[195] "The employment of water in the cultivation of fruit as well as of vegetables is highly desirable; water associations with these ends in view could turn with us also deserts into paradises." Official report on the Chicago Exposition of 1893, rendered by the Imperial Commissioner, Berlin, 1894.
[196] This prospect seems nearer realization and in a quite different manner than the most far-sighted could have imagined. The discovery of acetylene gas is the point of departure for a long line of products of organic chemistry, that, with proper treatment, can be drawn from it. Among the articles of enjoyment, that may be expected to be gained first of all on this path, is alcohol, the production of which promises to be the easiest of all and very cheap, and is expected in but few years. If this succeeds, a large part of the agriculture of the East Elbian district, which depends upon the production of alcohol, will be put in jeopardy. The circumstance will bring on a revolution in the respective agricultural interests that will play mightily into the hands of Socialism. Evidently, what Werner, Siemens and Berthelot held out, is approaching reality.
[197] Dr. G. Ruhland, "Die Grundprinzipien aktueller Agrarpolitik."
[198] A petition by Julius Zuns, which finally was not sent to the Reichstag, on the subject of an agrarian investigation.
[199] Dr. Rudolf Meyer, "Der Kapitalismus fin de siècle."
[200] "There is a prescription for securing the fertility of the fields and perpetual repetition of their produce. If this prescription be consistently carried out it will prove more remunerative than any which has ever been applied in agriculture. It is this: Let every farmer, like the Chinese coolie, who carries a sack of corn or a hundred weight of rape, or carrots or potatoes, etc., to town, bring back with him as much if possible or more of the ingredients of his field products as he took with him, and restore it to the field whence it came. He must not despise a potato paring or a straw, but remember that one of his potatoes still needs a skin, and one of his ears of corn a stalk. The expense for this importation is slight, the outlay secure; a savings bank is not securer, and no investment brings in a higher rate of interest. The returns of his fields will be doubled in ten years: he will produce more corn, more meat and more cheese without expending more time or labor, and he will not be driven by constant anxiety to seek for new and unknown means, which do not exist, to make his ground fertile in another manner.... Old bones, soot, ashes, whether washed out or not, and blood of animals and refuse of all kinds ought to be collected in storehouses, and prepared for distribution.... Governments and town police should take precautions for preventing the loss of these materials by a suitable arrangement of drains and closets."—Liebig's "Chemical Letters."
[201] "Every coolie (in China) who carries his produce to market in the morning, brings home two buckets full of manure on a bamboo rod in the evening. The appreciation of manure goes so far that every one knows how much a man secretes in a day, a month and a year, and the Chinaman considers it more than rude if his guest leaves his house carrying with him a benefit to which his host thinks himself justly entitled as a return for his hospitality.... Every substance derived from plants or animals is carefully collected and used as manure by the Chinese.... To complete the idea of the importance attached to animal refuse, it will suffice to mention the fact that the barbers carefully collect and trade with the hairs cut from the heads and beards of the hundred millions of customers whom they daily shave. The Chinese are acquainted with the use of gypsum and chalk, and it not infrequently occurs that they renew the plaster in their kitchens merely for the purpose of using the old plaster as manure."—Liebig's "Chemical Letters."
[202] Karl Schober, Address delivered on the agricultural, municipal and national economic significance of city refuse; Berlin, 1877.
[203] "Life, Its Elements and the Means of Its Conservation."
[204] According to the census of 1890, Germany had 26 large cities of over 100,000 inhabitants each. In 1871 it had only 8 of them. In 1871, Berlin had, in round figures, 826,000 inhabitants; in 1890 it had 1,578,794—it had almost doubled. A number of these large cities were compelled to take within their municipalities the contiguous industrial towns, that in themselves had populations large enough for cities. Through the process, the population of the former rose immediately. Thus, within the period of 1885 to 1890, Leipsic rose from 170,000 to 353,000; Cologne from 161,000 to 282,000; Madgeburg from 114,000 to 201,000; Munich from 270,000 to 345,000 inhabitants, etc. At the same time, most of the other cities that incorporated no contiguous towns increased considerably during that period. Breslau grew from 299,000 to 335,000; Dresden from 246,000 to 276,000; Frankfurt-on-Main from 154,000 to 180,000; Hanover from 140,000 to 163,000; Dusseldorf from 115,000 to 146,000; Nuerenberg from 115,000 to 142,000; Chemnitz from 111,000 to 139,000 inhabitants. Similar growths were also registered by many middle-sized cities of 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants.