"The land that once flowed with milk and honey might then support a
mighty empire, with independent resources sufficient for times of
great emergencies, but now that land seems almost barren and
supports a few wandering bands of marauding Arabs and villages of
beggars.

"The power and world influence of a nation must pass away with the
passing of material resources; for poverty is helpless, and
ignorance is the inevitable result of continued poverty. Only the
prosperous can afford education or trained intelligence.

"Old land is poorer than new land. There are exceptions, but this is
the rule. The fact is known and recognized by all America.

"What does it mean? It means that the practice of the past and
present art of agriculture leads toward land ruin,--not only in
China, where famine and starvation are common, notwithstanding that
thousands and thousands of Chinese are employed constantly in saving
every particle of fertilizing material, even gathering the human
excrements from every house and by-place in village and country, as
carefully as our farmers gather honey from their hives; not only in
India where starvation's ghost is always present, where, as a rule,
there are more hungry people than the total population of the United
States; not only in Russia where famine is frequent; but, likewise
in the United States of America, the present practice of the art of
agriculture tends toward land ruin.

"Nations rise and fall; so does the productive power of vast areas
of land. Better drainage, better seed, better implements, and more
thorough tillage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend