Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/369

Rh waste products and the rapid exchange of commodities, mark the progress of activity in the industrial arts.

Industrial education in its widest sense, in which mental development and liberal culture are the leading aim, in connection with a thorough knowledge of the industries in their relations to science, should be promoted as an important factor in the world's progress, and the gaining of technical skill in the handicrafts which have been so largely superseded by modern improved methods should not be allowed to usurp a dominant influence.

In the struggle necessarily involved in the progress of civilization and social development, agriculture is fortunately exempt from many of the conditions of production which have a decided tendency to reduce profits in other industries, and aside from the effects of bad seasons, the ravages of insects, and similar agencies which are local in their influence, the competition arising from the rapid increase in facilities for transportation, which give remote localities a ready access to the markets of the world, becomes the most important element in determining the low price of farm products.

This competition can not be evaded, and its tendency must be to prevent any wide fluctuation in the market value of products; and the farmer can have no reasonable expectation of again obtaining the high prices for his products which have been realized in the past. As in other industries, the fact of a world-wide competition and a resulting small margin of profits must be accepted as a probable constant factor in the farming of the future. This should not, however, be considered as a discouraging outlook, but it should serve as an incentive to activity in developing improved methods that will give satisfactory results under the prescribed conditions of production.

To those who are familiar with the details of farm practice, and have also a knowledge of the manifold applications of science that are available in every department of production, the direction in which progress can be made in devising remedies for the present diminished margin of profits in farm products is obvious. Attention must be directed to the development of a complete and comprehensive system of farm management, in which the intimate relations and interdependence of interests, in every department of production, are fully recognized, and every detail of practice, under thorough business methods, is made to yield the best direct results, and at the same time contribute indirectly to the aggregate of profits by its favorable influence on other details of equal importance. This will, of course, involve the systematic and consistent application of every contribution of science to the art to secure the utilization of every element of production, and the strictest economy in the distribution of the required labor.