. California agriculturist and live stock journal. Agriculture -- California; Livestock -- California; Animal industry -- California. 22 California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal, Is Production Declining. GKICULTURAL speakers and wri- 'j^% tera often give the impression, witliout positive assertion, that we produce less in proportion to pop- ''/ff^ ulation than formerly. If this is so we eat less than formerly, for we ex- j)ort more. But no intelligent person, after due deliberation, will assert that we feed less to farm animals or live less gen- erously ourselves than our fathers fed an
. California agriculturist and live stock journal. Agriculture -- California; Livestock -- California; Animal industry -- California. 22 California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal, Is Production Declining. GKICULTURAL speakers and wri- 'j^% tera often give the impression, witliout positive assertion, that we produce less in proportion to pop- ''/ff^ ulation than formerly. If this is so we eat less than formerly, for we ex- j)ort more. But no intelligent person, after due deliberation, will assert that we feed less to farm animals or live less gen- erously ourselves than our fathers fed and fared. A statistical answer in the negative has been made by the Statisti- eiau of the Department of Agriculture, in an address delivered before the Agri- cultural Congress at its last session in Philadelphia, as follows: There are problems presented daily which only agricultural statistics can solve, and upon which largely depends the future prosperity of the farming in- terest. We cannot here enumerate them but a reference to one or two may suffice. The inquiry has been often made of late. Is production declining? It has been assumed that we produce in proportion to population less of the great staples of production than formerly. It is the province of agricultural statistics to de- cide the question. The census alone cannot determine it. Such is the fluctu- ation in rate of yield, that the supply of a given staple may be actually increas- ing, while the product of the census- year may be less than its predecessor ten years before. For instance, corn for 1869 was returned 760,944,549 bushels, and in 1859 the figures were 838,792,742. It has often been asserted on the strength of these returns, that corn production was declining, not only per capita, but in absolute comparison of quantity. Is it so? The year 1869 witnessed what in country parlance is called "a failure" of the corn crop. It is plainly folly to take such a crop for comparison. And this fact illustrat
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