10 'Cbe Conservative *
VARIATIONS IN TIIK RATK OF AGRI
CULTURAL PRODUCTION AND ONE
OF THEIR CAUSKS. *
( John Hyde , in October Science. )
The twenty years ending with 189 ?
witnessed the harvesting in the United
States of crops of corn , oats and rye , the
yield per acre of which was from CO to
GO per cent greater than the correspond
ing yield in certain other years of the
same period ; of crops of potatoes in
which it was from 80 to 87 per cent
greater than in other years of the period
under consideration , mid of crops ot
buckwheat in which it was from 80 to
130 per cent , greater than in the case of
certain other crops of buckwheat grown
within this same period of twenty years.
On the other hand , the highest annual
yields per acre of wheat , cotton , hay ,
barley and tobacco were only 50 , 39 , 39 ,
8G and 23 per cent , respectively , higher
than the lowest. This remarkable non-
uniformity of fluctuation has suggested
to the author of this paper the operation
of some law not hitherto generally
recognized , and the examination of the
statistics of a large number of crops for
each separate state during a period ol
twenty years shows that , entirely inde
pendently of whether the average yield
per acre bo high or low , the nearer the
approach to the region to which a pro
duct is indigenous the more uniform
will be the rate or production from year
to year , and the further the departure
from such region the greater the liabil
ity to fluctuation.
For the purpose of this abstract , four
products only need bo considered : oats ,
barley , cotton and corn. The period
covered is twenty years , 1878-97 , and
the comparison is based in each case
not upon the two extreme deviations ,
but on the means of the three highest
and the three lowest yields per acre in
the twenty-year period , the figures
given representing the per cent of the
deviation of these means from the mean
of the entire period.
In the case of oats in 12 of the most
northerly states of the union ( the Tran
sition zonef of the Merriam Life Zone
Map ) the deviation from the twenty-
year average was only 84.23 per cent ,
only two states exceeding 40 per cent ;
in the Upper Austral ( from New Jersey ,
Delaware and Maryland to Kansas and
Nebraska ) the deviation was 53.95 per
cent , only one state having less than 40
per cent , and in the Lower Austral
( from Virginia , the Carolinas and Geor
gia to Texas and Arkansas ) it was 02.78
per cent , no state falling below 50 per
cent. In the case of barley the devia
tion in the Transition zone was 87.7 per
* Abstract of paper read before Section I
Social and Economic Science of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science ,
August , 18C8.
j-Tho transcontinental belt in which Boreal
and Austral elements overlap.
cent , in the Upper Austral 59.5 per cent ,
and in the Lower Austral 09.9 per cent.
On the other hand , in the case of corn
and cotton it is with the extension of
their cultivation northward that the
range of fluctuation in the average rate
of production is found to increase. In
the case of cotton this variation was
25.1 per cent of the average yield per
ncre in Alabama , 26.3 per cent in Geor
gia , 35 per cent in Mississippi , 87.9 per
cent in South Carolina , 40.4 per cent in
Loiiisiana , 41.3 per cent in North Carolina
lina , 42 per cent in Arkansas , 53 per cent
in Texas. § 54 per cent in Virginia , 55.5
per cent in Florida , * and 75.3 per cent
in Tennessee.
Corn does not exhibit the same regu
larity of progression , owing (1) ( ) to the
large acreage in the semi-arid portions of
Texas , Kansas and Nebraska , where the
frequent deficiency of moisture is a dis
turbing element ; (2) ( ) to the extent to
which special varieties have been
adapted to local conditions to meet a
want that no other crop can satisfac
torily supply , and (3) ( ) to the extreme
care with which this greatly esteemed
product is cultivated in certain sections
where its growth is precarious.f Still ,
the variation in the Upper Austral zone ,
excluding Kansas and Nebraska , } is
46.09 per cent , against 38.40 per cent in
the Lower Austral , exclusive of Texas ; }
and if , for the reasons above stated ,
that of the most northerly tier of states ,
excluding Maine and Rhode Island , } is
only 44.57 per cent , it is a significant
fact that there is not a state in this belt
with as small a variation as Alabama or
Florida , and that there is but one that
will compare favorably with Georgia ,
Mississippi , Louisiana or Tennessee.
Investigations show that this law of
diminishing constancy is entirely inde
pendent of whether the average yield
per acre is high or lovr , and that there is
no general correspondence between its
operation and the annual variation in
the rainfall. The non-uniformity in the
fluctuations of various products is attri
buted by the author to the different pro
portions of such products grown at a
greater or less distance from the natural
habitat.
$ The somewhat wide fluctuation in Texas is
duo to the extension of cotton planting into
regions of uncertain rainfall.
* Not altogether reliable , owing to the non-
determinable proportions of the upland and
sea-island varieties.
j-Although corn is essentially a tropical
plant , the highest average yields per acre in
this country are those of the New England
states. "While the high cultivation to which
this is due has a steadying effect upon the rate
of production fiom year to year , that rate of
pi oduetion is by no means so uniform as in
the states bordering on the Gulf of Mexico ,
Texas excopted.
JTho reasons for these exclusions are fully
stated in the paper from which this brief ab
stract is taken.
MR. AVILSON'S WARNING.
The Hon. "William L. Wilson , post
master-general during Mr. Cleveland's
second administration , and now presi
dent of Washington and Lee University ,
delivered an address last week before
the Georgia legislature on the subject of
"Expansion. " He is in full agreement ,
naturally , with John G. Carlisle , Carl
Schurz , Senator Hoar , Bishop Potter ,
and the other able men who realize fully
the impossibility of making American
citizens of Asiatics. Mr. Wilson's
address ranks well beside the utterances
of those gentlemen which wo have re
cently published. On the question of
how the Philippines can be governed by
the United States , he said :
"In the Milliken the
great case su
preme court decided that the constitu
tion of this land is the supreme law of
our people , in war as in peace , for
rulers as for people , and that it covers
with the shield of its protection all
classes of men , at all times and under
all conditions ; and in setting aside the
civil rights bill the supreme court fur
ther said that when a slave had been
emancipated , and through a course of
benevolent legislation had been freed
from the necessary concomitants of
slavery there must bo a time when ho
takes his position as a citizen , for whom
there can be no special legislation , for
his rights are simply the rights of every
other citizen neither more nor less.
"Now we are told that when the mil
itary rule ceases there is to be some form
of imperialism. I ask you , gentlemen ,
in what section of what article of our
written constitution can you find any
thing about imperialism ? It is an error
which is incompatible with that consti
tution. By its past history it can never
be classified into the vocabulary of a
free , self-governed people. ( Applause ) .
"The very fundamental idea of the
constitution of the United States , and of
all our states , is local self-government.
Without local self-government there
can be no freedom. That government
that deals with a man at long range is
his master and ho is its servant. That
government that goes on under his
own eyes , administered by his own
trustees and servants , that government
can be kept his servant and ho can re
main its master. So if we govern from
Washington by any form of imperialism ,
we are grafting upon our system , or at
tempting to graft upon our system ,
some system of government unknown
to the fathers , unknown to the consti
tution , to them that framed it , and ut
terly incompatible with the fundamental
ideas on which that constitution was
framed ; and this is the beginning of the
difficulties of governing such popula
tions. "
Another point on which Mr. Wilson
was especially competent to deal was