SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS

LIVE STOCK FARMING AND SOIL FERTILITY.

By F. B. Mumford, Of the University of Missouri

The agricultural industry has been and will continue to be the greatest and most fundamental industry in the economic life of the American nation. Not only does agriculture supply the means of livelihood to a larger number of people than any other calling, but because of its intimate relation to many other arts, it occupies a most important place among American industries. From reliable statistics, the materials of manufacture drawn from agriculture constitute 42 per cent of all the materials used in the manufacturing industries. Any conditions tending to decrease these necessary materials of manufacture will react unfavorably on this industry and result in hardship to great number of laborers engaged in this occupation.

The dominant place of agriculture in the commercial and economic life of the Nation is indicated by the enormous aggregate wealth invested in agricultural enterprises. In 1910, there was invested in lands, buildings and equipment used in agricultural pursuits $36,703,418,000. The value of agricultural products for the one year of 1910, according to the Secretary of Agriculture, was $8,926,000,000. A sum so large that the human mind is unable to grasp its real significance.

All this enormous wealth comes directly from the soil. Any factors which tend to diminish the productiveness of this fundamental resource are of national concern.

The fertility of the soil is not inexhaustible, it is not self-perpetuating. Soil fertility can be mined out of the soil as coal can be mined out of the earth. When the fertility of soils has decreased beyond a certain point, then the cost of cultivation becomes too great, and farming becomes unprofitable and we may have abandoned farms. This fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in the history of ancient and modern agriculture.

But it is also true that soil fertility can be so utilized that the continuous production of crops on the same land can be indefinitely and successfully accomplished. It is also a fact that the conditions of fertility are of such a nature that the natural productiveness of the average soil can be greatly improved and the total production of food crops largely increased. Improved systems of farming based on perfectly definite scientific principles are now being practiced, which are not only more profitable, but likewise maintain successfully the productiveness of the soil.

A permanent agriculture can only be established through a rational system of soil conservation. The most important factor in all agriculture is the productiveness of the acre of land. No system of farming can endure which is not profitable. Any scheme of conservation which aims to benefit succeeding generations but fails to provide for the necessities of the people now living on earth will surely fail.

Systems of farming which are recommended should then fulfill two conditions; they must maintain or improve the fertility of the land, and they must be profitable. The failures in agriculture in the past have resulted from the failure to recognize one or the other or a combination of these two causes. Either the productiveness of the soil has been exhausted by unintelligent system or the agriculture has been unprofitable. In fact, the exhaustion of soil is rather to be regarded as an economic term which means that the operations of agriculture are no longer carried on at a profit rather than that the elements of fertility have been entirely removed from a one-time fertile soil.

In considering live stock farming, then, it is only necessary to determine first whether it is and has been successful in maintaining soil fertility.

What is needed to maintain and improve the fertility of the soils? The investigations on this matter are clear. There are four things needed under existing conditions to supply directly or indirectly to agricultural lands: vegetable matter or humus, phosphorus, nitrogen and potash. Does live stock farming, as a system, provide these materials in sufficient quantity to conserve the fertility of the soil? Without going too much into detail, it is correct for us to say that in any well planned system of stock farming, the humus supply can easily be sustained; the nitrogen can be rapidly increased and the phosphorus and potash supplied either through the application of fertilizers directly or by the purchase of foods to be first fed to animals and the manure later applied to the land.

In attempting to determine whether or not live stock farming is to be considered as a system calculated to conserve soil fertility, one cannot be greatly impressed with the unanimity of opinion in favor of animal husbandry as a means of soil improvement. When soils have become exhausted and unprofitable from continuous grain growing, the almost universal advice is to change the system of farming to stock husbandry and feed out all crops on the land. Nor is this advice to be regarded as emanating from theorists whose conclusions have been drawn alone from the test tube of the chemist, but more often such advice comes from men who are trained in farm management, and have themselves demonstrated that a rational system of animal husbandry will not only maintain but improve the fertility of the average farm located in the corn belt. Live stock farming carried on for the purpose of soil improvement is not an untried experiment. Not only individual farms but whole communities have been brought up from a condition of exhaustion and unprofitableness to a condition of productiveness by animal husbandry.

Exclusive grain farming as practiced from New England westward to the Dakotas has left behind a trail of depleted soils and where carried on for too long a time ruined farms and abandoned homes have marked the way.

These same soils are today being reclaimed and profitably tilled as the result of changing from grain farming to dairy and stock farming. This change has taken place in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and is now occurring in Minnesota. The result of profitable system of live stock farming on even the poorest of soils is to be seen in Holland. On thin, sandy lands reclaimed from the sea, dairy farming has increased the value of the farming lands until now they are valued at $500 to $1,000 per acre. Holland today supports a population twelve times as dense as Illinois, and yet has an annual surplus of cheese and butter for export amounting to more than four dollars per acre.

Fifty years ago Denmark was a wheat producing country. Its soils were gradually being depleted of fertility and agricultural ruin was imminent. The system of farming was at that time radically changed to a system of live stock production, with the result that after forty years of dairy farming the agriculture of Denmark is regarded as a model of farm management, both from the standpoint of the conservation of soil fertility and profits per acre.

Farmyard manure is now and always has been the greatest resource for maintaining soil fertility on the typical Middle West farms. Dr. C. G. Hopkins says that “Farm manure always has been, and without doubt always will be, the principal material used in maintaining the fertility of the soil.”

Director Thorne of Ohio has pointed out that the increased fertility of English farms as measured in increasing wheat yields has, in his opinion, been due to the fact that the cattle, sheep, hogs and horses have increased rapidly per cultivated acre since 1865. In that year Great Britain was maintaining the equivalent of one cattle beast for each acre cultivated, while in 1900 the live stock population had increased until there was maintained on British farms the equivalent of one cattle beast for each cultivated acre.

When Great Britain maintained one cattle beast for each two acres of land cultivated in grain, the average wheat yield was twenty-eight bushels per acre. When she had increased her live stock population to the equivalent of one cattle beast to one acre of land cultivated in grain, the yield of wheat had risen to thirty-two bushels per acre.

The limits of this paper will not permit me to quote the opinions of all the leading agricultural and soil experts who have publicly expressed themselves on the important relations of animal husbandry to soil fertility. But such national authorities as Henry Wallace, President Waters, Dean Davenport, Dean Curtis, Governor Hoard and a host of others have publicly placed themselves on record as favoring live stock husbandry for conserving soil fertility on the American farm.

The production of farmyard manure in this country now represents a value greater than the total value of the corn crop. The estimated annual value of farm manure produced in America is two and one-third billion dollars. All authorities agree that more than one-third of this material is absolutely wasted by the farmers. Here is a source of fertility ten times as great as all the commercial fertilizers annually sold in the whole United States. If this manure now wasted could be intelligently applied to the corn lands of America, there would be added $800,000,000 annually to the agricultural wealth of this country.

In planning systems of live stock farming for permanent agriculture, it is necessary to apply the amount of phosphorus removed in the annual products sold, either as commercial fertilizer or by the purchase of supplementary foods. This amount will be comparatively small, and if added by the purchase of supplementary foods may be supplied at little or no additional cost, as the profits from feeding will pay for the phosphorus used.

No scheme of soil conservation can be successful unless it is profitable. If live stock farming conserves fertility, but is unprofitable, then it need not be further considered. But live stock farming is profitable, and is more profitable than any other system of permanent agriculture which has been devised.

The latest census figures show conclusively that the net income per acre is greater from stock and dairy farms than from hay and grain farms.

The average annual net income from stock and dairy farms in the United States for the ten-year period ending with the year 1899 was $11.42, while the income from hay and grain farms was only $7.72 per acre.

Not only was the average income in the United States as a whole greater from stock farms, but in some of the more strictly grain growing states the same increased profit from stock farms is shown. In Illinois the income from grain farms was $10.60 per acre; from stock farms, $12.55. In Missouri, the income from grain farms was $7.69, and from stock farms, $9.55. In Iowa the income from grain farms was $8.88, and the income from stock farms, $13.17 per acre. In other words the profits from stock farming in Illinois were 18 per cent, in Missouri 24 per cent, and in Iowa 48 per cent greater than from grain farms.

In any ten-year period of the agricultural history of this country, the net income per acre from live stock farms has been greater than from grain crops.

I think all fair minded students of farm management problems in the Middle West will agree that the most prosperous and best managed farms throughout the corn belt today are the farms where live stock is a large, if not the chief, factor of production.

The argument that live stock farming can be profitable only on cheap land is fallacious. The highest priced farming lands in the world are utilized for stock and dairy farms.

In all systems of exclusive grain farming which have been planned for the maintenance of soil fertility, it is recommended that considerable quantities of clover be plowed under and that all of the straw and stover likewise be added directly to the soil for keeping up the humus supply. While this practice unquestionably will accomplish the results intended it is true that from an economic point of view such materials are too valuable for the nutrition of animals to be thus employed. When we remember that at a very conservative estimate, the stover or stalks, leaves and stems of the corn plant contain not less than 25 per cent of the total feeding value of the entire plant, and that under systems of exclusive grain farming, all this material is so utilized that only its humus value is secured, we must conclude that if there is another method whereby this valuable feedstuff may be first converted into animal products, such a method is certainly to be recommended in a convention assembled to discuss the broad problem of conservation.

Plowing under green clover likewise is to be regarded as a practice of doubtful economic value. At the Missouri Experiment Station, for a series of two years, the average income from such clover pastured off with hogs amounted to $34.11 per acre. This was estimating the pork product at only six cents per pound. As a matter of fact during the years in which this investigation was conducted, the pork was actually worth seven cents per pound, and the actual income from the clover alone amounted to $40.00 per acre.

I submit that when an acre of clover can be so utilized through animals as to return to the farmer the equivalent of $40.00 in cash, that it is doubtful economy to use this material solely for its humus value by plowing under.

In accomplishing the above result, it was necessary to feed an average of 3,000 pounds of grain per acre with the clover. This grain at prevailing market prices was charged to the hogs at sixty cents per bushel, the market price, and the $40.00 per acre is therefore net income. The large amount of grain fed to the hogs on the clover undoubtedly returned to the soil as much phosphorus as was removed in the body of the animals, and the ultimate result of this experiment was therefore not only to secure a greater profit from the land by this method of utilization, but also to provide generously for the plant food losses incurred by the storing up of such materials in the bodies of the hogs.

On the average Middle West farm, there are now and will continue to be great quantities of stover, hay, straw, grass and other materials which are too valuable to be used solely for manurial purposes and are yet too bulky to be profitably placed on the market. All such materials can be profitably marketed through animals, and by so doing at least 50 per cent of the humus value of the materials can be retained and a considerable profit secured from feeding to animals.

The development of animal husbandry in modern farm practice is fundamentally important. Exclusive grain farming has never yet been satisfactory or permanently successful. History and present practice have clearly demonstrated the important relation of soil fertility to the keeping of animals. The productiveness of the acre of land is the most important factor in profitable agriculture. If it is true that the productiveness of the acre of land is maintained and often increased by the large use of domestic animals, this is a sufficient reason for large attention to live stock farming.

Animal husbandry is more profitable than grain farming. In any ten-year period of American agriculture, skillful live stock farming has been more profitable than exclusive grain farming. It is no argument to say that the average stock farmer would have secured larger temporary gains by selling his grain instead of feeding to animals. Statistics have shown a larger net income per acre from live stock farms throughout the United States than grain farms.

The highest type of farming is found in those localities where skillful stock farming is the rule. In Denmark, Holland, Great Britain, France, Canada and the United States, it is undoubtedly true that greater intelligence, skill and efficiency are required for the successful management of a live stock farm than a grain farm.

The yield of wheat in England has increased in direct proportion to the increase of the number of animals per cultivated acre.

The Middle West farmer will always produce large areas of grass, of corn stover, cheap hay and other products having little cash value. The profitable utilization of these materials involves the feeding and keeping of animals. The permanent prosperity of the Middle West farmers, and the conservation of our soil resources both require increased attention to successful methods of stock husbandry.

THE CONSERVATION OF THE FARM

By Ex-Governor W. D. Hoard, Of Wisconsin

In the limited remarks I shall have to make on this subject, I wish to preface by saying that it seems to me that one of the crying needs of conservation today is to conserve conservation. There is an immense waste of talk and time and crude unconstructive thought on this subject. Too many men are crying, “Lo! salvation lies in this direction, or that.” Too many are talking with an ulterior purpose of personal gain in notoriety or politics. Forests, mines and water powers claim the principal part of the thought and attention, when they are not the paramount subjects of conservation we consider. It is too easy to generalize or denounce or set up impractical standards of action by men who have not a constructive, practical thought to offer whereby the desired things we might wish for may be obtained. But here stands a great necessity, a glaring mistake, the result of gross ignorance on the part of the farmers of the American nation for many generations. They have wasted their heritage; they are continually wasting it.

Eighty-three millions of people are depending today for food on the wisdom, the skill, the conserving good sense of seven millions of farmers. By another decade a hundred million will face the same dependence. The cry goes up from this vast army of consumers against the high cost of living. The contingencies of the seasons, serious as they are oftentimes, are enough for producer and consumer to face. But we are confronted with the most serious danger of all in the wasting of fertility, the steady decline in the productive power of our arable lands. Here stands the question: An increasing demand and necessity for food and a steady decline in our lands of the power to produce food. How long shall that reproach to our intelligence continue?

Before that great and overwhelming necessity all other questions of conservation pale into insignificance. Study the situation as it exists today: From the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains the American farmer has blazed a pathway of destruction to fertility and forests. His is the hand that hath wrought this great destruction until today vast stretches of territory are hardly able to produce enough in an ordinary season to pay the cost of production.

The Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of New York asserts that that state alone has lost a hundred and sixty-eight millions of dollars in thirty years in the decline of farm values. In my native county of Madison in that state I can buy farms today for $20 to $30 an acre that once sold for $100 an acre. The same is true of the famous old Western Reserve in Ohio, of many sections in Indiana and proportionately so in the southern portion of Illinois. Who hath wrought this fearful destruction of the original productive power of the state and Nation? The farmer. Why? Because of his ignorance of the principles of fertility and of the methods that belong to intelligent agriculture.

Until very recently the forces of education, all under the control of the states, have done nothing to educate the farmer to a better understanding of his duty to himself, his calling as a farmer, and the millions who must depend upon him for food. The people have gone mad, so to speak, in the pursuit and worship of so-called higher education, and neglected the basic subsidiary schools where the main body of farmers must be trained, if trained at all, into an understanding of what they are about. You know, as every man knows, that the country district school is the only school where 90 per cent of all of the farmers of the land have received or will receive for many years to come the schooling they will get. The teachers of the state and the political forces of the state are solely responsible for the character of the country school. There has been but little vital pushing force among the teachers for the uplift of the country schools. The politicians have given it the go-by because as yet there are no votes in it as an issue. The farmers do not believe in it as a vital energizing principle in their midst for their own enlightenment and that of their children concerning the things that make for the betterment of agriculture.

Do you for a moment suppose that all of this appalling waste of fertility that exists and consequent destruction of farm values would have taken place if the country district school had been organized to teach the farm children the elements of fertility as science and common sense knew them to exist? We must then charge upon the past and present system of education the responsibility for this ignorance that has wasted the productive power of the Nation. And the processes of ignorance and indifference are going on today with but little, if any, check. Our schools of agriculture reach but a thousandth part of the farm children with their corrective knowledge. The agricultural press is doing what it can, but not more than 50 per cent of the farmers are readers and students of this vital question.

We flatter ourselves that we of the Middle West are to be saved from this tide of destruction because God has given us a soil of such marvelous fertility. But our farmers are just as great spendthrifts of this God-given heritage as were the Eastern farmers. The trouble lies in our lack of knowledge, real helpful knowledge. Think of the millions of acres of corn stalks in the great corn producing states of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa that will stand next winter unharvested, and in mute reproach of the lack of a little conserving intelligence sufficient to store them in silos where the contents might be fed to cattle and sheep and so produce an abundance of meat cheaply for the people. An average acre of that corn in an average season, if placed in a silo, will yield ten tons of the finest meat and milk producing fodder known on earth. Thirty pounds a day with ten pounds of alfalfa hay is sufficient to fatten a fifteen-month-old steer to the pink of condition in a year. Each acre, then, and an acre of alfalfa, would suffice to feed two steers for the year. What a tremendous feeding power at low cost is here disclosed, and yet it is annually wasted and not a country district school or school teacher is telling the farmer and his children any better. Think of the thousands upon thousands of poor cows that are kept by the farmers of the dairy states because they do not know better. Think of the wasted labor to raise the feed to support those cows, the wasted time and effort to milk and care for them, when, by exhaustive research it can be shown that not half of those cows are producing enough to pay for their keeping. You ask: Don’t the farmers know better than to keep such cows? Can you believe they would continue to breed and keep such cows if they did know better? Everywhere is seen the appalling waste of our farming—in fertility, in poor live stock, in lack of breeding knowledge, in lack of sanitary understanding, in a lack of intelligent methods of farm management. The discontent of the farmer is great. Let us be thankful for that, for we are told that “discontent is the vice of noble minds.” But, likewise, everywhere is he misled by contending politicians to believe that his salvation lies in politics, in the tariff up, or the tariff down, in fighting the corporations and the trusts, in order that certain leaders may have place and power. And all the time this mighty demon of waste is getting in his work. When will the farmer see that he must educate himself and his children back in the country district school to know good from evil, to understand the conservation of the soil and the great economic laws that underlie his very existence?

He cannot escape the demand of the millions who wait upon his hand for bread and meat. He is responsible to his own good citizenship not to waste the productive energies of the state. He owes it to himself and the hoped for profit of the labor of his hands that he make of this question of the conservation of the farm the foremost question of the age, as it truly is.

Dairy farming, if rightly understood and conducted, has the power to “knit up this raveled sleeve,” to re-endow all of these wasted farms with their original fertility and productiveness. For, understand, the true dairy farmer must be a wise manipulator of the soil, of plant life as well as animal life. No man in the domain of agriculture is confronted with a greater necessity of “knowing good from evil,” at every turn and in more ways, than is the dairy farmer. Ignorance is at work here to destroy fertility and profit as well as in all other branches of agriculture. But there are certain natural advantages that govern here more than in other lines of farming.

(1) The dairyman must so handle his farm as to support sufficient animal life to give him a living profit for his time and labor.

(2) That animal life is a constant contributor to the fertility of the soil through the abundant manure that is made.

(3) As a rule the dairy farmer is a buyer as well as grower of feed, particularly of nitrogenous feeds. This gives added fertilizing value to the manure.

(4) He builds silos and so consumes the coarser roughage of the farm, enabling him thereby to carry a much larger stock of cattle, hogs and sheep than he otherwise could.

(5) He is obliged to build barns and sheds, whereby the forage of the farm shall be stored with the least possible loss of its nutritive powers, and consequently this saves waste very greatly.

(6) He is compelled to become a large producer of legumes, like clover, alfalfa, vetch, etc., whereby by natural means, nitrogen is more largely restored to the soil.

All these are the natural and inevitable things that belong to his vocation if he is a man big enough to comprehend them. But there are some things he must do of an extra character if he handles his farm so as to constantly increase its fertility. He must be a liberal feeder of the land as well as his animals. He must comprehend that nothing can be grown on the farm without an expenditure of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. The nitrogen, to a large extent, the legumes will evolve and deposit in the soil. But the phosphorus and the potash must be purchased. He must know something about these important elements, and he must accept it as one of his fixed expenses of the farm that these elements, as well as lime, must be yearly supplies.

Certain forms of dairying, like milk shipping, cheese making and condensing, are wasteful of fertility, unless the farmer guards against such loss, by artificially supplying the lime, and phosphate potash. It is largely through this taking of the whole milk from the farm without adequate making up of the loss, that so many farms in the eastern states became depleted of their fertility. Whenever butter dairying was carried on, and consequently the skim milk was used to grow calves and pigs, the live stock complement of the farm was kept up and the manure supply greatly enhanced. Such sections like Delaware county, New York, have suffered much less in the depletion of the soil in the past fifty years, than did Herkimer, St. Lawrence, Madison, Oneida and other of the cheese making counties of that state. The same a depleting process has been going on in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and farther west. The wonderful growth of villages and cities calls for an enormous consumption of dairy products. This means taking the whole milk from the farm in a large degree and thereby greatly reduces the growing of live stock. We well remember sixty years ago how that central New York produced great crops of clover and a large supply of cattle, hogs and sheep. The tops of the hills were kept covered with the splendid forests that characterized that state. The springs and small streams were by that means maintained and we fished for trout in brooks that have not known a trout for the past thirty years, and which are dry most of the year. All this has been changed and sadly so for the worse. Had the farmers kept the tops of the hills covered with trees it would have conserved the water supply and helped maintain the side hill pastures.

Fifty years ago Horace Greeley, through his Tribune, warned the farmers of New York against the destructive effect of stripping the forests from the hill tops. Dairying in all its branches of butter production, milk shipping, cheese making and condensing, must, of course, be kept up for the necessities of the great army of consumers who demand it.

But the demand is just as imperative that the dairy farmer know what he is about and conduct his farm with an eye single to the preservation of its fertility. He must know more of the scientific side of his calling. He must be more willing to use some of his revenue in the purchase of fertilizers to produce against the natural waste that is constantly going on. He must adopt the principle that it is to his ultimate greater profit as well as the well-being of the state that he farm towards an increase rather than a decrease of the fertility of his land.

These are some of the paramount problems of the day and hour that confront the dairy farmer. The trouble is that here as well as elsewhere in this broad field of agriculture, ignorance has held sway. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.” The wise live teachers of agriculture are becoming more obsessed every day with the thought that if the future millions of this country are fed, the American farmer must wake up, and that right soon, to the fearful mistakes he has been making through his ignorance and indifference in destroying the productive capacity of his land.

Every man, woman and child in the Nation is vitally interested in the promotion of conserving intelligence among the farmers of this country.

BACK TO THE FARM

By Henry Ide Willey.

This is the slogan of our clan; too long has the farm been deemed the dumping ground for those whom poverty or mediocre ability has kept out of the professions, arts and sciences.

“Anyone can farm” was the ancient idea. Not so the modern maxim. It is “back to the farm,” with education, intellect and experience that more than double the production of our soil and elevate the farmer to the same high plane occupied by others of equal ability and intellect in other callings.

Back to the farm is the maxim of our chief executive as he tours our country in the interest of progress.

It is not the aim of this article to enter into a scientific dissertation upon the chemical properties of all fertilizers, or to cover the entire ground with reference to the art of fertilization, it would prove too scopey a work to attempt any such a thing within the time and space that could be prudently allotted upon an occasion like this.

All that I shall attempt to do will be to touch upon some salient features of the art, and deal briefly with the most important details to be kept in view by the progressive farmer, who seeks to get the maximum results from a minimum area and amount of labor. Also I want to warn you of the danger of being victimized by unscrupulous dealers in fertilizers, and suggest some basic precautions to be observed, and finally to convince you that there is no dearth of fertilizing material in the United States that should be available at a reasonable price, to all who may require it. A just and beneficent Deity seems to have wisely provided abundantly all of the factors required to enable us to equalize the productions of our country, only demanding that we perform a certain amount of prefatory labor and wisely use the brains He has endowed us with.

Generally speaking we are required to do a dollar’s worth of work to obtain a dollar’s reward in all vocations. One dollar’s value in any of the precious metals requires a dollar’s worth of work or outlay; the same is true with a dollar’s worth of wheat, oats, beans, or anything else.

Where rains are not abundant and opportune, there are adjacent mountains with their precipitating possibilities and lakes, or reservoir sites in which to store water to irrigate about all of the lands capable of being profitably watered. Just so within our area are vast deposits of calcium, phosphates and other fertilizing factors, only requiring a certain amount of labor, to enable us to place them where they will do the most good.

Florida probably produces the greatest volume and best quality of calcium phosphates. Tennessee next. Then the Carolinas, Utah and Idaho, the former only needing railways to provide transportation facilities to provide abundant and cheap supply throughout the west.

In 1889, Albert Richter, Esq., discovered these last named deposits which are gigantic reserves for the future.

When tillage begins, other arts follow. Daniel Webster says: “The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.”

Farming is as much a business as any other vocation, and primarily, the farmer should be a good business man to be successful. In the main he follows his calling for the money he can make thereby, like other prudent men, seeking the largest possible return from his outlay.

It is not enough to raise a crop, a profit must be realized upon the labor and capital invested.

He must understand his business, must observe needed economics, yet must be ever ready to spend a dollar when he can see a fair interest to be derivable therefrom.

Farming is not only a business, but equally an art—the art of producing animal and plant life needful and useful to mankind.

A true knowledge of agriculture and kindred occupations necessitates a complete grasp of the principles upon which the art is based. In this enlightened age such knowledge is indispensable. When our country was new and only the most fertile soil was tilled, “anyone could be a farmer.” To sow and reap were all that was required, so lavish was Dame Nature in giving of the fertility stored up for centuries. But this soon sapped the vitality of the soil, its tillage ceased to be profitable, and in many instances abandonment of the farms ere long would follow.

This unfortunate result is greatly to be lamented, because, by intelligent precautions the calamity could have been averted. The farming of the future must be carried on by intelligent, educated men of liberal training.

Geology, botany, zoology, chemistry and physics have already done much toward the conservation of the fertility of the soil, but not generally, as should be the case.

Importance of water, as a source of plant food and a conveyor thereof, is one of the most important factors developed by chemical analysis. The enormous proportion of water entering into the composition of the plant and its incalculable value as a conveyor of plant food to the roots. Nearly 900 of 1,000 parts of the matured corn plant are water, exclusive of exhalations, which are considerable, or 1,000 pounds of corn during its growing period use about thirty tons of water. As this amount of corn can be raised on one-thirtieth of an acre, 900 tons, or an eighth inch depth layer, would be required for an acre, and about the same amount being lost by percolation and drainage gains as 1,800 tons of water per acre, thus proving the need for the conservation of the moisture of the soil. In fact 300 to 500 times more water in pounds is required, than dry matter.

First, as it composes 80 per cent of the mature crop, it is the most essential plant food. It also furnishes the hydrogen and oxygen found in dry matter equal to 10 per cent more, making 90 per cent in all derived directly from water.

Water also dissolves the plant food, facilitating its distribution. It stiffens, or prevents the wilting of plants to replace losses by evaporation, probably controls the temperature of the plants, and water is indispensable for the movement of food within the plant, constituting this the most vital single factor in determining the fertility of land, hence the great importance of irrigation where moisture is not abundant.

Within the time and space allotted, it would be impossible to deal with every factor relating to question of fertilization such as carbon, nitrogen, etc. I will therefore proceed to treat of the most potent and effective fertilizing compound. Phosphoric acid, tricalcite phosphate of lime or calcium phosphate. This is present in normal soil, in much smaller quantities than potash, and experience demonstrates, is more likely to become exhausted. In fact in some regions no other fertilizer is used.

The phosphates may be subdivided into two general classes, natural and the manufactured phosphates: The natural phosphates have two general sources—the bones of dead animals, and certain phosphates containing minerals which will be designated. Raw bone meal is made by the grinding of raw bones to a powder, and the finer it is, the more valuable the product. This contains about 22 per cent of phosphoric acid and 4 per cent of nitrogen. Raw bones contain a small quantity of fat also, and as this promotes rapid decay of the bone, the phosphoric acid and nitrogen are quite slowly disseminated to the crop.

Most of the bone meal of commerce is made from bones previously steamed to remove the fat, and a portion of the nitrogen compounds. Bone so treated contains about 28 per cent to 30 per cent of phosphoric acid and 1½ per cent of nitrogen. As these can be ground finer and decay more rapidly, they are more valuable and effective than the raw bones.

Tankage is an important source of phosphoric acid in so-called animal politogess. When the product contains a very large proportion of bone, it is sometimes designated as bone tankage, and may contain 7 to 18 per cent of phosphoric acid.

Bone black or animal charcoal is made by heating bone in air-tight vessels, until the volatile matter is drawn off, and is used in the refineries to purify sugar.

After it has become spent or used by refineries, it is sold for fertilizing purposes. Bone black contains from 32 to 36 per cent of phosphoric acid. In a number of places rock deposits are found that contain varying percentages of phosphate of lime. These phosphates are usually named after the place where they are obtained, as “Carolina,” “Florida,” “Tennessee” phosphates.

These rocks contain from 18 to 32 per cent of phosphoric acid, and differ from the bone products in that they contain no organic matter, and are purely mineral substances. Ground to a fine powder, they are sometimes sold under the name of “floats,” but the rock phosphates are used only to a limited extent in the crude condition.

The phosphoric acid in all the natural phosphates described is combined with lime, in a form that is extremely insoluble in water. In order to render the phosphate soluble it is sometimes treated with sulphuric acid which unites with part of the lime, leaving a phosphate which contains only a third as much lime as the natural phosphate and is soluble in water.

The lime and sulphuric acid make a compound which is the same as found in gypsum or landplaster. This combination of soluble phosphate and gypsum made by treating the natural phosphates with acid is called by various names of superphosphate—soluble phosphate, acid phosphate, acidulated rock, etc. For its manufacture the rock phosphates are generally employed, both because they are cheaper, and because the organic matter in the bones interferes with the use of sufficient acid to make all of the phosphate soluble. A good sample of phosphate contains about 16 per cent of phosphoric acid in a form that is soluble in water.

Sometimes when insufficient acid has been used a part of the soluble phosphate will change into a form intermediate in solubility, between the natural phosphate and the acid phosphate, and this is said to have undergone “reversion.” The new compound being called “reverted phosphates.” The latter product is supposed to be more available to the plant than the insoluble or natural phosphate, hence, the soluble and reverted phosphoric acid taken together are known as the “available phosphoric acid.”

Sometimes, bone meal is treated with a limited amount of sulphuric acid and the product is called “acidulated bone.” This contains a much smaller proportion of its phosphoric acid in soluble form, than does the rock superphosphate. When soluble phosphates are added to the soil, they combine soon with the mineral matter and are converted, first into the reverted phosphate, and finally into the insoluble form, such as is found naturally in the soil. In this way the phosphoric acid is fixed and there is no danger of its being lost by leaching.

The soluble phosphate present in acidulated goods is generally considered the most favorable form of phosphoric acid for use as a fertilizer.

At first sight it seems useless to go to the expense of making the phosphate soluble when it is again rendered insoluble by the soil, before the plant can make use of it. The true object in making it soluble is to aid in its distribution to the soil and thence to the plant.

When an insoluble phosphate is applied it remains where it falls, except for the slight distribution it receives by cultivating. In the case of the soluble phosphate, on the other hand, the phosphate dissolves in the soil water, and is widely distributed before it becomes fixed by the soil. In the former, also, the roots must go to the phosphate, while in the latter, the phosphate is carried to the roots.

It will therefore be observed that after the soluble phosphate is distributed throughout the soil, the individual particles must be very much smaller than is the case with the insoluble phosphate. The importance of fineness of division can not be too strongly emphasized.

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the need of intelligent use of fertilizers. A little expense and effort in carefully analyzing the soil to be treated, proving its component parts and proportions, then leaving what should be added to result in the largest production of the crops desired. No guessing nor conjecture should be indulged in, it can only lead to disaster, whereas a little scientific investigation and analysis will render success certain.

Analysis alone will not suffice. Actual testing of the various classes of soil, dividing same into small blocks and using different proportions of fertilizers on some, none on others, will insure the best results.

Farmers are furnished with a great variety of so-called fertilizers of greater or less merit, and a vast variety of mixtures almost too numerous to classify, many of which I regret to state are not at all what they are represented to be, and often are worth less than one-third the price charged therefor. No one should under any circumstances be induced to purchase anything claimed to be a fertilizer, without first having had an analysis made of the same by some chemist of unimpeachable integrity. A failure or refusal to observe this precaution will be certain to defeat the purpose in view and result in loss, instead of the gain desired. There can be no good excuse given for the unfair adulteration of fertilizers, because the supply of basic material is abundant, cheap, and can be reasonably transported, leaving a good profit for all dealers, when an absolutely pure article. As the product is now sold it ranges from 1 to 3 per cent ammonia, 6 to 12 per cent phosphoric acid, 4 to 10 per cent potash.

The unit basis of purchase is a fair one to both vendor and vendee. A unit means 1 per cent on the basis of a ton, or twenty pounds.

For example, a unit of available phosphoric acid would be twenty pounds, and if the quotation was $1.00 a unit, the phosphoric acid would cost five cents a pound. The system is applied to the sale of nitrate of soda, the potash salt, blood, meat, tankage, superphosphate, etc., and in nitrogenous goods the price is usually stated as so much a unit of ammonia.

The number of units in the material is determined by chemical analysis. This system could be applied as well to mixed as unmixed goods. But home mixing would prove by far the wisest policy, as none of the frauds common to commercial fertilizers could then be perpetrated.

It is little less than idiocy to buy any mixed fertilizer for any specific tract of land, because you may be paying for an excess of many elements, when the addition of some one single acid, such as sulphuric, for instance, would double its production. Lime, marl, muck, wood or coal ashes only would at times produce better results than the most perfect and elaborate mixed fertilizer.

Apropos of this subject, permit me to call attention to a little work of great value to every farmer. None should be without it. Viz., A treatise on “American Manures, and Farmers’ and Planters’ Guide,” by Wm. H. Buckner, Analytical Consulting Chemist, and J. B. Chynoweth, Eng., published in Philadelphia.

The great lawyer, Theodore Cuylor, and others, give this work unqualified approval, and any farmer, after its perusal, is amply advised as to the many frauds perpetrated in the name of fertilization, and can guard against being victimized thereby.

To attempt to deal with the fertilization question without giving ample scope to the question of water supply, would be a waste of effort, as water is the most important of all elements to be considered.

Not all land is to be benefited by irrigation, but vastly more is improved than is generally supposed. There are few sections where the natural supply is precipitated at the right time, and in proper proportion, and wherever this is the case irrigation can be profitably resorted to always, providing the supply can be economically obtained and distributed.

For example, take the rich Willamette valley in Oregon, where the rainfall is excessive during the entire spring, but little or none falls during the summer months, and it has been proven that larger or more frequent crops can be raised there with irrigation, even in this “Web-foot state.”

Perfect production is only attainable when control of all the elements is possible, and this can be accomplished only in a hot house or conservatory. But the nearest approach thereto in the open, is in an almost rainless country, where the sunshine is constant by day, the soil fertile, and irrigation possible.

Where these conditions prevail, as in Sinaloa, Mexico, as many as three crops a year can be produced upon the same area, and it is safe to state that there are few regions where the irrigation of the land will not prove beneficial. In most instances the providing of irrigation carries with it the necessity for a drainage system as well. It is not the placing of water on the land which causes the benefit, but the passage of the water through the soil, carrying the fertility or plant food to the roots, hence flow must be kept up, and often this can only be insured by providing a drainage system.

Our country is so new, and our soil was so fertile originally, that abundant crops were produced thereon for many years, but this constant cropping of the same product, year after year, has exhausted vast areas and their life must be renewed.

Fertilizers are abundant and accessible in the United States and can be laid down on any farm near to lines to transportation, and if of genuine character and properly applied, crops can be doubled or better each season.

Professor Hopkins of the Illinois university more than doubled the production of wheat on a certain tract of land under this supervision. The natural yield was about twenty-four bushels; fertilized, fifty-six bushels per acre.

Although the phosphate deposits now known to exist are of vast area, it was not until 1889 that the Florida deposits were accepted as valuable and extensive.

Pebble deposits of Florida are supposed to underlie an area of about 2,000 square miles, and are on lands about 160 feet above sea level.

Over-burden:

1. Soil and subsoil, few inches to six feet.

2. A light colored sand, few inches to ten feet.

3. Stiff clay vari-colored at times, capping of sandstone color brown to pure white.

Matrix 212°.

Organic matter 2.40

Phosphoric acid 15.29

Carbonic acid 6.70

Lime 20.00

Iron and aluminum 13.06

Fluoride and magnesia .60

Insoluble silica and sand 41.95

100.00

Equivalent to tribasic phosphate of lime 32.33

Equivalent to carbonate of lime 15.20

Land pebbles average from 65 to 70 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime.

River pebbles are of the same origin, but slightly less value, 60 per cent to 63 per cent phosphate of lime. The whole Peninsula of Florida is underlaid with white limestone of the Vicsburg age (Lower Eocene), according to Professor Lyall, upper middle Eocene, according to American geologists, which is the oldest rock in Florida. Florida was submerged until the end of the Eocene period, after which its elevation occurred. Then came the Miocene submergence followed by a second elevation, next the Champlain period and submergence, when it was covered with a mantle of sand and clay, before it arose to its present elevation.

The phosphate pebbles were formed before this last submergence, and hence washed into the depressions of limestone and over same.

Analysis Gravel Rock.

Many Samples.

Phosphoric acid 36.08

Carbonate of lime 2.17

Oxide of iron and aluminum 1.94

Silica 4.50

Moisture 2.50

European Analysis of some organic matter—water.

Voelker Gilbert Marat

Phosphoric acid 36.56 36.33 36.84

Lime 52.08

Oxide of iron 1.36

Aluminum 1.39

Magnesia carb. phos 7.17

Insoluble 0.85

100.

Tribasic phosphate of lime 79.81 79.31 80.43

Early in this century the marl beds of New Jersey were worked and used for fertilization. This led to the discovery of similar deposits in South Carolina. One Lardue Venaxen, who made the first geological survey in 1826, discovered same, but no work was done until 1842, when Edward Ruffin of Virginia confirmed the reports of previous explorers.

First carbonate of lime only was evolved; 20 per cent up to 90 per cent, but later from 2 per cent to 9 per cent of phosphate of lime was found by Dr. C. W. Sheppard and J. Lawrence Smith, Esq.

During the war, nodules and strata of rock phosphate were found by Dr. N. A. Pratt near Ashley River.

It was not until April 14, 1868, that any systematic production of phosphate was accomplished in South Carolina, when the first cargo was shipped from Charleston and the arrival of same created a veritable epidemic of phosphate fever in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities.

Analysis.

Mean of many hundreds of samples.

[1]⁠Phosphoric acid from 25.0 per cent to 28.00 per cent

[2]⁠Carbon acid from 2.50 per cent to 5.00 per cent

Sulphuric acid from 0.50 per cent to 2.00 per cent

Lime from 35.00 per cent to 42. per cent

Magnesia traces

Aluminum traces

Sesqui oxide of iron 1.00 to 4.00 per cent

Fluoride 1.00 to 2.00 per cent

Sand and silica 4.00 to 12.00 per cent

Organic matter and water.

In 8 per cent there was shipped from

Florida 250,000 tons

North Carolina 150,000 tons

South Carolina 200,000 tons

Alabama 125,000 tons

Virginia 150,000 tons

Mississippi 50,000 tons

Louisiana 25,000 tons

Tennessee 25,000 tons

975,000 tons

In Ontario there exists one area of from seventy-five to one hundred square miles, and another from fifteen to twenty-five miles wide, and 100 miles long of commercial phosphate.

It is found in many other places, but not proven.

Here it occurs in flint and has been worked by farmers in a desultory way, costing much and yielding little profit to the operators.

On the Lievre River, two and one-half miles from Highfall and twenty miles from Bushman, there was the famous Watt mine, where, from a cone-shaped mountain, a vast amount of pure apatite was mined, once called “Emerald.” Quite a number of deposits have been worked in Canada, but not any with great profit.

Analysis.

Phosphoric acid 40.868

Fluoride 3.731

Chloride 0.428

Carbonic acid 0.105

Lime 48.475

Calcium 4.168

Magnesia 0.158

Alumina 0.835

Sesqui oxide 0.005

Insoluble 1.150

100.823

Tribasic = 89.219

About the year 1880 a stratum of calcium phosphate was discovered near Mount Fairview, Tennessee. At first it was not believed to be of great extent, or good quality, but ere long both were abundantly proven, and a large quantity of high grade phosphates was mined.

But owing to the rush of producers in every direction, without any system or unity of action, the crazy competitors soon glutted the market, forcing the price down below cost of production.

Of recent years, a few big operators have gathered in most of the choice areas, and by introducing up-to-date methods, etc., have gradually brought the production down to a normal basis, and the price up to a profitable figure.

The volume of deposit in this region is very great, extending from about ten miles south of Mount Pleasant to the line of the Tennessee Central Railway and beyond, and a width of over fifty miles.

In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit lies under a very thin over-burden, often only the surface soil of ten feet thickness or width, a layer of from two to eight feet of white sandstone beneath this, the substratum of limestone being near the surface, and of vast thickness. Also somewhat uneven or undulating, making depressions of twenty-five feet at times, which are in turn filled with the phosphate deposit.

As the topography becomes uneven the plains cease and foothills occur, the character of the over-burden changes and that of the phosphate likewise.

As an elevation of 600 feet above sea level is reached, and exceeded, the over-burden becomes of greater thickness, and chert or flint and some limestone and conglomerate overlie the phosphate.

In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit is mixed with sand and is soft and easily excavated from the surface, whereas in the higher altitude, the same becomes hard as stone and has to be excavated by tunneling under the chert, as drift mining is done.

The protection of this latter deposit from atmospheric action and percolating waters, both, or with the compression, renders the phosphate of higher class. Although the stratum is not so thick as out in the valley, it ranges from two to six feet. Two is a fair mean. Quite an extensive area of this deposit has been bought or leased by a Cincinnati company, which plans to develop same upon an intelligent modern plan and gradually upon a large scale.

At Mount Pleasant, Mr. John Ruhm, Jr., a college-bred man of rare intellect and great capacity, has devoted many years to a study and operation of his phosphate deposits, in the most scientific manner possible. He has kept in close touch with the most advanced men of the age, such as Prof. Hopkins of the State University of Illinois, who has given more time to the study and practice of fertilization than any man in the United States. Prof. Hopkins finds it necessary to reduce the phosphates to a 100-mesh fineness to enable him to obtain the best results, and Mr. Ruhm has for years been experimenting with the grinding machinery to discover the best and cheapest for this purpose. Only this year, in July, did he discover that the “Hardinge” tube-mill is, in all respects, the best machine tested. He got 90 per cent duty from over 200 tons a day at 100-mesh, and some of this over 200-mesh fineness; 100-mesh is possible, grinding the same either wet or dry.

I had the good fortune to witness these July tests and can confirm Mr. Ruhm’s claims for his process, which he does not selfishly try to keep, but generously gives to all who ask information.

The Tennessee phosphates of commerce are not quite as high grade, and do not command as high a price as others, but this is entirely due to the careless preparation of same for market. So soon as Mr. Ruhm’s plan is followed, the grade will be raised, and price follow to topmost.

Analysis.

Phosphoric acid 36.33

Lime 52.08

Oxide of iron 1.36

Aluminum 1.39

Magnesia and carbonic acid 7.17

Insoluble 0.85

99.19

The above represents a mean of about thirty analyses of samples taken from over a 10,000 acre area, principally from exposed outcrop, hence a test of protected product would give larger percentages.

As the United States Geological Survey has not been extended over the area embracing a large part of these phosphate lands, one can only conjecture concerning their scope although it is safe to assume it to be very great.

I believe this crude treatment of this question will suffice to suggest two important facts:

First. That we have available in this country an abundant supply of phosphates to enable us to replenish the fertility of our soils at a reasonable cost.

Second. That this feature should be carefully studied by every farmer in the country, and the maximum result obtained from every acre tilled and every day’s labor performed.

In addition to the deposits of phosphate in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, which only need equal transportation facilities to introduce their product, we must have others, as yet undiscovered, because few laymen, and not all engineers, recognize the deposit when found, and it is not always discoverable without excavation where it does exist.

“A little farm well tilled” can be made to produce more abundantly, more profitably, than one larger and less effectively handled, hence no matter how rich and fertile nature may have made your farm, it is hardly possible that it may not be improved and reward you abundantly for it.

During the summer of 1911, I had the good fortune to be employed to examine an area of phosphate deposit some fifty miles above Mount Pleasant in Tennessee, and, in order to better understand the subject, first visited Mount Pleasant and vicinity to note conditions, progress, etc., hence my data relative to this section is fresh and new.

I know I am justified in asserting that there is a vast field for the exploitation of this valuable deposit in this region, with ample assurance of the development of a vast area that can be profitably worked.

One thing is certain, nowhere can the deposit be more fully determined, and nowhere be more economically worked, hence this region should become the most productive of any ere long.

Over an extensive area there is spread out a layer or blanket of this phosphate rock, lying under a huge mass of chert or flint rock and resting on a bed of shale or slate, which in turn rests upon a vast bed of limestone several hundred feet deep.

The phosphate seam is from six inches to four feet in thickness and lies about 600 feet above sea level and about 150 feet above the valleys that cut through it, so that tunnels can readily be run in under the seam at any desired place, and the phosphate be stoped out ad libitum.

Only a very small portion of the country has been surveyed by the United States Geological Survey, hence but little is known of its contents and characteristics.

But my investigations prove that a very large area contains this deposit, extending for many miles east and west and north and south from Boma on the Tennessee Central as a center.

It is therefore quite certain that there is no dearth of this commodity, and there is not likely to be for many years to come, as other deposits are likely to be discovered as the known ones are exhausted.

Now! the moral of the foregoing: We have available at reasonable cost the elements to reënrich our soil. Hence, our farmers should first cultivate their minds, that they may be able to discover in what elements their soil is defective, or what is wanting, to enable them to get best results. A very liberal education should be obtained, if possible, for in no walk of life is a greater scope of knowledge required and profitable to a farmer. Then, the farmers should unite all over the country to endeavor to elevate and ennoble labor and the laborers, which can be done only by example, by acts and deeds, not by preaching.

Every honor, reward and benefit of every character should be open to and be given the farmer and artisan laborer, and, in the degree that each deserves credit for work well done, the reward should follow.

Why not offer prizes for workers? Why not fill all of our executive and administrative government bodies with the best farmers, business men, carpenters, etc., instead of lawyers? Just think of it. Everyone knows lawyers are proverbially poor business men. Yet our Nation, states, counties and cities all are governed principally by men who privately are considered as inferior business men.

By compelling the lawyers by some labor, some successful work, to first prove their business ability and capacity, and making labor—work—the honest, real basis for the elevation of men and women to places of trust and profit, and by this course only can labor be exalted and every child in the land be led to look with pride and pleasure upon the laborers, who are the true bone and sinew of the world.

Preaching that “labor is ennobling,” then bestowing honor and benefits upon those who never have cheerfully done a day’s hard work will not exalt the laborer.

Let us get back to the farm and honor the farmer, that our days may be long in the land that the Lord has given us, and let the laborer be truly ennobled.

If farmers “were the founders of civilization,” as Mr. Webster states, then are they also the main pillars supporting the same, and should be looked up to, be honored and rewarded as such. And far above any lawyer, merchant or millionaire, we can trust our workingmen and women. Let us try it at once, one and all of us.

ADDRESS.

By E. G. Griggs, President of the National Lumbermen’s Manufacturing Association

It was my pleasure to attend the Second Annual Conservation Congress a year ago in St. Paul. That I am here today representing a lumber producing delegation would intimate that my interest in these proceedings is at least perennial. I deplored the introduction of politics and regretted the delay in publication of the excellent reports submitted with leave to print at the Congress. Just recently I have read the many excellent technical reports, the discussion of which I deemed of more importance to the upbuilding of the conservation movement than the political outbursts that rankle in our breasts and tend to array class against class. Conservation is education, and we all have something to learn. The experience of the older and great states of this Union should profit the younger and perhaps greater.

As a lumberman, conservation to me is not a theory. It is the proper utilization of a great heritage and the elimination of waste in the process of manufacturing and logging. What theory is more vital commercially to the lumberman than that? The establishment of values will determine to what extent conservation will be practiced and reforestation followed. When men devoted to the general welfare of these United States are giving liberally of their time and money and energy to protect the vast resources of this country from wasteful extravagance, I feel it is little enough to expect those who are actively engaged in commercial enterprises to second their efforts.

The importance of sane laws and wise legislation must be apparent to all of us. Unless the business interests of the country heed the call and guide the effort, an outraged public will some day awaken to its lost opportunities.

As an official of the National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, I feel that we, as lumbermen, are vitally interested in the proceedings of this Congress. I come to you from a state that stands in the front rank as a lumber producer—a citizenship interested from its lowliest to its highest in the proper utilization of its wonderful forest growth. It is true that there is a divergence of opinion among some of our Washington state officials as to state and federal control—but to me, the important issue seems a national one. The value of our timber resources is determined altogether by the demand existing outside our own states. If conservation depends on values, then I say the price you in the Middle West must pay for lumber has a great deal to do with reforestation and utilization of our raw product. It is therefore entirely a national issue, and the question of supply and demand, that inexorable commercial law, concerns us all.

I am a strong believer in the knowledge of conditions and in the benefits of coöperation. The final outcome of the reciprocity pact, conceived, as it was, in secret, emphasizes the fact that our Canadian brethren intend to adopt a conservative policy of their own. As a lumberman, I have never agreed with our honored President in the belief that the trade was a good one for us. To a man not concerned in politics, it seemed that our Canadian traders out-traded the Yankee. Why the argument for a permanent tariff commission, non-partisan and thoroughly competent, should apply on wool, cotton, steel and not on lumber, hardly appeals to me. Now that we know where we stand, is it not high time the tariff issues be studied as in foreign countries, particularly Germany, by a body of experts permanently engaged, that Congress hear and discuss officially its report and that facts be placed before the people? I am democratic enough to still believe in the great American people.

No industry not unduly protected need fear the light or a business upheaval. Today a presidential year causes stagnation in business, either assumed or real. Our country never will settle the tariff issue right until business integrity governs. The revelation in accumulated wealth and control of millions can only be justified if our country prospers. Neither should the people be taxed to accumulate swollen fortunes. The prices at which the same commodities are sold to the people of different nations ought to determine the tariff issue. America is for Americans; let us develop our latent resources, not squander our heritage with prodigality. Golden opportunities or luxurious surroundings do not warrant idleness, but rather a higher sense of individual and national responsibilities. To get the best out of that which we have should concern us all.

Our taxation problems, the methods which have prevailed so long, do not encourage timber holding. Lumbermen have one crop and yearly taxes, while the farmer has yearly taxes and annual crops. A timber investment of $5,000, say at $1.50 per thousand, with taxes and interest compounded, in twenty years will equal $7.50 per thousand, allowing no profit at all, nor considering the fire risk. In President Taft’s address a year ago, he says that “States must legislate to protect their individual holdings from waste and private greed.” Had the Reciprocity Agreement become a law, the Nation would have been responsible for an increased competition and uncalled for development of timber resources in no way beneficial to the United States, except those speculators who have invested in British Columbia timber. The development of Canadian timber holdings will not save our trees as long as growing trees are taxed, capital invested and timber is sold on time contracts. The more competition, the more will be left in the woods, as only in the higher grades will there be profit. Lumber is constantly rising in value because of its increasing inaccessibility and the distance it has to travel to market.

Why deprive our great lumber producing states of the great purchasing power resulting from the manufacture of this resource? Over three-quarters of the cost at the mill of one thousand feet of lumber represents pay roll, and to the Western states this means outside capital. Of the money received for 1,000 feet of 2×4’s delivered on a fifty-cent rate of freight today, the railroad takes $13.00 freight money, leaving $7.00 to pay for logging, manufacturing, selling and stumpage. What your retailers charge I do not know. As manufacturers, we have no trust controlled product and do not control the price to the consumer. Suffice it to say that there is little or no margin in the price of common lumber today to the manufacturer. A comparison of the selling prices at home and abroad, with due regard for grades furnished, should determine the existence of a lumber trust, and the same reasoning applies conversely to steel and other industries. Harassed as the industry has been by government proceedings and investigation of alleged trust and monopoly, we feel that a great injustice is being done that should be righted. If the marketing through retailers is not legal, I predict a commercial upheaval is due in all lines of industry.

Reforestation will come when it is profitable—when the land is more suitable to grow trees on than to sow annual crops or build cities. The methods followed in the East will not apply to the South and West. The character of the timber must be studied to determine how it can be profitably handled. Its proximity to market, and the rail and water haul are to be considered. This was emphasized in the Congress last year and is more apparent today, as the completion of the Panama Canal approaches. It was stated that adequate and economical transportation facilities are viewed among the means of conservation, and realizing that the growth of the country has exceeded its transportation facilities, I trust a comprehensive resolution will be adopted by this Congress regarding the Panama Canal tolls. With our coastwise shipping laws and regulations governing shipments from one American port to another, the benefits of this canal will be seriously menaced unless Congress acts intelligently in the matter, and with due regard to the development of our country. If we are to have tariff revision or free trade, let us at least be consistent and give to our own manufacturers access to ships on a competitive basis.

In my judgment, it will not do to merely resolute and spread high sounding, well-meaning platitudes on the records; we should organize to actively acquaint our citizenship throughout the states with the prevailing conditions and the benefits to be derived through experience of others and knowledge of conditions. Educate the people, and a great public sentiment will demand improved conditions. The efforts of conservationists are often misjudged because considered impractical. I say eliminate the visionary and theoretical, get down to the practical and immediate remedies. We will have a movement so widespread and effective that the Nation will rejoice and problems undreamed of now will be solved by an enlightened, unprejudiced public.

We should encourage men and money in the development of our resources, but by wise supervision control their operations. This government is bigger than any of its component parts, and not only have railroads and corporations felt its guiding hand to their betterment, but the court of final resort must always and forever be the people of this, our native land.

Let us strive for the highest type of citizenship which demands the best that is in us, and we will play our part in the ascendency of the star of the greatest of empires—the American Republic.

INCREASING THE YIELD BY PROPER CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL

By A. M. Ten Eyck, Professor of Farm Management Kansas State Agricultural College and Superintendent Fort Hays Branch Experiment Station.

How to increase the acre yield of staple crops is the important problem which the American farmer must solve in order that the world may not go hungry, and also that his own prosperity may continue. The average crop yields in this country are too low. It is possible to double our acre-yields of staple crops by adopting better farming methods.

There are three principal factors which have to do with increasing crop yields: (1) increasing the productive power of the land by fertilizing the soil; (2) planting seed of high-bred and better producing varieties; (3) practicing proper and more thorough cultivation of the soil.

The work in testing varieties and breeding crops at the Kansas Experiment Station has shown that it is possible to increase the average yield of the standard crops in this state twenty-five per cent by the single factor of introducing and planting pure seed of well-bred and high producing varieties. To illustrate,⁠[3] one of the improved varieties of winter wheat grown on the Kansas Agricultural College farm actually produced twelve and one-half bushels more grain per acre each year, or a net profit of nearly $7.00 per acre per annum, as an average for three years, above that produced by common scrub wheat of the same type. Farmers all over the state who have planted this improved wheat have reported similar results, the increase in yield from the well-bred wheat being often much larger than the differences secured at the station. It is hard to believe that one variety of wheat, improved by breeding and selection, will outyield another strain of the same variety, which has not been improved, as much as fifty per cent; but a large number of reports from reliable Kansas farmers indicate that this has occurred, when the two strains of wheat were grown in the same field side by side.

Corn is more susceptible to soil and climatic changes than wheat, so that the well-bred seed does not always give the best results from the first year’s planting; but breeding will tell in the corn crop, as shown by experiments at the Kansas Station,⁠[4] in which the high-yielding row, seed has produced from ten to twenty per cent larger yields per acre, and twenty-five to thirty-five per cent more good seed ears than the average corn from which the improved strain was originated.

The possibilities along this line of increasing the yield of corn by the planting of better seed are shown by the reports which have been received from Kansas farmers, reporting sixty and eighty-bushel yields where the average for the county was twenty or thirty bushels.

The soil of our western states is abundantly fertile; but mismanagement and continuous cropping with corn and wheat have reduced its productive power. It is possible by the proper use of barnyard manure to double the yield of corn and increase the yield of wheat thirty-three per cent, as shown by the results of the experiments at the Station. A single experiment in manuring wheat land previous to planting to alfalfa increased the wheat yield thirty-three per cent, and doubled the crops of alfalfa for the first two years after seeding, making a total increase in the returns per acre of nearly $45.00 for the three years, or $15.00 net increase per annum.⁠[5]⁠

It is possible by a proper rotation of crops, including alfalfa, clover and grasses, to double the productive capacity of thousands of acres of our western corn and wheat lands. This is shown by the experiments at the Kansas Station and by the reports of farmers. In 1906, a careful investigation of the corn yields of Jewell County, Kansas, made by Hon. J. W. Berry, formerly a member of the board of regents of the Kansas State Agricultural College, showed that the average yield from land previously in alfalfa was over eighty bushels per acre, while similar land on the same farm and adjoining farms, which had not been in alfalfa, yielded less than sixty bushels per acre on the average, and the average yield of corn in Jewell County for that year was less than thirty bushels per acre.

It has been shown by the experiments carried on for the last six years at the Station that it is possible to increase the yield of corn ten per cent simply by practicing better methods of preparing the seed-bed. When corn has been planted with the lister, winter or early spring plowing or listing of the ground previous to the planting has given an increase in crop as an average for six years, amounting to six bushels of corn per acre each year, as compared with ground which received no cultivation previous to planting.

Different methods of cultivation of corn, deep or shallow, etc., have not affected the yield so much as different methods of preparing the seed-bed, except where the cultivation of the corn was neglected. The lack of sufficient cultivation means greatly reduced yields or crop failure.

It is possible to increase the wheat yield of Kansas fifty per cent by practicing better methods of seed-bed preparation. As an average for two years’ trials, 1908 and 1909, at the Station the yield of wheat due to preparation of seed-bed alone varied from 21.6 to 37.4 bushels per acre, an increase of seventy-three per cent in yield due to the better preparation of the seed-bed.⁠[6]⁠

In 1911, one of the driest years which Kansas has ever experienced, this experiment was repeated with remarkable results. The most poorly prepared seed-bed (ground disked, not plowed) yielded a little over four bushels of wheat per acre, while the largest yield was thirty-eight bushels per acre from early deep plowing, which received frequent cultivation after plowing until seeding time. Ordinary loose ground, plowed late, yielded fourteen bushels per acre, while ground cultivated early with the lister plow and leveled with the disk harrow gave thirty-five bushels per acre. The better methods of seed-bed preparation employed in these experiments are such as may be successfully practiced throughout the Western winter wheat belt.

Of the three factors concerned with increasing the acre-yields, the last named, “Practicing Proper and More Thorough Cultivation of the Soil,” is the simplest and most readily applied. Probably more low yields and crop failures are due to insufficient or improper cultivation than to any other single factor over which the farmer has control in the production of any particular crop. With a soil of average fertility, the preparation of the seed-bed by the proper tillage and cultivation methods very largely determines the yield of the crop.

There are four important objects to be accomplished by cultivating the soil: 1. To secure a proper physical condition of the soil favorable to sprouting seed and promoting plant growth. 2. To kill weeds. 3. To conserve soil moisture. 4. To develop or prepare plant food.

The texture of the soil is nearly always more important than mere richness. Many “worn” lands have simply been robbed of their organic matter, often still containing an abundant supply of the mineral elements of plant food. Others have been injured in texture and hence in productiveness by careless or faulty management.

The maintenance and improvement of soil texture are more dependent upon plowing than upon any other operation of tillage. A finely divided, mellow soil is more productive than a hard lumpy one of the same chemical composition, because it affords greater feeding ground and more favorable environment for the plant roots; absorbs and retains more moisture, has better aeration, and less variable extremes of temperature. Also, because it promotes nitrification and the development of available plant food by giving favorable conditions for the development of soil bacteria, and for the decomposition and solution of the soil minerals. In all these ways and others, “mellowness” renders plant food more available and affords a more congenial, comfortable place in which the plants may grow.

Plowing, especially in the spring, tends to ventilate, warm and dry the seed-bed, and if properly done, lessens evaporation from the deeper soil by the development of a soil mulch above it.

Deep plowing brings up new stores of inert plant food, enlarges the moisture reservoir, deepens the seed-bed, gives more root room and more material for the soil bacteria to work over into available plant food. Deep plowing or subsoiling also serves to break up the plant food, to break up the “furrow-sole” or “hard-pan,” thus loosening up compact, impervious, clayey subsoils.

Plowing is an efficient means of destroying weeds and many kinds of injurious insects which prey on farm crops. Hard, clayey or “gumbo” soils are mellowed by late fall or winter plowing, and further, proper and timely plowing is the most efficient and practical means of preparing a suitable seed-bed for nearly all farm crops. Too many farmers who have allowed their land to become deficient in fertility seek to restore its productivity by application of expensive commercial fertilizers, without first putting it in good tilth. This is a great mistake. The way to treat such land is to “plow” it well, and work up a physical condition suitable for the best growth of crops. After all this is done, the application of concentrated commercial fertilizers may give profitable returns.

In order to secure the ideal condition for seed germination and plant growth, a seed-bed for planting small seeds should not be too deep and loose; rather the soil should be mellow, but well pulverized only about as deep as the seed is planted. Below the depth at which the seed is planted it should be firm and well settled, making a good connection with the subsoil, so that the water stored therein may be drawn up into the surface.

The firm soil below the seed, well connected with the subsoil, supplies the moisture to the seed, while the mellow soil above it allows sufficient circulation of air to supply oxygen and favors warming by gathering the heat of the sunshine during the day and acting as a blanket to conserve the soil heat, maintaining a more uniform temperature during the night.

The mellow soil above the seed conserves the moisture, acting as a mulch to keep the water from reaching the surface, where it would be rapidly lost by evaporation. The same condition favors the upward growth of the young shoots into the air and sunshine.

The loose, deep seed-bed is almost wholly dependent upon rains for sufficient moisture to germinate the seed and start the young plant. If the crop starts, it is very apt to be injured by short periods of dry weather, because of the rapid drying out of the loose surface soil. In such a seed-bed the crop is more apt to “burn out” in the summer, or “freeze out” in winter, than a crop grown in the “ideal” seed-bed described above.

It should not be inferred from this description of the “ideal” seed-bed that the soil should not be plowed deeply; rather, deep plowing should be encouraged, but timely, so that the soil may settle and fill with moisture, and such cultivation should be given after plowing, so as to secure a favorable physical condition of the seed-bed.

So far as cultivation is concerned there are three principal steps in the conservation of soil moisture:

1. The soil must be loosened to a considerable depth in order to prepare a reservoir to receive the rain and carry the water downward. This may be accomplished by deep plowing, by listing, or by disking unplowed lands.

2. The water which is carried down into the subsoil must be brought back again into the surface where the seed is germinating and the young roots are growing, and to accomplish this a good connection must be made between the furrow-slice and the subsoil, and this is the purpose in the use of the subsurface packer immediately after plowing.

3. Finally, in order that the water which is drawn up again towards the surface may not reach the air and be wasted by evaporation, the upper two or three inches of the soil must be kept mellow in the form of a soil mulch, and this is accomplished in the growing of crops, by frequent cultivation, which is not so practicable with wheat, and other small grains, as with corn and other intertilled crops.

The most important step in soil moisture conservation is to get the water into the soil. When this has been accomplished, the keeping it there and returning it gradually to the growing crop is a relatively simple matter. Many farmers have yet failed to learn this most important fact of dry farming, that the storing of the moisture is the first and great principle of soil moisture conservation. The firming and pulverizing to prepare the seed-bed, and the surface cultivation to maintain the mulch, are each without avail unless there has been stored in the deeper soil a sufficient amount of moisture to support the growing crop in time of drouth.

Now the moisture should be stored at all times during the season, but especially during the interval between harvest and planting. This requires early plowing so that the soil may be in condition to catch the rain and absorb it.

In order that there may be room to receive and store a heavy rain, deep plowing is desirable. If plowing can not be done early, the cultivation of the unplowed land with a disk harrow will keep the soil in good condition longer and favors the absorption of rain.

A good rule, but it cannot always be followed, is to plow when the soil is in such condition that it will drop from the mold-board in a mellow, friable condition.

Loosening the soil by deep plowing favors the absorption of moisture, but if rains do not come in time such land will suffer from drought more quickly than though it had been plowed shallow.

The loose soil dries out and capillarity is broken, preventing the furrow-slice from receiving moisture from the subsoil rapidly enough to sustain the growing crop. The depth and frequency of plowing should vary according to the nature of the soil. A light or sandy soil requires less depth of plowing and less frequent plowing than a heavy, or compact clayey or “gumbo” soil.

As a general proposition, plowing should be shallow when it precedes planting only a short time.

Plow deep in the fall, and plow deep for summer fallow.

A long interval between plowing and seeding allows the soil to settle sufficiently, while freezing and thawing mellow the raw, hard subsoil which has been brought to the surface.

The relative depths of plowing may be stated as follows:

Shallow plowing 3 to 4 inches.

Medium plowing 5 to 6 inches.

Deep plowing 7 to 8 inches.

Plowing deeper than eight inches with the common plow is not usually practicable, but the soil may be stirred twelve to eighteen inches deep with a tillage plow or subsoil plow, and in heavy soil with hard, compact subsoil, such deep stirring may occasionally be desirable.

When land is allowed to lie for a considerable period after plowing before the crop is planted, the settling of the soil, together with the surface cultivation to preserve the mulch and the cementing due to rain, usually causes it to repack and firm up to a sufficient extent to make a good seed-bed.

The use of the packer is most essential on late spring plowing, when the purpose is to plant at once. It is not so necessary to use the subsurface packer on fall plowing which is not intended to be planted until the following spring, but for sowing fall wheat, if the plowing precedes the sowing by a very short interval, the subsurface packer may be used very advantageously.

The principle involved in the use of the subsurface packer is correct, and the lighter the soil and the greater its tendency to remain loose and mellow the more necessary becomes the use of the subsurface packer or similar implement, in order to prepare a proper seed-bed.

In plowing under trash or manure, subsurface packing, by pulverizing the bottom of the furrow-slice, sifts the soil through the coarse trash and causes a better union with the subsoil below, so that the capillary water may be drawn up into the surface, whereas, if a heavy coat of stubble or manure plowed under in this way is left without packing or pulverizing, the furrow-slice is apt to dry out and the crop that is growing on the land may be injured by a short interval of dry weather.

By setting the disks rather straight and weighting the harrow, a disc-harrow may be used as a substitute for the subsurface packer, resulting in a pulverizing and firming effect at the bottom of the furrow-slice. Very often, however, early plowing, with the proper use of the common harrow, may largely accomplish the results required in preparing a proper seed-bed. It is usually advisable to weight or ride the common straight-tooth harrow in order to cause it to stir and pulverize the soil deeper and prevent the “slicking” effect which is apt to result from light harrowing.

The cultivation necessary, after early plowing, to destroy weeds, in the experience of the writer, has usually been sufficient to settle and pulverize the seed-bed. For the early cultivation after a good rain and after the weeds have started, there is no implement superior to the disk harrow. The double disk which gives two cultivations and leaves the ground level, being preferred. For late cultivation the common harrow or the Acme harrow should be used with the purpose of not loosening the ground too deeply just previous to planting or seeding.

It is very essential that sufficient and proper cultivation be given to destroy weeds. This is more important than to maintain a soil mulch, since weeds exhaust both the soil moisture and the available plant food. If a proper mulch is maintained, however, the weeds will be kept in subjection. In the ideal system of culture the purpose is to keep a mellow soil mulch on the surface of the land all of the time, not only during the growing of the crop, but also in the interval between harvest and seeding time. Thus, after the corn is planted the land is cultivated with the weeder or harrow in order to break the surface crust and prevent the loss of moisture, and following out the same principle the harrowing or work with the weeder is continued after the grain or corn is up, and during the growing period frequent cultivation is required for intertilled crops.

Again, after the crop is harvested, the cultivation is continued; the land is plowed at once or listed, or the surface of the soil is loosened with the disk harrow, and thus the land is kept continually in a condition to not only prevent the loss of water already stored in the soil, but also this same condition and mellow surface favors the absorption of rain and largely prevents the loss of water by surface drainage.

The smooth, finely-pulverized surface left by continuous light harrowing really defeats the purpose of the cultivation, since soil in such condition will shed heavy rains, causing a waste of water which should have been stored, and the surface often becomes too fine and compact, preventing the proper aeration, and producing an unfavorable seed-bed condition. Thus during the interval between crops, it is often advisable to use the Acme harrow or the disk, or spring-tooth harrow, in order to keep the surface of the soil open and mellow.

A new method for preparing the seed-bed is now coming into general practice in Western Kansas. In preparing land for wheat, the plan is to list the ground with the ordinary corn lister as soon after harvest as possible. The lister furrows are run about three to three and a half feet apart, very much the same as when the lister is used for planting corn. Later, when the weeds have started, the soil is worked back into the lister furrows by means of a harrow or disk cultivator.

Several cultivations are usually required by the harrow, and disk harrow, in order to level the field and bring it into good seed-bed condition. Once over with the disk cultivator is usually considered sufficient, the further work necessary to prepare the seed-bed being given with the common harrow or other cultivating implement.

In a dry climate this method of preparing the seed-bed has several advantages, as follows:

The cultivation of the land soon after harvest tends to conserve the moisture already stored in the soil. The furrowed land is in good condition to catch and store the rain and the later cultivation clears the land of weeds and volunteer wheat and leaves a mellow soil mulch to conserve the moisture which has been stored in the subsoil. The early and continued cultivation of the soil favors the action of the bacteria and the development of available plant food.

By practicing this method the farmer may cultivate a larger area early in the season when the soil is in good condition, when if it had been necessary to plow the whole area, some of the land might become too dry to plow well. Likewise the later plowing leaves the soil too loose and not in good seed-bed condition. In preparing land for corn, the listing may be done late in the fall or during the winter, or early spring. The usual plan being to split the ridges with the lister later in the spring when the corn is planted. It is advisable to harrow the listed field once or twice before planting to destroy weeds, or prevent soil drifting and to preserve a mellow soil mulch to conserve the water which has been stored in the subsoil. In preparing land for corn, the early listing has proved equal to early plowing and superior to early disking, as shown by the experiments at the Kansas Station.

In the drier portions of the great plains area and throughout the mountain states, where dry farming is practiced, the annual rainfall is not sufficient to produce a crop every year, and it becomes necessary to practice a system of summer fallowing every third or fourth season, or in alternate years in localities of least rainfall, in order to store moisture and develop plant food and thus insure the production of a profitable crop each year.

Deep plowing either in the fall or spring, and frequent surface cultivation as described above is the method of summer fallowing which has given the best results at the Montana, Western Nebraska, and Western Kansas Experiment Stations.