to 2 per cent., or less.

Such figures do not

apply to the cheap lands of the West that are "skinned" for a few years by speculators and then sold to immigrants, nor to farms that are yielding a high profit through blooded stock,they are characteristic of the average farm in the middle West. It is common knowledge among American landlords that it is difficult to lease farm lands that will yield a return to the owner of more than 3 or 4 per cent. What are the reasons for this condition of affairs? Why is it that investments in agriculture do not yield as high a return as investments in manufactures, transportation, and the distribution of goods?

To a certain extent, the profits in agriculture are kept at a low point by the monopolies among the interests that handle the farmer's products. It is, and always will be, a great problem to organize the agricultural workers so that they may have a guiding hand in the distribution of their products.

The farmer, even in these days of the telephone and the free mail delivery, is isolated from other business interests. If he "tends to his knitting at home, he has little time to give to the distribution of his product. Government regulation of corporations doing an injustice to the farmers' interests would appear to offer a more practical method of combating such injustices than any attempt to set up com petitive combinations among the farmers. way the markets are manipulated by the meat packers and the milk dealers is a crying shame, and demands fearless attack by the federal government. Coöperative creameries, butcher

The

shops, and farmers' elevators all tend to remedy the conditions that force the farmer to sell at some other price than the demand price of the market, but as yet their power is felt only occasionally.

THE DEMAND FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION.

The reason for small returns on agricultural investments lies more with the farmer himself than with the buyer who disposes of his product. Such a statement is frank rather than critical, and a realization of actual conditions must be had as a working basis if conditions are to be remedied. The typical farmer of to-day is not as good a business man and manager as his neighbor who is conducting a shop or a small factory with an equal capital. He has not awakened to the need of special education for his children as fully as has his city neighbor. Realization of these facts during the past decade has brought about a great movement for the uplift of agriculture through consolidated ruralschool education and through research work and experimentation in agricultural practices by the State experiment stations and the United States Department of Agriculture.

However, the research work of the experiment stations and the Department of Agriculture has been concerned mainly with the details of farming. Soils and their properties, the chemistry of foods, plant-breeding, variety testing, and the breeding and feeding of live stock have all offered profitable fields for investigators, and they have been fields that have yielded quick

Wheat 3.36 A.

one part of the farm, and grain on the other part. Yields are still fairly good because of the unbounded fertility of the prairie soil; but losses are occurring annually because labor and machinery cannot be used to greatest advantage on poorly arranged fields, and because weeds cannot be kept down to the minimum amount with such a scheme of farming. Land of this character is worth from $50 to $60 per acre, and the net profit (interest on investment being considered as an expense) will rarely exceed 2 per cent. Lack of proper crop rotation and general farm management is the main cause of such a condition. (See opposite page.)

and profitable returns. The study of farm management,-i.e., the study of crop rotation and the fitting in of live stock with the field crops, the study of the farm business as a whole, the study of farm statistics and the relation of the farm to the outside world, has been neglected, mainly because the study of such a problem is so complicated as to offer nothing of value except from long-time experimentation. Surely it is a worthy problem,-that of analyzing agriculture, studying the economics of agriculture, and attempting to put it on a more business-like basis. UNSYSTEMATIC FARMING,- -CONCRETE EXAMPLES.

The layman can hardly realize the lack of system that prevails on the average farm. Drainage is little thought of on the lowlands, crops are rotated only as chance determines, and probably not one farmer in a hundred can tell what enterprise on his farm and under his conditions is the most profitable. In no other business is it likely that men can be found with $10,000, $20,000, or $50,000 investments who never pretend to keep books of the business. Farmers' books are too often kept in this manner,-gain, money in the bank; loss, money borrowed. The writer once argued this question of keeping books with a well-to-do American farmer, who finally concluded his argument by saying, "Farming ain't all keeping books, by a long shot." Truth lies.

in the argument, but keeping books is not all there is to manufacturing furniture or transporting freight, and yet it must be a valuable accessory or it would have been discarded years ago.

There are still thousands of farmers in the middle West who do not follow the markets, who rarely, if ever, stop to consider the relation between prices of feeds and prices of beef and pork. Hogs are fed because "there is money in hogs," and many an operation on the farm is done according to some preconceived notion. The writer knows a German farmer in western Minnesota who has a beautiful, clean farm, and is evidently prosperous. While watching him. feed his hogs one day, this conversation took place: "How old are those pigs?" "Sixteen months." "6 Why don't you sell them?" 66 Well, I don't like to sell a hog until he weighs up good and heavy." Further conversation revealed the facts that corn was worth forty-two cents per bushel and pork four dollars per hundredweight, live weight. When asked if the pigs he was feeding were gaining enough to equal or exceed the value of the corn, and pay him for his labor, he realized that each bushel of corn had got to produce about twelve pounds of pork to yield him any profit. Knowing that his pigs were not gaining the half of that amount, he decided to sell both pigs and corn.

And often the same apparent lack of thought

P

Fodder Corn

Seeded to Rye

Rye Pasture- Barley

E-40 A

81A Clover Pasture

complete utilization of power and machinery in the factory.

The fertilizer problem of the East and the South will have to be met in the West before many decades unless the soils are put under better rotations. The farm and the farm business cannot be reorganized, however, in the twinkling of an eye with the limited capital that is usually at the farmer's command. Drainage and fencing must usually be considered, and a scheme of cropping such as the one outlined in this plan demands that more live stock be kept on the farm than under the old conditions.

Small grains will always be important crops on the prairie farms, and yet the time is fast approaching, under the present system of continuous grain cropping, when the total yield of grain from large areas will be no greater than the yield that might be secured from a much smaller area of land under systematic rotation.

is seen in the methods, or rather lack of methods, followed in the rotation of crops. A Norwegian farmer in the northern part of Minnesota had on his farm a timothy and brome-grass meadow that had been laid down for many years. The soil had become sod-bound, and the crop of hay looked thin and poor. An attempt was made to induce him to break up the meadow and seed down another piece of land, but he couldn't see the wisdom of such a policy until the argument was made that it was a question whether the crop he would cut off the meadow would equal the value of his labor and the rental value of the land. Statistics kept on this field defeated the farmer and woke him up. He broke up the meadow and had a magnificent crop of flax on it the next year. These cases are not unusual,—they are only typical examples that show the lack of system and business principle in the Western agriculture of to-day. They serve to illustrate the great need for developing systems of farm management suited to the various agricultural regions.

The cost of producing field crops cannot be determined, for practical purposes, on the experiment farms, because labor is too expensive and plot-work is not comparable to field conditions. Realizing this obstacle in the path of completing these rotation studies, the Minnesota Experiment Station, coöperating with the Bu reau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture, began in 1902 an exhaustive study into the cost of producing field crops in Minnesota under actual farm conditions. Special agents of the Bureau of Statistics were placed in three of the most representative farming districts in Minnesota. In each district fifteen or sixteen farmers were interested in the work, and agreed to give labor reports and all cash items and miscellaneous data relating to the production of the crops. The "route-statistician," as the special agent came to be called, makes a daily visit to each of these farms and secures a report of all the labor performed the previous day, distributing it to the various crops and enterprises. Each year the farms are sur

LEARNING THE COST OF PRODUCING FIELD CROPS.

In 1892 and 1893, Prof. W. M. Hays, now Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, inaugurated a large number of experiments in crop rotation at the North Dakota and Minnesota experiment stations. These experiments are planned to run for twenty years at least, and the value of certain arrangements of crops in the rotation is already apparent. Yields from the different rotations are carefully recorded, and the gross incomes are being determined. The real value of a certain rotation can only be accurately meas ured by net profit, however, as labor and cash expenditures will vary to an appreciable extent with the arrangement of crops in the rotation.

veyed and a plat made showing the exact acreage of the crops, pasture lands, and waste areas upon which statistics are being recorded. Depreciation of farm machinery and harnesses, the cash rental value of the land, the cost of manlabor and horse-labor on the farin, are all being accurately determined and worked into the general problem of finding out what it costs the farmer to produce an acre of corn, oats, wheat, and hay.

EXPANDING THE STATISTICAL TEST.

For three years the work was carried on in this manner, and the statistics are now being compiled into a report on the "Cost of Produ cing Field Crops." As the work progressed from

year to year, it became apparent to those in charge that, this method of gathering statistics might profitably be applied to other lines of production on the farm. Why not investigate the cost of producing beef, pork, and milk under actual farm conditions? Why not attack many of the theories of feeding and breeding live stock in the actual environment of the farm rather than under the more artificial conditions of the experiment farms? Why not collect statistics pertaining to rural sociology and to the general subject of agricultural economics? Statistics of this kind are more accurate when collected systematically and methodically than by arm's length proceedings. Facts concerning the business of farming can be published in the knowledge that they cannot be attacked on the ground of being impractical or inaccurate. Thus, in 1905 the scope of these investigations was greatly extended.

The number of farms on which statistics are being kept has been reduced to eight in each district, but statistics of every item in the farm business are being recorded. On a number of these farms the Department of Agriculture has installed steel wagon scales to facilitate the work of weighing fat stock and taking accurate in ventories of the yields of field crops. The routestatistician lives for three successive days in every month on each farm. During this period he weighs and tests the milk of each cow in the herd, he weighs the feed consumed by each class of live stock, and he obtains the cash records of sales and expenses during the past month. Each morning he travels over his route and ob tains the labor reports of the previous day from all the farmers. All these statistics are posted into a double-entry card ledger, so that the profit and loss of every enterprise on the farm, from wheat to chickens, is being determined. Other statistics concerning farm life are also being gathered that will be of interest to the student of sociology, such as the cost of table board, and the average household and personal expense.

PRACTICAL RESULTS.

The reader may now well ask, What practical means are available for making use of these statistics? In what manner will they influence the character of our agriculture? It must be admitted that it is an easier matter to collect facts of this kind than it is to disseminate them where they will accomplish the greatest good. More extended and better relations must exist between the farmer and the experiment station before any great change in the present systems of farm management can be looked for. New ideas spread faster in the country by example than by

precept, and, realizing this, the Minnesota Experiment Station is earnestly going about the work of influencing a few of the agriculturalcollege graduates to replan and rearrange their farms and become factors in their communities in this new move toward better farm management. Statistics of this kind add materially to the funds of agricultural literature, and especially to those funds that at present are meager and insufficient to the needs of the agricultural teacher and experimenter. The literature on crop rotation and agricultural economics is conspicuous by its absence. Methods of keeping "farm accounts" in a simple, practical manner are being worked out from the experience gathered in collecting these statistics. The student of agriculture should be taught a system of accounts that is based upon the business of farming, a systen that, while simple, will comprehend all the details. The bookkeeping methods of the city merchant cannot be applied to the business of farming, and farm-boys will not take the interest in studying a system of bookkeeping developed from a city business that they will where the items and details are taken from a business with which they are acquainted. Such a course as this is actually being taught at the Minnesota School of Agriculture, the simple card-ledger system, and the items used being drawn directly from these statistical investigations.

Many specific problems arise in the discussion of farm management that statistical analysis alone can solve. For instance, in diversified farming, which is the most profitable method of thrashing the grain,-from the shock or stacking and stack-thrashing? Statistics on this problem indicate that stack-thrashing is best under most conditions for the quarter-section farmer carrying on a diversified business. Another mooted question is that of the advisability of shredding corn. Statistical analysis of the cost of producing fodder corn, ear corn husked on the hill, and ear corn cut, shocked, and shredded, and the value of the fodder in the different crops, gives information that will allow the general conclusion to be drawn that shredding is not profitable under diversified farming conditions. Ledgers of the live-stock enterprises are already showing many interesting figures. Here and there a herd of cows is found that is being managed at a loss, and in one district the pigs are far oftener being fed at a loss than at a profit. Ledger accounts of this kind will be examined later by men who are experts in animal husbandry, and mistakes in methods of feeding and care pointed out in such a manner as to be object-lessons to other feeders.

Four years ago, when this work was started, it was almost impossible to secure the hearty cooperation of the farming communities entered. Outspoken antagonism was often met with, and farmers were inclined to jeer at their neighbors who were so foolish as to agree to let Uncle Sam's theorists look into their business. But this attitude is changing. In some localities farmers are actually petitioning for a chance to be included in the work, and skepticism of agricul tural-college theory is disappearing. Farmers who not long ago believed that they could feed fat into a cow's milk, and got mad at the creamery-man if he gave them a low test, are now selling off the poor cows and breeding those that have performance ability as revealed by the test. bottle and the scale. One route-statistician, hav

ing an unusual amount of initiative, has organized a lyceum among the farmers in his locality that meets every two weeks. Debates among the members are arranged, and public speakers are brought before the farmers occasionally to discuss current topics of interest to them. He has also organized a magazine club among his farmer coöperators and interested them in the movement for "good roads."

The bringing together of agricultural theory and agricultural practice is a vast undertaking, and he who believes that all practice is underlaid by theory cannot help but be impressed that in the work of extending the theories of agriculture this new method of establishing statistical routes in agricultural communities is a wise and useful move to that end.

I. THE NORTHWEST.

the press during the past few years. While the independent journals have been almost entirely

kinds are published throughout the continent of South America, it is only the press of Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile-and possibly Brazil-which can be compared with the press of Europe and the United States. The low state of popular education in most South American states results in a cheap, venal, sycophantic press, for the most part poorly printed and without influence. There are a few journals in the coun tries mentioned, however, which are of high character and excellently edited.

The language of almost all the South American countries being Spanish, the overwhelming majority of the press of that continent appears in the Spanish language. The journals of Brazil, of course, are written in Portuguese. There are, however, a number of excellently conducted and well-known journals in English, several in German, and some in other European languages. The South American periodicals best known in Europe and in this country are those of Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Roughly dividing the continent into northwest and southeast, we consider, first, the periodical literature of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The second installment will treat of the press of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

VENEZUELA.

In spite of the severe governmental restraint in Venezuela, there has been some development of

great growth of sycophantic organs. Under the patronage of President Castro, some very important dailies have been established recently and have exerted an appreciable educational influence. This is particularly true of those published on scientific, literary, and economic lines. Political journalism may be said to have perished. There are about one hundred and seventy-five periodicals of all classes in the republic, which is not a bad showing considering the fact that not more than 40 per cent. of the adult population can read. Monopoly prevents the manufacture of paper and the censorship the expansion of press influence.

As in almost all Latin-American countries, the newspaper press of Venezuela devotes its attention chiefly to subjects of scientific, literary, and economic interest. The Venezuelan newspapers contain, on the whole, most excellent reading, and it may be said with truth that even American daily newspapers do not spread abroad desirable knowledge more cheaply or with better taste than do the dailies of Venezuela. The weeklies and monthlies are, of course, beneath comparison with those of Europe and the United States.

The daily newspapers have valuable articles on science, literature, and economics by men of world-wide fame, these productions not being reserved for Sunday editions, but appearing day by day. Geography, medicine, mechanics, criticism, science, all these subjects are treated ex