Editor’s Table

468 IMPROVEMENT ERA. concerned, has kept the faith with the nation, the grounds of eom- plaint appear untenable. The young men of the Church should, therefore, carefully weigh the facts and conditions before taking any radical steps in pol- itics, becoming excited, or passing judgment upon affairs with whose significance and import they may not be thoroughly familiar. The investigation has been suspended for some time, and it is understood that some forty witnesses, in addition to those who have already testified, have been or will be subpoenaed to appear in Washington; and it is probable that the members of the Senate committee will visit the state in person to get further informa- tion. THE FUTURE OF OUR WHEAT CROPS. Those who have noticed the rising prices of wheat, will be impressed by two important facts: that prices as a rule have had an upward tendency which they are likely to maintain; and in the second place, it will be readily perceived that these advanced prices are due to the increased demand. The increased demand for wheat throughout the world is due to two important causes: one, the increased area of land used for other crops; and the second, the increased population of the world that is becoming a bread-eating people. In 1871, 371,000,000 people, it was estimated, used wheat bread; in 1898, the number increased to 516,500,000. This was an increase in less than thirty years of 145,500,000 bread eaters. The number of bread eaters is rapidly increasing through the in- troduction of our wheat into China, where the bread diet has taken largely the place of rice. Mr. Hill, the great railroad magnate, expects in the near future that the demand of China and the South Sea Islanders for wheat bread will increase our exports of that grain to a marvelous extent. In an address recently given by Sir William Crooke before the British Association, he predicted that there would be a universal dearth of bread within the next generation. One cause of the bread failure in his judgment was the impoverishment of our lands that he saw no means .of replenishing with proper soil nutrients for the cultivation of wheat. Within the last two years, numerous investigations have been made in the laboratories of our country,

EDITOR'S TABLE. 469 with a view of ascertaining some method of preparing in the lab- oratory those nitrates of which our lands for crops are greatly in need. Nitrogen is the most important element, perhaps, entering into animal and vegetable life. It is the chief ingredient of the most expensive fertilizers for our lands. We have an abundance of free nitrogen. Four-fifths of all our atmosphere is made up of this element; and notwithstanding the fact that upon every square yard of earth seven tons of nitrogen are pressing down upon it, the land cannot use the nitrogen in its free state. The question of taking this nitrogen out of the air, and converting it into some sort of nitrate, especially nitrate of soda or potash, is the question with which scientific men are wrestling at the present time. Nitrogen, therefore, in the world of science, has recently become a sort of fairy godmother. The combination of nitrogen with certain salts, by which nitrates are formed, is called in agri- cultural parlance, the fixation of nitrogen. It has been discovered that these nitrates can be formed by means of electrical wires passing through the required salts, and that by means of electric- ity nitrates can be formed equally as valuable and cheap as those brought from Chili. At present, however, a new method has been developed by which the soil may be inoculated with nitrogen fertilisers. It has been shown, for example, that on certain kinds of plants called leguminous, small nodules grow, that these nodules are formed by millions of small animals called bacteria. These bacteria are of various kinds, each kind promoting its special vegetable growth. They can, therefore, be divided up and classified, so that we have bacteria for various kinds of plant growth. The government at Washington is engaged in the preparation of these bacteria to be used throughout the country for the purpose of increasing the fertility of the soil. They are put up in small packages by means of absorbent cotton, and sent out through the mail to vari- ous sections. In each of these small packages there are about 15,000,000 bacteria, enough to fertilize an acre of ground. When these bacteria are immersed in water, and fed by nutrient salts, they multiply with wonderful rapidity, and may be distributed by taking the salt in which they have grown, and scattering it over land destitute of nitrates.

470 IMPROVEMENT ERA." An excellent example has been given us of what can be done by means of this bacteria. Mr. Lane, the director of the New Jer- sey Experiment Station, took some soil of lucern land that was known to contain an abundance of bacteria; he scattered this soil over plots of ground, and then tested the plots in connection with other plots that had not thus been fertilized; and the increase in the first crop of lucern was eighteen per cent over that which had not been inoculated. Where he mixed the soil first with water, it showed a gain of forty-five per cent over the soil not in- oculated in the growth of lucern. Inoculation, then, of our soils is a distinctive and emphatic aid to agricultural progress; and it is only a question of time when we shall be compelled to give this matter our serious attention in our agricultural pursuits. The laboratory and the experiment station have made agriculture a sci- ence; and those farmers who are not ready and quick to avail themselves of the most recent discoveries and methods, must go to the wall. Oar lands, through long years of cultivation, are grad- ually diminishing in productive powers, and require intelligent man- ipulation in order to make their products as valuable in the future as they have been in the past. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. May Non-Members of the Church Join the M. I. A.? May a young man or a young woman, who is not a member of the Church, but of good moral character, join the Mutual Improvement Asso- ciations of a ward? Yes; and furthermore, it is the duty of officers to invite their non-"Mormon" friends to join, and to use all diligence to make the associations, as far as possible, missionary in character. This is ikewise the case with other auxiliary organizations — Sunday schools, primaries, religion classes, etc. It is, of course, under- stood that officers, at least the presiding ones, should be Latter- day Saints, and that the control should always be vested in mem- bers of the Church. Bearing Testimony — A Sermon. A young man writes in a very good spirit asking the editors of the Era to write him a
"nice sermon to say on
a fast
day."
"You know

EDITOR'S TABLE. 471 what I mean," he adds; "and if you will, I'll try to become a wiser boy every day." He tells us further, that on the first Sunday in every month it is the fast day, and in his own Sunday school "they have to get up and bear their testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel." It is for such an occasion he has asked us to write him a "nice sermon." Here is our advice: Above all things, brethren, let us not be machines. The Lord delights in the words of the heart. When we speak we should speak as we feel and think, not as someone else has felt and thought for us. To testify is to bear witness to something that we our- selves know; it is to affirm a fact that we understand, and to solemnly declare a truth that has come into our experience. It is not to preach a sermon, nor to counsel, exhort, or speculate upon things that are occurring, or that have taken place, or that may happen. "We speak that we do know," says Jesus, "and testify that we have seen." And David tells us further, that "the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Before we can testify to the truthfulness of the gospel, we must have a knowledge of it, which must come by diligent study, and by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Few there are who do not of themselves know of some truth that has come to them, of some kindness that the Lord has shown to them; few who have not some experience, some thought, some feeling of the heart, which can make them true witnesses for Christ and his gospel. To speak of this in your own language, assisted by the Spirit of God, is true testimony. If there are any who have not this knowledge, they must first seek and find before they can testify. To adopt a form, be it ever so beautiful and pleasant to the ear, to be repeated without knowledge, or spirit, or feeling to give it light and life, will be worse than useless. Such a mechanical course would make a machine of the speaker, and would not edify the listener. . If our young friend will follow this advice, seeking knowledge diligently by prayer, by study, by learning, by good books, and by right liv- ing, we can promise him positively that he "will become a wiser boy every day," and before the year is past, he can stand up in his Sunday school class and give a testimony that will touch the hearts of his comrades; whereas, if we write a testimony for him

472 IMPROVEMENT ERA to repeat, no matter how well-worded it might be, it would appear a dead and useless thing. "THE MORMON POINT OF VIEW." We have received the first number of a quarterly periodical bearing the above title, written and published by Prof. N. L. Nel- son, of the Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. The aim of the magazine is to set forth the views of the Latter-day Saints on matters of current interest in which they are involved. The number before us contains an introduction, in which the reasons impelling the publication of the magazine are given in clear and vigorous language. The leading article bears the title, "The Ministers and the Mormons," and is devoted to a discussion of the fight waged against the Church by gentlemen of the cloth. This is followed by the first installment of the "Dictionary of Slander," a treatise on and refutation of some of the misrepresentations and malicious statements on which much of the opposition to the Latter-day Saints is based. The opinions of the writer are expressed in the clearest and most vigorous English, and his meaning is unmistakable. As a correct and forcible writer, Prof. Nelson stands in the front rank. His ideas are strong and original, and are enforced by apt a^d striking illustrations. At times his pen becomes very caustic, as he scores the authors of the calumnies against Utah and the "Mormons." The thought comes to one, however, in reading the work, that the author writes from his own personal point of view, as well as from that of the community. It is likely that some of his co-religionists will disagree with him in some essential matters, while agreeing with his opinions in general, and admiring his manner of expressing them. It would be difficult for a man of Prof. Nelson's positive cast of mind to write on a controversial subject without expressing extreme views, and coming in conflict with the ideas of others. There is nothing half-way or timid in his work. This characteristic is strongly marked in these articles, and it gives to them one of their chief values. From the reading of this little publication one will arise with new and vigorous ideas and with a mind aroused to activity, whether or not one