We think it would be found a wiser policy to develop more fully the agricultural resources of the states and territories bordering on the Mississippi than to attempt the further invasion of the sterile waste that lies beyond,"

It is still an open question with many whether it would not have been a wiser policy to restrict our agriculture to the region east of the line indicated by Professor Henry, but the millions who have invaded that "sterile waste " have paid but idle heed to his advice, and their abundant agricultural products, both vegetable and animal, have played havoc with the older states and their agricultural resources. It will not be many decades before the center of population will approximate the line which to him was the western limit of economic agricultural possibility. He was right in his conclusions based upon the facts then known to him, but at that time little was known of the "Great West." No one imagined that there were valleys in and beyond that "sterile waste "which would in the future rival Egypt, and whole states that then were supposed to be worthless except for the precious metals, which a generation later have an agricultural production that far out-ranks that of the mines. Who then supposed that the valley of Peace River, in the province of Athabaska, British Columbia, ten degrees north and fifteen degrees west of St. Paul, the supposed utmost verge of profitable cultivation, would produce a spring wheat that challenges in yield and quality the best wheat grown elsewhere in the world! Who conceived it possible that the intervening thousand miles would become a wheat field that would unsettle the markets in Liverpool ? The climate of that whole region was a sealed book, save to the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, whose interests lay in the direction of a concealment of the truth.

Who supposed that one could start a plow almost as early there as at St. Paul ? The conditions were unknown, and being unknown, all prognostications failed.

It is only recently that Europe has conceded that American wheat is more nutritive than European. It is harder, and has more gluten in it. Why ? Is it because of the soil ? French experimenters have sought without success to supply the missing quality by adding chemical elements to the soil in which it is grown. They will always fail, for the reason that this quality comes not from braying in a chemist's mortar, but from the alchemy of Nature that transmutes the wind and the storm and the sunshine and the very frosts themselves into a golden product. The trend even in America of the soft wheat to the hard, is from the southeast to the northwest, in the face, as it were, of the blizzard. It pays to study climate.

What is the secret involved in the change of seed ? It is conceded that a greater yield results from a judicious change. That depends, however, largely upon the kind and quality substituted, and more especially upon the locality whence it came. The Norway oat raised the oat crop in the United States ten bushels to the acre. The best melon seeds for the northern garden are said to come from the south. Illustrations are so numerous in fruit and flower, in forage plant and in cereals, in fiber and in tuber, of the salutary effect of judicious change, that it is useless further to specify. What is that impulse that strews in its pathway a higher production ? Does the unfolded germ bring with it a segment of the climate in which it grows at its best estate ? If so, when does this impulse exhaust itself ? What is the cause of seed "running out?" Does it ever run out under proper cultivation ? It is said that the wheat of Egypt is the same as it was a thousand years ago, and just as prolific. Is that so because it is on "its native heath" and has a character formed - a constitution founded upon a thousand years of adaptation to the climate of Egypt? And is the reason why our seed runs out that it is an immigrant as well as the man who brought it ? Why was it that the Norway oat so soon lost its power for increased production ? Was it because the climate was less conducive to bountiful yield than its native one ? How far is this true of all new varieties brought into different climatic conditions ? To what extent is the Russian apple a success? How long will the Jersey cow remain a Jersey cow in the United States ? Are imported qualities staying qualities ? It is a grave question whether, in the long run, there is anything to be gained now by importing new varieties of grain and fruit.

It is thought by many that the best permanent results will come by improving the present stock, by cultivating new varieties from the indigenous fruits and grains, and from the imported that have been with us so long as to be acclimatized. There is generally a weak point in foreign plants which has to be eliminated by culture here. The plants are apt to degenerate if at first successful, or to take on some disability not anticipated.

However these questions are answered, there is no doubt that our climate modifies man and beast, foliage and grain, and that the best results come from a proper consideration of like conditions, or better conditions. The potato is a better product on Lake Superior than in the Andes, its native home; but while through all its journeyings since it was discovered it has preserved its predilection for a cool, temperate climate, it has its choice of climates. Migration has improved the stock. On the other hand, Indian corn does net take kindly to Europe, though the thermal latitude in some parts would justify its culture there. It will grow there, it is true, and grow well, but not with such productiveness as in its native home, America. It has a choice of condition that cannot be decided by the range of the thermometer. Not heat alone, nor rainfall, nor sun exposure, nor altitude or latitude, nor any single element, but rather all combined in proper ratio, can safely determine where to plant, when to plant and what to plant.