There remains an opportunity and a need of Conservation transcending in value all others combined. The soil is the ultimate employer of all industry and the greatest source of all wealth (applause). It is the universal banker. Upon the maintenance, unimpaired in quantity and quality, of the tillable area of the country its whole future is conditioned. Four years ago, and on many occasions since, I presented the facts and statistics that make land conservation incomparably the paramount issue with all who have at heart the prosperity of our people and the permanence of our institutions. It is unnecessary to repeat in detail what has now become matter of common knowledge and is accessible to all. For the last ten years the average wheat yield in the United States was 14.1 bushels, while in Germany it was 28.7 and in the United Kingdom 32.6. This is a measure of our general agriculture. The cattle other than milch cows on farms in the United States are over 4,000,000 fewer than they were three years ago. The number of hogs declined 7,000,000 in the last three years, and is less than it was twenty years ago. The increase in total value of food products is due to a great extent to higher prices. This failure to conserve soil fertility and maintain the agricultural interest is expressed in recent changes in our foreign trade. These are more than mere balance sheets; since, as you know, variations in international trade balances may produce wide-reaching effects upon all industry.

While our total foreign trade last year was only a little less than the high record made in 1907, the distribution of it was vastly different. For the last fiscal year our imports were nearly $240,000,000 in excess of those for the same period in 1909, and $303,000,000 above those of 1908. Our exports were more by $82,000,000 only than in 1909, and were nearly $116,000,000 less than in 1908. In 1908 the excess of exports over imports was $666,000,000; by 1910 it had fallen to $187,000,000. We are buying more lavishly and selling less because there is less that we can spare—yet, my friends, that $187,000,000 of balance of trade due to this country is not enough to pay the extravagant traveling expenses of our "globe trotters" who are annually passing from one end of Europe to the other. (Applause)

A glance at the following table of our exports for the last five years in three great schedules dependent directly on the soil tells the whole story:

Breadstuffs Meat and Dairy Products Cattle, Sheep and Hogs
1906$186,468,901$210,990,065$43,516,258
1907184,120,702202,392,50835,617,074
1908215,260,588192,802,70830,235,621
1909159,929,221166,521,94918,556,736
1910133,191,330130,632,78312,456,109

With the exception of the increase in breadstuffs in 1907-8, caused by our desperate need to send something abroad that would bring in money to stay a panic, the decline is constant and enormous. A continuance of similar conditions—and no change is in sight—must mean partial food famine and hardship prices in the home market; an annual indebtedness abroad which, having no foodstuffs to spare, we must pay in cash; and financial depression and industrial misfortune because we have drawn too unwisely upon the soil. This impending misfortune, only the conservation of a neglected soil and all the interests connected with it can avert.

The saving feature of the situation is the interest already awakened in agricultural improvements; an interest which it should be the first object of this Congress to deepen and preserve. Much has been done, but it is only a beginning. The experiment station; the demonstration farm; agricultural instruction in public schools; emphasis upon right cultivation, seed selection, and fertilization through the keeping of live stock, all these are slowly increasing the agricultural product and raising the index of soil values. The work being done by the Agricultural Department under the care of our old Iowa friend, Secretary Wilson—who is a farmer from choice (applause)—is scientifically selecting the good from the bad and the wise from unwise methods, and the information is within the reach of every farmer of this country who will only put out his hand and ask for it. (Applause)

But the work moves more slowly than our needs. The possibilities are great. One might make the comparison with current agriculture elsewhere almost at random, since European Russia is the only first-class country more backward than our own. Take the smallest and what might be supposed the least promising illustration: Denmark's area is about twice that of Massachusetts. It is occupied by more than two and a half million people. This Jutland was originally land of inferior fertility. What has been done with it? Denmark is now called "the model farm of Europe." Her exports of horses, cattle, bacon and lard, butter and eggs, amounted in 1908 to nearly $89,000,000. Mr Frederic C. Howe in a recent article says: "The total export trade is approximately $380 for every farm, of which 133,000 of the 250,000 are of less than 131/2 acres in extent, the average of all the farms being but 43 acres for the entire country. The export business alone amounts to nine dollars per acre, in addition to the domestic consumption, as well as the support of the farmer himself." One-half the population are depositors in the savings banks, with an average deposit of $154. How have these things been accomplished?

First negatively, it has not been done by any artificial means or legislative hocus-pocus (applause). No bounty and no subsidy has any share in the national prosperity. The ruler of the country is the small farmer. He cultivates his acres as we cultivate a garden. He raises everything that belongs to the land. He fertilizes it by using every ounce of material from his live stock, and by purchasing more fertilizers when necessary. There are 42 high schools and 29 agricultural colleges in this little country with a population less than that of Massachusetts in 1900. Whatever else they teach, agriculture is taught first, last, and all the time, to young and old alike. The Dane is a farmer, and is proud of it. England and Ireland and Germany are studying his methods today. No people could imitate them with more profit than our own. (Applause)

Recent good years have brought the average wheat yield per acre in the United States up to over fourteen bushels. Twice that would be considered poor in Great Britain and an average crop in Germany. Therefore twenty-five bushels per acre is a reasonable possibility for us. Suppose we raise it. The present wheat acreage of the United States is about 46,500,000 acres on the average. If it gave 25 bushels per acre, the crop would amount to 1,162,500,000 bushels. At our present rate of production and consumption we may cease to be a wheat exporting Nation within the next ten or fifteen years, perhaps earlier. With the larger yield we could supply all our own wants and have a surplus of 400,000,000 bushels for export. This is no fancy picture, but a statement of plain fact. Is there any other field where Conservation could produce results so immense and so important? Is there any other where it bears so directly upon our economic future, the stability of our Government, the well-being of our people?

Any survey of practical Conservation would be imperfect if it omitted the almost desperate necessity at this time of conserving capital and credit. This subject deserves full and separate treatment. No more is possible here than to summarize some of the facts and conclusions presented by me to the Conservation Conference that assembled in this city a few months ago. Conservation of cash and credit is important to the farmer as it saves or wastes results of his work, and his work furnishes the greater part of the Nation's wealth. Our States, including cities and minor civil subdivisions, have run in debt about three-quarters of a billion dollars in the last twelve years. Public expenditure is increasing everywhere. Public economy is a virtue either lost or despised. From 1890 to 1902 the aggregate expenditures of all the States increased 103 percent. Boston's tax levy, says Brooks Adams in a late article including this among the serious problems of modern civilization, was $3.20 per capita in 1822, while now it is nearly $30. The per capita cost of maintaining the Federal Government was $2.14 in 1880, $4.75 in 1890, $6.39 in 1900, and $7.56 in 1908. The total appropriations voted by Congress for the four years from 1892 to 1896 were $1,871,509,578; for the four years from 1904 to 1908 they were $3,842,203,577. An increase of $2,000,000,000 in expense for two four-year periods with only eight years between them should give any people pause. Spendthrift man and spendthrift Nation must face at last the same law carrying the same penalty.