable that 
 it has not received more systematic study. 
 
 A group of states in the southern portion of America, constituting 
 less than one fourth of the total area of the United States, grows from 
 60 to 70 per cent of the cotton consumed in the world. The total 
 value of the annual crop is exceeded, among the cultivated crops of 
 the United States, only by Indian corn and occasionally by wheat, 
 both of which are grown in almost every state. Since it is fair to 
 assume that- all the fibers have been pretty well tested as to their 
 capabilities and uses, we may conclude that cotton, now the preferred 
 fiber, is destined to grow steadily in favor with civilized man, and 
 will continue to be used by him in increasing amounts. We are 
 constantly finding new uses for it, and may safely predict that the 
 demand for cotton will increase rather than diminish. It has been 
 estimated that to meet the world's demand, when its standard of 
 consumption has been raised to that of the civilized nations, will 
 
10 AGRICULTURE 
 
 require an annual crop of at least 45,000,000 bales. It is therefore 
 eminently desirable that the Southern States of America should 
 meet this demand. Will they do it? 
 
 Present tendencies in the cotton world, at least, seem to answer 
 "No." During the last four years the consumption of cotton seems 
 to be rapidly overtaking the production, with the consequence that 
 many of the mills in the United States, in England, and on the Con- 
 tinent have been running on short time. There are two principal 
 causes which have contributed to this shortage. The most important 
 has been the large increase, amounting now to at least 500,000 bales 
 per annum, in the world's consumption. Of this increase, the greater 
 part was in the Southern States themselves, where the consumption 
 of cotton was doubled within the last ten years. These states are now 
 taking nearly twenty per cent of the cotton produced by them. The 
 second cause of the shortage is the failure of the American cotton- 
 planter to respond to the increased demand, and perhaps a slight 
 falling-off in the yield per acre. In fact there are some reasons to 
 believe that the yield per acre has been slowly but steadily declining 
 for a number of years. 
 
 Although in many sections from 500 to 800 pounds of cotton may be 
 obtained by good cultivation, the average yield of cotton in the 
 United States is only about 190 pounds of lint per acre. There is 
 evidently great room for improvement in the methods of cultivation 
 and fertilization, and especially for improvement of the plant itself. 
 Any one who has traveled through the South will acknowledge that 
 the methods of cotton-culture are the poorest and most backward 
 used with any staple crop in our country. 
 
 Cotton is limited by climatic conditions to that portion of America 
 south of latitude 37. The essential features of the climate in this 
 section are a long, warm season and a peculiar distribution of the 
 rainfall. Statistics show that the fluctuations in the yield per acre in 
 a given section are less in the case of cotton than in that of almost 
 any other product of the soil. The production of cotton may be due to 
 the greater uniformity of all the climatic conditions obtaining in the 
 cotton-belt, but the chief determining condition as between different 
 sections of our country is the amount of light and heat distributed 
 over the required number of days. For cotton is a sun plant. As a 
 rule a certain amount of sunshine produces, upon a given territory, a 
 certain amount of cotton. The distribution of rainfall is also import- 
 ant, but sunlight is the chief factor The plant requires an abundant 
 supply of moisture during the growing stage, but can stand a good 
 deal of drought after the middle of summer is passed. Now the sec- 
 tion of the country providing these conditions measures only about 
 500,000 square miles, less than one third of the total settled area of 
 the United States. Some 50 per cent of this area is contained in farms, 
 
RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 11 
 
 and about 21 per cent is improved; but only about five per cent of 
 the total area, or one tenth of the area in farms and one fourth of the 
 area of the improved lands, is annually cultivated in cotton. If the 
 whole area in farms in this section were cultivated in cotton, it would 
 produce at least 80,000,000 bales. So far, therefore, as soil and 
 climatic conditions are concerned, the Southern States can produce 
 seven or eight times as much cotton as they now do. 
 
 But soil and climate are not the only conditions. It requires men 
 and mules to make a cotton crop. It is generally recognized that 
 the labor used in the production of cotton is something over fifty 
 per cent of the total expense of growing the crop. This exceeds the cost 
 of labor in growing corn and wheat, and also in many manufacturing 
 industries. But statistics of population show that there is labor 
 enough available in the South to handle an increase in the cotton 
 crop such as the cotton-belt is capable of producing under favorable 
 conditions. The Negro is well adapted for working in the cotton- 
 fields, and his children are the only successful cotton-pickers known. 
 The great need is that this labor be better trained and organized. 
 Although the supply of mules and horses is inadequate at present for 
 the production of a crop of this size, they might be raised within a 
 few years. 
 
 We come thus to the question why the South does not actually 
 produce more cotton to supply the world's increasing demand. It is 
 commonly stated that the low prices which prevailed for a number of 
 years led the planters to diversify their farming and to devote more 
 of their means and energy to the production of general farm-supplies. 
 This is true ; but when this has been successfully accomplished, the 
 planters should be in an even better position to produce the crop 
 demanded. Where then is the trouble ? Experts seem to agree that 
 the chief difficulties are the impoverishment of the cotton-soils 
 through continued cropping under the renting system, and the 
 running-out of the seed. Observation in the cotton-belt leads us to 
 believe that fully two thirds of the planters use seed taken entirely 
 at random from the public gins, about which they know nothing 
 whatever. 
 
 It is safe to estimate that the cotton crop could be doubled on the 
 same acreage by the use of good seed and careful methods of tillage 
 and fertilization. Questions of tillage and fertilization must be left to 
 the farmers chiefly, but the experiment stations should take up the 
 question of improving the seed. 
 
 Certain definite things should be kept in mind in the process of 
 cotton-seed development. Among these are an increased yield of 
 fiber and of seed, an increased length of fiber with uniformity, the 
 strength of the fiber, the season of maturity, adaptation to soil and 
 climate, and resistance to diseases. It is probable that cotton having 
 
12 AGRICULTURE 
 
 these different qualities will have to be bred to suit the soil and 
 climatic conditions of each section. Here then is a great task, one, 
 however, which offers magnificent rewards. It is firmly believed that 
 the scientist and the cotton-planter will together be fully equal to its 
 solution. 
 
 We have sought by these few illustrations to show what science has 
 already contributed to the advancement of agriculture and how it 
 may be expected to do still more for it in the future. No one now 
 doubts that the progress of agriculture in the future depends chiefly 
 upon the discoveries in science and their application to the practical 
 problems of the farmer. 
 
 The discoveries of science, however, and the demonstrations of the 
 United States Department of Agriculture through its experiment 
 stations, will be of little value to the American farmer unless he is 
 well enough educated to understand them and skilled enough to 
 apply them. More secondary agricultural schools and schools for the 
 training of horticulturists, dairymen, and other specialists are needed 
 in all our states. The higher agricultural institutions and departments 
 of agriculture in our universities are answering an admirable purpose 
 in training experts and investigators; but so far we have very few 
 secondary agricultural schools. It is believed that the next develop- 
 ment will be along this line. Certainly the greatest need of American 
 agriculture is farmers trained to habits of observation and skilled in 
 the application of science to their business. What the new agriculture 
 will do for the advancement of the race when even a majority of 
 farmers have learned its methods confounds the imagination. This 
 greatest of productive industries will lay a new foundation, deep and 
 broad, upon which man will build a new life, growing ever nobler and 
 truer "unto the perfect day."