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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, OA^ 6 NOBTJC POESTTH 8T.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mall Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Zdltor.
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The Semi-Weekly Journal Is published on Tuesday
and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for
early delivery.
It contains news from all over the world, brought
by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff
of distinguished contributors, with strong departments
of special value to the home and the farm.
Agents war ted ct every postoffioe. Liberal com*
mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R. BRAD
LEY, Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have are
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brough and C. T. Yates. We will be responsible only
for money, paid to the above named traveling repre
sentatives.
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Atlanta. Ga.
Twenty-Five Million Acres
Of Truck Land in the South.
In describing the truck-farm possibilities of the
Atlantic and Gulf States of the South, the Yearbook
of the federal department of agriculture interestingly
Bays:
“There is land enough and climate sufficiently
favorable to produce the vegetable and fruit sup
plies required by many times the present popu
lation of the country. Lack of suitable lands is
eliminated for many generations; and further
development waits upon the solution of economic
problems rather than upon the discovery of suit
able soils.”
This testimony is reassuring to the nation as a
whole, while to the South it is peculiarly significant.
It means that in this one corner of the continent lie
the natural resources of a food supply ample to
meet American needs for long decades to come and
still remain undiminished. It means that when
these resources are duly utilized the present dis
crepancy between growth of population and produc
tion of food will be evened, so that many problems
which now are very disquieting will be seasonably
worked out. The South is singularly favored in be
ing the treasury of this great reserve force and us
she realizes her latent wealth in this regard and
turns it to practical account her prosperity and na
tional influence will become more and more dominant
The authority to which we have referred estimates
that in this section there are some twenty-five mil
lion acres ideally suited, so far as soil elements- are
concerned, to vegetables and fruits and that compar
atively a small part of this immense area has yet
been used for truck farming or, indeed, for any other
agricultural purpose. Within recent years the growth
of trucking industries in the South has been note
worthy, says the Yearbook, but the great era of de
velopment is yet to come or is only now beginning.
In commenting on this report the Manufacturers'
Record well says:
“What a harvest for the South and what ma
terial blessings for the whole population of the
country are latent in the twenty million or
twenty-five million acres of trucking soils still
awaiting the expansion of the intelligent treat
ment that has already made a few hundred
thousand acres to smile toith frequent and
abundant truck crops I Realization of the promise,
though, will call for much. Capital in the shape
of money and men izill be required to equip the
country with a twenty-five-million-acre truck
farm in the South. Transportation facilities in
the shape of quick trains from the growing cen
ters to the cities and towns of the North and
West, of motor trucks from farms to railroad
shipping points and of electric cars throughout
the whole region will be increased on lines that
have already demonstrated their effectiveness."
Georgia’s oportunities for truck farming are un
excelled. In Chatnam county alone, says the Year
book, there are ninety thousand acres of land ad-
mirr.ily suited to this profitable branc" of agriculture.
In the vicinity of Savannah some fifteen hundred
acres are already devoted to the cultivation of early
Irish potatoes, snap beans, peas, strawberries and
melons. It is cheering to note that in various
parts of the State, progressive farmers are realizing
the rich possibilities of the truck-growing industry. We
recently cotamented on the fact that around Marshall-
viile a thousand acres were being planted in aspar-
gus. Similar enterprises are being undertaken in
many other counties.
The agricultural interests of Georgia are entering
a new era, the watchword of which will be the pro
duction of a larger and more varied food supply.
The resultant value to every field of business will be
well-nigh immeasurable. When crops are marketed
through every season of the twelvemonth, when the
farmer’s income is steady the year around, we shall
have better trade, a wider commerce, amore inde
pendent people and, in every sense, a more prosper
ous State.
Now for the Currency Bill.
Now that the tariff measure has become a law,
public interest and particularly business interest is
focused upon the currency hill in the Senate. One
of the two great tasks for which President Wilson
called Congress into extra session has been accom
plished, and to that extent industry and commerce
are relieved of suspense. The sooner the remaining
half of the work is performed, the better will it
Ite for the country’s material interests. This fact, the
rank and file of business men evidently realize and
there is reason to hope that the pressure of their
opinion will now be felt in the Senate as a decisive
influence.
Certain it is that from this day forward the Sen
ate’s responsibility in the matter of bat)king and cur
rency reform will grow more weighty and more
direct Upon th^ members of the Senate committee,
and especially the Democratic members, is fixed the
duty of opening the way for a new banking and cur
rency system that will safeguard the nation against
t
panics and provide the means for business security
and progress. They will be held strictly account
able for unnecessary delay in this all-important work.
By expeditious action they will earn the public’s ap
proval and serve the country well, but by mere carp
ing over details or by obstructive tactics, they will
lay themselves open to severest censure.
There is no excuse for prolonged delay of the
banking and currency bill. As to the general princi
ples it embodies, there is well-nigh unanimous assent.
It has been well said that "all parties represented in
Congress are pledged to this reform; all of them are
agreed that the reform should take the course of pro
viding a more elastic currency and such a mobilizing
of bank reserves as will avoid the dangers of central
ization, while overcoming the existing anarchy, so
productive of panic conditions and so effective in
spreading panic when it comes; all of them are
agreed that in a general way, these ends are soundly
and safely met in the pending bill.”
There are, to be sure, some interests and, per
haps, some Senators who oppose banking and cur
rency reform of any character whatsoever, but they
represent a minority so feeble as not to be worth
considering. The mass of public opinion is emphat
ically in favor of a thoroughgoing revision of the pres
ent system. It is, therefore, the Senate’s plain duty
to meet this demand as promptly as possible;
The bill now before the committee was carefully
considered in the House from every angle. It was
subjected to the frankest criticism. In several re
spects, it was changed and modified to overcome hon
est objections. Other changes in matters of detail
will probably improve it; hut its basic principles are
firmly established upon broad counsel and sound rea
son. Whatever disagreements there may be among
the members of the Senate and, particularly the
Democratic members, are in the main disagreements
upon minor points. They are not of such a character
that the prompt passage of the bill should be im
periled. Where the issue is one that vitally con
cerns the entire country’s interests and that vitally
involves the efficiency and prestige of the Democratic
party, Senators should not permit their individual
wishes in matters of mere detail to block the way to
constructive action.
There are some members of the Senate, it is sAid,
and perhaps one or two of the committee, who are
inclined to defer further consideration of the bank
ing and currency bill until the regular session of
Congress in December. Such a course would be un
wise, if not dangerous.
The most auspicious time for settling differences
of opinion on this question is now in the extra ses
sion, when the ground is cleared of all other busi
ness, when the thought of Congress and of the public
is centered upon this one issue. In the regular ses
sion, divers other matters will demand attention and
it will necessarily take longer to pass a currency
bill then than now. There is no reason or justice in
holding the country longer in suspense; The tariff
measure is out of the way and business is more con
fident than ever. So soon as the currency measure
is disposed of there will be an additional influx of
hopefulness and enterprise. The Senate banking and
currency committee should press forward its delibera
tions as rapidly as may he, report the bill at the
earliest possible dr.te so that it may become a law
in the immediate future.
How to Address a Letter.
Accuracy is a virtue almost as rare as it is useful,
accuracy in thought and speech and work. Some
thirteen million pieces of mail matter were consigned
to the dead-letter office last year, mostly for the rea
son that they were carelessly addressed. It would
seem that anyone with ordinary intelligence and
schooling could direct a letter as it should be, yet
thousands and thousands of good people, clothed and
in their right mind, are daily burdening postal clerks
with all manner of puzzles; and one of the most
arduous branches of the service is that in which un
usually shrewd and discerning persons spend their
time trying to discover the slip-shod writer’s intent.
So heavy has the volume of carelessly addressed
mail become that the postoffice department has pre
pared a set of rules for the proper method of direct
ing letters and parcels. It urges, among other things,
that all mail matter hear the full name of the person
to whom it is sent, together with the street number,
where there are street numbers, and also the name
of the town or city and the State; it is requested
furthermore that these be written legibly and with
ink. Simple and uncalled for as such suggestions
may appear, there in evident need for their emphasis.
The Louisville Courier-Journal aptly observes:
These are instructions which, in most cases,
may he easily followed, hut they are frequently
neglected and that, too, by persons who ought to
know better. It would make life much less bur
densome to carriers and other postal employes,
and to no small extent, would facilitate the mail
business of the country if care should take the
place of carelessness and the American public
should rid itself of hasty and slipshod methods
of addressing mail.
Considering the amount of carelessness and
bad chirography in thU world it is much to the
credit of the, department that no more than
13,000,000 packages of mail matter went to the
dead letter office in the course of a year’s opera
tions.
A Fortunate Omission.
It is particularly fortunate that the tariff bill
was freed from the ill-considered Clarke amendment
imposing a tax of fifteen cents a bale on cotton sold
for future delivery. No plan for the regulation of
cotton exchanges would have had a rightful place in
the tariff measure. These issues are logically sep
arate and should be dealt with, each upon its own
merits. The plan proposed in the Clarke amendment
was not only irrelevant to the matter of tariff re
form, hut was contrary to the entire spirit and pur
pose of the tariff bill. Its adoption would have
placed a heavy and unjust burden upon an important
field of the country’s business and agricultural inter
ests. To the South and especially the Southern
farmer, it would have proved grievously injurious.
The House Democrats showed practical wisdom
in refusing to accept this Senate amendment and the
Senate majority, though misguided at first, finally
saw the reasonableness of eliminating the cotton
tax tariff legislation; and so the new law was saved
from a dangerous folly. Whatever measure for the
regulation of cotton futures may be proposed in
months or years to come should be based upon com
mon sense and should not imperil legitimate inter
ests merely to punish minor offenses.
A woman never shows the white feather—if some
Other color is more fashionable.
Speech is used by lots of people to conceal what
they think.
A Great Service to All the People.
In his admirably terse and earnest remarks upon
signing the tariff bill, President Wilson described the
new law as constituting “a great service to the rank
and file of the people of this country” and as mark
ing the accomplishment of one of the things “which
it was necessary to do in order that there might be
justice in the United States.”
Service and Justice, these were the great ends
that beckoned and guided Democratic statesmanship
up the long, toilsome road of tariff reform; service
in behalf of all the people’s daily needs and justice
in behalf of the nation’s common rights an interests.
The tariff act which has just gone into effect is dis
tinctly a business measure concerning the practical
affairs of market-place and home. From a large num
ber of the necessaries of life, it lifts or lightens the
burdensome tax that has been a potent factor in the
high cost of living and has held tens of thousands
of households in "necessity’s sharp pinch.” It rings
out the order under which the many paid hard tribute
for the fortunes of a few; and though we may not
expect sudden, miraculous relief from excessive
prices, we are at least assured that the one great
artificial cause of such prices has been removed and
that henceforth normal laws of supply and demand
can freely operate. The energy and genius of the
American, people will no longer he handicapped by
trust-imposed laws in working out this problem.
The new tariff act means much more, however,
than economic reform; it evidences political reform
as well. It signifies that at last our Government is
released from the dominion of special privilege
and is at once free and competent to deal justly
toward public rights. No Congress influenced by self-
seeking alliances would havb enacted such a bill and
no President entangled with particular interests
would have signed it. Truly, as Mr. Wilson says,
“one of the things which it was necessary to do in,
order that therte might be justice in the United
States” has been accomplished magnificently. The
old tariff regime not only oppressed the majority
of the people but it also enslaved the political party
that was its sponsor, enslaved it to forces that op
posed all efforts for popular government and free
business. The high tariff was the stronghold of the
trust, the chief instrument of monopoly. It was
the one great harrier in, the path of independent
enterprises. The new law means new life to com
merce and industry and new prosperity to the peo
ple as a whole, the deep, enduring prosperity that
springs from economic justice.
The Democratic party has redeemed its first
great pledge. It has kept the faith and proved
worthy of the natiok’s trust. Credit for this great
achievement must he given to the unwavering ranks
in the House and the Senate, particularly to Mr.
Underwood and to Senator Simmons, and to Presi
dent Wilson whose wonderful leadership was the
inspiration of Congress and the sustaining power at
crucial moments. The enactment of the tariff bill
is a high victory for the Democratic party, but more
than, that it is a victory for the American people;
it is the triumph of free, responsible government, a
government dedicated to public service and guided
by principles of public justice.
The Collapse of a Famous Loan
A three-line dispatch serves to announce the death
of the once famous Chinese loan agreement which
President Wilson declined to sanction on the part
of the United States because, as he declared, its
terms were unjust to China and out of keeping with
the ideals of true American diplomacy. Critics of the
administration predicted at the time that this re
fusal would cost our country’s trade in the Orient
dearly, that European Powers would put the loan
through regardless of this Government and would
enjoy, at our expense, all the advantages it would
guarantee interested bankers and merchants.
It soon became evident, however, following the
President’s action, that the would-be negotiators of
the loan were having serious difficulties among them
selves as well as with China. While professing a de
sire to aid the young republic in solving its urgent
problems of finance and in upbuilding its strength,
each of the Powers was bent upon more or less
selfish designs of its own, each was striving and in
triguing to gain some particular advantage. The
demands upon China, which in the very outset were
exorbitant and a menace to that country’s freedom,
became more and more objectionable. At the same
time suspicions and jealousies among the Powers
themselves continued to grow.
The result is that the entire plan has been aban
doned in so far as its co-operative aspects are con
cerned. The financiers of the various nations inter
ested must deal independently with the Chinese ad
ministration and receive only such support and pro
tection as their respective Governments may see fit
to vouchsafe. It is fortunate for the United States
that President Wilson declined months ago to com
mit this country to a scheme, the unfairness and
futility of which are now so clearly exposed.
Georgia’s Valuable Corn Crop.
One source of Georgia’s prosperity this autumn
is its encuraging corn crop. The yield of grain,
though still insufficient to meet domestic needs,
is notably larger than in years gone by. More corn,
was planted, it was more efficiently cultivated; the
result will be that less money will go into other
sections for the purchase of this staple; the farmer
will he that much richer, that much more inde
pendent.
This is particularly fortunate in view of the com
paratively short corn harvest in the West, caused
by prolonged drouths, and the resultant high prices.
Ha the Georgia crop been less abundant, the farm
ers would have been compelled to spend a large
part of their cotton profits in buying food supplies.
’he increased acreage and production of corn
must he credited directly to the influence of the
Boys’ Corn clubs and indirectly to the splendid edu
cational crusade Ol the State College of Agriculture
and allied State institutions together with the assis
tance of private enterprises. The emphasis that has
been placed on the production of corn has extended
to other food crops and has led to wider interest in
all aspects of diversified farming.
Indeed, this has been a year of unusual progress
in scientific and businesslike agriculture. Farmers
have realized more keenly than ever before the un
wisdom of staking their all upon a single crop
and the practical value of producing at home a
larger portion of life’s necessaries.
They are thus prepared to reap the blessings of
the prosperity that is spreading ofer the entire
country, and particularly over the South. They are
not compelled to spend all their earnings. It is to
be hoped that the goodly experience of this autumn
will lead to a still deeper and broader interest in
diversified crops next year.
A RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS
BY DR. FRANK CRANF,
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Cram./
It is worth while to try any recipe for happiness.
Here is one that at least is to be commended for
its simplicity and for the fact that it is within the
reach of all.
It is to rid yourself of your notion of your rights.
Think a bit, and you will see that the greater part
of all the indignities, chagrins and humiliations you
have had to endure arise from certain ideas you en
tertain ; about what is due you.
If you can knead your mind about untty you come
to the conclusion that nothing at all is due you, hap
piness is pretty sure to come in and take permanent
lodgings in your heart.
Most of us have a contempt for manipulating our
minds to suit the inevitable, and an admiration for
those of us who can coerce events to suit their de
sires.
But, for instance, suppose, when you awake in the
morning, before you get out of bed to do your gym
nastics, you do a little mental exercise. Ask yourself:
“Why should any one love me? Why should I be
sought, admired, or praised? What right have I to
health or wealth? Others suffer, why should I be hap-'
py? I have no claims on the universe, so if anything
good comes my way today I shall consider myself in
luck.”
Before you get up clean out of your mind every
feeling of your rights, and see what kind of a day
you will have.
Don’t try for more than one day, at first, for it
will tax your forces.
Old habits of thought will bring constant sugges
tions, that you are being abused, imposed upon, op
pressed .and devoured. Be patient. Put these ideas
away. Try, just one day, to act on the theory that
you have no rights at all.
Expect no gratitude when you help the poor. Look
for no recognition when you accommodate a friend.
Give up your seat in the crowded car. Step back and
wait for others at the theater box office. Require no
attention from your servants, your children or your
wife. Be a door-mat—it’s only for one day.
By night you may be disgusted with the experi
ment.
And yet, reflect! Have not all the best things of
life come to you over your shoulder, and have not the
great miseries of your life been due to not getting
things you thought you ought to have, things you
strived for?
Remember the simple and lively emotions caused
by the unexpected stroke of luck, by the favor of
some one from whom you did not look for it, by the
love shown you that you did not dream of, by beauti
ful sights, pleasant odors, delightful foods, as weill as
other surprises of sympathy, regard and appreciation
that fell to you as bolts from a clear sky.
The best of our treasures came to us undeserved.
The joys that know no yesterdays are all surplus.
We never earned them.
Health is nature’s largess.
True love is the gift of an overbrimming heart. The
man who thinks he deserves the love of a good wom
an, and the worship of little children, ought to be
kicked.
In its higher plane, life is not commercial; it is
not buying for a price; it is not a realm of law, except
the mystic law of love. Thank God! we do not get
our just deserts.
To get the taste of life we must approach it as &
beggar at the king’s court. If we ar© despised, what
more natural? If we are feasted, what a marvel!
Rather, let us say that none of us can get the rich,
sweet flavor of life unless he has the spirit in him of
a little child.
Verily, verily, he that cannot be changed and be
come as a little bhild shall never know at all how good
a thing it is to live.
Teach Current Literature
University study of recent literature Is so contrary
to academic tradition and practice that one has to be
girt by answering objections. One objection which I
should regard very seriously if I thought It well
founded is that such courses would be too easy. But
by the study of recent literature, X mean “study” and
“literature”—not the careless perusal of the “best sell
ers” of today or yesterday.
Modern philosophy and modern science are no easier
than Plato and Aristotle, both of whom could give
points to Darwin in literary form and the arrangement
of material; Huxley, and William James, and Bergson
are literary artists, and all the more worthy of atten
tion on that account; but they are not generally re
garded as light reading. Among the leading authors
of poetry and fiction of recent times, there is a strik
ing eagerness to tackle the difficult problems of mod
ern civilization and a growing richness In intellectual
content.
If one does not find sufficient mental exercise In
the novels of Henry James and of George Meredith,
one can always turn to Meredith’s poetry, which seems
to me difficult enough to satisfy the most ardent long
ing for intellectual gymnastics.
To decide whether Bernard Shaw is a series reform
er or merely a cynical scoffer at established institu
tions calls for some intellectual effort, and it requires
still more to make out what is his progarm of social
reform, if the conclusion be reached that he has one.
Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells would give food for
thought as well as entertainment to an inquiring mind,
and it needs no little critical acumen to discover wheth
er Ibsen was a philosopher, or an'artist, or both.
The student of romance languages will find as dif
ficult stylistic problems in Guy de Maupassant and An-
atole France as in the chansons de geste or the fab
liaux, and the novels of D’Annunzio and Fogazzaro of
fer a field of study no less rich than the Decameron.
Sudermann and Hauptmann may not be equal in lit
erary value and significance to Goethe and Schiller,
but they are at least as worthy of attention as scores
of the authors on whom German dissertations are
written.
X am not suggesting that the older authors should
be neglected. I simply urge that the more recent ones
should not be denied serious study merely because
they are recent—J. W Canllffe, M. A., D. Ut, In the
New York Independent.
A University of 3200 B. C.
Philadelphia.—The discovery of the existence of tue
first temple of learning in the world, where the first
exponents of the liturgical system congregated, has
just been made by Prof. ” Stephen Herbert Langdon.
professor of Assyriology in Oxford, who is now inves
tigating the Nippur collection of the University of
Pennsylvania The tablets were collected in three ex
peditions to Nippur in the southern part of Babylonia
“I have ascertained from my examination of the
tablets that priests had a sexiool in the temple at Nip
pur as early as 3200 B. C., and that this school existed
about 1,000 years,” said Dr. Langdon.
“To these priests is due the liturgical system which
spread throughout Babylonia and Assyria and influ
enced Greece and Rome. They were exponents of a
great university, the most important center of learn
ing. I believe it was the first school of learning, and
for that reason the University of Pennsylvania’s col
lection, which discloses the presence of this university,
is of the greatest value to scholars.
“The discovery will establish more clearly in the
minds of scholars the fact that the origin of religious
orders existed in ancient antiquity, and that a very im
portant religious order existed at the temple near
Nippur.”—New York Time®.
A popular man is one who will stand to be bored
once in a while.
The man who enjoys a vacation most is the one
who can’t afford it.
Sometimes courtship is the slip between the cup
of love and matrimony.
A
CROP FAILURES
IX. MOISTURE AND CROPS.
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
No other condition to which growing crops may be
exposed Is so fatal as dry weather. Wet weather has
sometimes produced crop failures, and cold weather oc
casionally Is responsible for deficient food suppllw,
but, as a rule, the farmer finds drouth the worst ene
my that can come between him and the growing food
supply.
* • •
The major portion of the food of the world always
will come from the Northern Hemisphere, not only be
cause it contains a much greater proportion of arable
land, but also because it has a greater amount of rain
fall. It is estimated that the average amount of rain
falling in the Northern Hemplspher e Is at least one-
fourth greater than that falling in the Southern Hem
isphere.
.• • •
One can scarcely realize that his food supply is
largely dependent upon the moisture that Is lifted up
into the sky from the seas of the antipodes, and car
ried by friendly winds to our latitude. Yet It Is a
fact well known to meteorologists that the water-car
rying winds from the southern seas make possible mil
lions of tons of food that we would not get If we had
to depend solely upon our own hemisphere for our
supply of moisture.
• • •
It is estimated that the average rainfall of the
earth amounts to twenty-four inches. It varies from
forty-eight and a half feet, in the region south of the
Brahma Pootra valley, to almost nothing In the Sahara
desert. The average Is highest at the equator and
lowest in the polar regions. It is beyond tlie human
mind to conceive the vastness of the work of the
world's great pump and water-carrier—the sun and the
wind. A mathematician has calculated that the an
nual amount of water taken out of the sea by the sun
approximates eighty-five trillion tons. In other words,
It would be sufficient to fill a lake with an area equal
to that part of the United States east of the Mississip
pi river to a depth of forty miles. To express it in
yet another way, the average annual rainfall per acre
throughout the world approximates 2,700 tons a year.
• • •
Where there Is less than taventy Inches of rainfall
a year the region Is said to be semi-arid, until it drops
down to ten inches of rain, where desert conditions
prevail. About the highest known momentary rain
fall was the record made some years ago In India,
where at one place It rained’ thirty Inches in a single
hour. There have been Innumerable occasions when a
thousand tons of water to the acre have fallen In an
hour.
• e •
The energy of the sun, utilized in the evaporation
of water, is past Imagination. An inkling of Its vast
ness may be gleaned from the statement that the heat
given off by the gulf stream Is sufficient to drive
400,000,000 ships like the Lusitania. The heat given
off by the gulf stream Is only an unimaginably small
fraction of that which the sun sends to th« earth In
Its process of pumping up water to Irrigate the habita
tions of man.
• e •
There is a general and widespread belief that cli
matic changes occur within a few generations, at most,
and even within the recollection of living men. Some
attribute the decline of great famines to a greater per
centage of seasonable weather. But, as a raattr of
fact, transportation has solved the problem. The
United States Is so large that there Is never a time
when a universal shortage Is experienced, and the rapid
methods of interchanging commodities makes It pos
sible for one community to meet the needs of another.
Wuen one looks over the production statistics of the
department of agriculture, he may discover that In one
year there was a shortage of corn and In nother year
a shortage of wheat, but the total production of the
farms of the country has seldom varied more than 6
per cent at the most. New methods of distribution
are responsible for the freedom of the population of
civilized countries today from famine condltlona
• • •
The assertion frequently made la that winters for
merly were colder than they are today, and that sum
mers were hotter, that fewer snows now fall, and that
greater floods are experienced. These Impressions find
support In the chan ges of the distribution of crops and
the dates of harvest. Grapes, corn and olives are no
longer cultivated In parts of Europe where formerly
they were widely grown. Some point to this as evi
dence of climatic changes. Others point to the fact
that in many parts of the world lakes are drying up,
or that In other places the river flow seems to be'
greater. But, as a matter of fact, the climate of any
given place has not changed during hlstorio times. The
record of the grape harvest of Europe has been ke,
since the sixteenth century, and In all that time there
has been no marked fluctuation.
• • •
The modern forester finds a mute but eloquent wit
ness of the persistent quality of a climate In the trees
which have weathered the centuries. For Instance,
some of the giants of the forest In California were
standing thousands of years ago, and, as the woodman
examines the rings of a new out tree, he finds a si
lent record of the years of plenty and the years of
famine. During a season of great drouth the growth
of the tree In circumference was small, while during
years of a plentiful' water supply the growth was
large. Going through the one or two thousand rings
on a monarch of a California forest, one may see ring
cycles of years, ranging back and forth like a pendu
lum, from wet to dry and from dry to wet.
• * •
Man has long struggled to free himself from that
terrors of a drouth. His first method was to dig a
ditch and to irrigate his land. All of the civilizations
of the world’s early history were situated In the arid
and semi-arid regions of the earth. Their comparative
freedom from famines was due to their utilization of
their rivers as well as of their rainfall. But, as the
earth's population grew from the 60,000,000 of the era
of the Emperor Augustus to the 16,000,000,000 of today,
the irrigation ditch no longer sufficed to meet tho
needs of humanity. .
• • •
The next effort was in tne direction of the Improve
ment of transportation methods. But, so long as the
ox-cart and the man-driven boat wer« the only meana
of carrying food into Interior regions, starvation fol
lowed crop failures. Governments sought to combat the
dangers of famine by forbidding the exportation of
commodities from regions likely to suffer from crop
failures. But it availed nothing. When railroads were
built, however, food found new and constant channels
through which to flow, and wherever they were put
Into regular operation there was little danger of ex
cessive famines in spite of cfop failures.
• • •
The latest method of combating drouths Is a scen-
tifio one. The agriculturists of the world are ransack
ing the earth for drouth-resisting plants, which will
grow where nothing grew before. Many of these
plants have been successfully cultivated in our own
country and in the dryer regions abroad. It is confi
dently expected by scientific agriculturists that mil
lions of acres of semi-arid regions, where irrigation Is
impracticable, by the application of the methods of
dry farming and growing drouth-resisting crops, will
be made to contribute their share of food for the
world’s growing population.
Pointed Paragraphs
The umbrella has -ts ups and downs, but it never
kicks.
• • •
It’s usually the fast young man who is left at
the post.
• • •
Some women worry about worries they might have
had but didn’t.
* • •
The successful man never tells you what he is
going to do next.
t