Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 June 1910 — MORE FARMERS WANTED. [ARTICLE]

MORE FARMERS WANTED.

te Danger Q f an Oversupply for tear* to Come. There is no great danger that the supply of farmers will be a drug on the market for some years to come. The treasury department’s actuaries estl mate the population of the countrj now at ninety million. At an average consumption of 5% bushels of wheat a year for each person, it will take a little less than 500,000,000 bushels to supply white bread for the country, to say nothing of other varieties. This means something more than one hundred million barrels of flour to be ground, distributed and baked into bread for delivery at the consumers’ tables. But this is only one of the many demands which a population moving rapidly toward one hundred million souls makes every day of the year. The country consumes probably not less than thirty million head of live stock a year. This includes cattle, hogs and sheep, but takes no account of poultry and poultry products, nearly all of which have to be supplied from the farms of the country. The two branches of farming which require the least labor for their successful prosecution, and the most thinking, are those which have much to do with the increased cost of living. They are poultry and poultry products and live siock growing. Within an hour's ride by rail of nearly every eastern city there are lands which lend themselves readily to occupation for these purposes. With modern facilities for transit to and from the cities and towns the possibilities of development of these particular sources of future supplies would seem at this particular time to be especially inviting. As for the alleged drawback that schools and other institutional advantages are inferior in rural and suburban communities, there are some seriqus doubts in the matter. City schools are crowded because of having to work by the wholesale, in contrast with the personal atentlon which is possible and practicable in the rural and suburban schools. Moreover, the conditions of living make greatly for the physical if not for the moral advantage of the rural over the urban life. —Wall Street Journal.