Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1910 — MORE MONEY FOR PLOWS. [ARTICLE]

MORE MONEY FOR PLOWS.

What the Expenditure for One Can Would Do In Reclaiming Land. A forty-acre farm of irrigated land will comfortably support a family ol five. It costs $55,000 to make a 12inch gun. The money that goes tc pay for this gun would reclaim 1,571 acres of land, providing homes for 196 people, says Secretary of Agriculture Wilson in Leslie’s. When all the guns on all the battle ships are shot one time the government bloWs in noise and, smoke $150,000. This would reclaim more than 4,000 acres of land, giving homes to more than 600 farmers and their familitja. The money consumed in powder is lost to all future. The farmer who buys the reclaimed lands must pay the government' back in ten years, so it does not cost the government anything to build up the country by helping the farmer. We should make more homes and not so many fighting machines. We have numberless instances where the construction of a railroad has advanced the value of farm lands from $lO to SSO per acre. We also have many instances where the Improvement of the public roads has increased farm values from $lO to S6O per acre. Therefore, saying nothing about the relative comforts of a good road over a bad one, good roads are a splendid investment for the farmer. The laws of the country should so protect and encourage investments in railroad construction as to prevent the necessity of citizens having to contribute to help build them. If I were asked to name the most effective way to check this country’s growth I would say stop railroad construction for a few years and our country will become a nation of Industrial decadence.