in Zeigler, Illinois. Here, again, are six helmeted rescuers, trained at the Government sub-station at Urbana, Illinois. When all or most of the great coal companies have followed the lead of these pioneers, the Government will retire from the rescue business, except, perhaps, in an advisory or supervisory capacity. Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, who, as the Chief of the Technologic Branch of the Geological Survey, is the responsible head of all this work, believes that it car.not be adequately extended with coal at its present price. He says: "The price of coal in the United States is kept down by destructive competition to figures which permit the mining of only that coal which can be mined most cheaply, and the mining of that coal by the cheapest methods without due regard to the safety of the miner or any insurance for his family." Obviously, in Dr. Holmes's opinion, the co-operation between operators, miners, and the State, insisted upon by the European experts, is not alone sufficient to purge the Nation of this shameful waste of life and property. The American people must also co-operate-not only indirectly through their Government, but directly through their pocketbooks. They must pay whatever increase in the cost of fuel may be found necessary in order to safeguard the life of the miners and prevent the waste of resources the preservation of which is so essential to the Nation's welfare. Furthermore, Dr. Holmes believes that this increased cost can be more than offset by the increased work we can derive from coal by improved methods of combustion. The combustion, as well as the extraction, of coal is one of the problems with which he is dealing as the head of the Technologic Branch of the Survey. Ordinarily, five to twelve per cent only of the coal burned in furnaces is converted into work. Government tests have already proved the possibility of increasing ten to fifteen per cent the efficiency of coal used under steam boilers. By using the power of coal indirectly as a gas producer each coal in a gas-producer plant dévelops two and one-half times its power when used in the ordinary steam-boiler plant. The practical application of these experiments has already saved the Government over $200,000 on its annual coal bill of approximately $10,000,000. Other experiments are proving that much the same increases in efficiency can be effected with residence-heating boilers. If one ton of coal henceforth can be made to do the work of two and one-half tons, even a doubled price would not be a serious grievance for the consumer. In such case the doubled price would mean a saving of money to the consumer, a saving of coal to the operator, a saving of life to the miner, and a saving of all three to the Nation. In order that this work may be more adequately financed, more independently organized, wider in its scope, and hence more effective, it is essential that there should be a separate Bureau of Mines and Mining. Both the Republican and the Democratic party platforms of last year advocated such a bureau. It was urged by President Roosevelt in his special Message to Congress transmitting the report of the National Conservation Commission. A bill for the establishment of such a bureau under the Department of the Interior was passed by the House of Representatives in May, 1908, by an overwhelming majority. It was favorably reported by the Senate Committee on Mines and Mining, but failed to reach a vote in the Senate before the adjournment of the Sixtieth Congress. The subject will come up for consideration at the next long session. It is of vital importance that public interest in the measure should not in the meantime subside. "W BY CHARLES MOREAU HARGER THY, in this age of agricultural development, when great harvests are rolling in from wide areas, when farmers are prospering and their lands are producing as never before, must I pay more for a loaf of bread-or get a smaller loaf for the same money?" This question in many forms has been asked repeatedly of late in every village and city of the Nation, and the answer has not been always clear. "We have more to pay for our flour," from the baker, does not explain fully. "Our wheat costs us more," from the miller, is not, of itself, satisfactory. Experiences of the past few months with the problem of the size of the loaf of bread have intensified the consumer's interest in understanding conditions that to-day surround the production and marketing of the greatest food staple of the world-wheat. Widespread and many are these influences, each with its relation to household economies, particularly to the supply of daily bread. For instance, the householder forgets that, though he hears so much of the crop of our own Middle West, Europe, with its smaller land area, produces more than twice as much wheat as North America. Italy last year raised twice as much as Kansas, and Germany more than four times as much as Illinois. The wheat fields of Europe aggregate 120,000,000 acres, of which forty-seven per cent are in Russia; those of the United States 47,557,000 acres, of Canada 6,610,000 acres, these comprising practically the entire wheat acreage of North America. France, despite its varied industries, raises half as much wheat as the United States, and Spain nearly twice as much as Minnesota. South America raises a third as much as our own country, Australasia and Africa one-sixth as much, and Asia twothirds as much. So it is a world crop, the one cereal meriting that title. The Of direct interest to this Nation, however, is the influence of American wheatfields on world prices and world production, affecting the future of our own farmers and of our own consumers. American farmer has found formidable rivals who must be considered in his plans for coming years. The acreage in Europe. has been practically stationary for thirty years, except in Russia and Hungary. The latter shows an increase from 6,000,000 to 69,000,000 acres, and the former has doubled its fields. In the past sixteen years their combined area has grown ten million acres, and the production a hundred million bushels. Such larger acreage of wheat now exists also in similar proportions in South America and other newer wheat countries, and is necessary to keep pace with the increase in population. Ever the reddish-yellow stream flowing from the farmers' wagons must furnish a margin of surplus for the hungry inhabitants of earth-and it is a narrow margin, for if harvests were to cease the world would eat up the surplus stock of wheat in its bins, granaries, and elevators in two months. Somewhere area and production must increase if the world is to be fed. The United States has done its share in adding to this food supply. Not so long ago the farmer of the East and of the Middle States tilled laboriously his fifty acres of wheat land and carried grain to the old-fashioned mill, taking home his winter's flour and selling the remainder for shipment. Not until the Middle West was opened after the Civil War did the wheatraising of this Nation take on importance. Then it ran riot. Managed often by men unfamiliar with climate and soil in their new homes, experiments as often gave failure as success. If the latter, the product was hurried to market. The farmer had no alternative. He owed a long overdue account at the grocer's, another at the dry-goods store, a third at the implement dealer's, while the interest on his mortgage note must be met. the former, he renewed his mortgage and increased the size of the note. If "About the only time I saw real money," a pioneer farmer of the wheat belt expressed it, "was in the brief interval between unloading the grain and making the rounds of my insistent creditors." In other words, the wheat-raiser was a speculator, working on borrowed capital, trying experiments, and hoping for vast rewards. In those days transcontinental trains were halted between great wheatfields that the passengers might gaze on golden acres which realized all their dreams of agricultural splendor. If next year the wheat failed, many of the settlers, discouraged, left their homes and went "back East to the wife's folks." But they returned in the spring, trusting in the virgin soil and believing that timely rains would not fail again. In the end their faith has been justified. From that condition to present methods of wheat production and wheat handling in the United States is a long step, one throwing some light on to-day's markets. Complicated with it, however, are the rise and fall of per capita consumption, depending on prosperity's barometer and on the consequent wastefulness or caution that results. When wheat is low, consumption of flour increases; when high, other foodstuffs are substituted, unless the other foods, too, are high and it is no great economy to use them. It should be remembered, also, that our wheat prices depend at bottom on world production, whether or not we have a call from abroad that takes our surplus, or store it for ourselves. Producing last year 664,602,000 bushels of the 3,172,800,000 bushels raised in the world, and exporting one-sixth of our yield, the influence of the United States' production is of moment. What has been the change in the American Western farmer's methods? Principally he has learned properly to till his land. Not that he has reached a point of even approximate perfection, but he works with better system. Ten years of good crops, including nearly everything he produces, has relieved him from the feverish anxiety to trust to luck in the hope of winning a prize. He plows deeper and harrows more thoroughly. He studies the seed problem, and has comprehended something of the secret of breeding better grain. When the educational wheat train sent out by the agricultural college, a feature of every wheat-growing section of the West in recent years, stopped at his station, he listened to the lectures, asked questions, and then went home to practice the information. "I always thought raising wheat was guesswork, but it seems it is a science," one gray-haired pupil put it. Along with this came two additional factors in extending the area. Experiment showed that with intensive cultivation wheat could be raised far beyond what was earlier considered the safety line-out in the semi-arid region of the high plains. This process, now known as "dry farming," is nothing more than so pulverizing the top soil that the dust blanket formed shall prevent excessive evaporation. Under these conditions less rainfall than otherwise will produce a crop. Hence wheat-fields are spread far toward the Rockies on prairies where first settlers considered the land worthless save for |