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Copyright N°

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT:

THE STORY OF LHE SOIL

vi.

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Annee

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Left behind at Winterbine.

Be SVYORY OF
onl BOLL

From the Basis of Absolute Science
and Real Life

BY
CYRIL G. HOPKINS

Author of “Soci Fertility and Permanent Agriculture’

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
IQII

Copyright, 1910, by Richard G. Badger.

All Rights Reserved.

THE @ORHAM PRESS, BosTow, U.S. A.

TO MY WIFE

PREFACE

Truth is better than fiction; and this true story
of the soil is written in co-operation with the Press
of America and in competition with popular fiction.

The scenes described exist; the references given
can all be found and verified; and the data quoted
are exact, although some of the story dates antedate
the scientific data.

As a rule the names employed are substitutes, but
the general localities are as specified.

If the Story of the Soil should ever fall into the
hands of any individual who suspects that he has
contributed to its information, the author begs that
he will accept as belonging to himself every graci-
ous attribute and take it for granted that anything
of opposite savor was due to autosuggestion.

CyriL G. HopkKINs.

University of Illinois,

Urbana.

CHAPTER

CONTENTS

PAGE
The Old Soutiiisa ho Wai a3 II
Forty Acres in the Corn Belt..... 14
Lincoln’s View of Agriculture... 18
Eisfe’s Choice Ls eee ss" 25
Worn Out Farms......0++++++° 28
The Musicalew\ oo nau anys ay is a3
A Bit of Histovguay rion eee 37
Mesiover: .. jana ae Bae wee 2 40
The Black. Per. Dee eee 51
The Slave and the Freeman..... 56
Judgment is Come........--++: 63
The Resioration {6 3Veeen cae 67
Why Percy Went to College.... 78
A Lesson in Farm Science....... 81
Cwéducation .. .'s 2 Rae Hes IOI
Past Self-redemption .........- I14
More Problems ......2.+2++-:- TI9
Closer to Mother Earth....... 131
From Richmond to Washington... 143
A Lesson in Optimism......... 146
In the Office of the Chief....... 149
The Chemist's Laboratory...... 157

Mathematics Applied to Agricul-
ture

CHAPTER
XXIV

XXV
XXVI
XXVIT
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
MA ALE
XXXII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVI
XX X1LX
vee

AT
XLIT

CONTENTS

PAGE
The Nation's Capra. cat 165
A’ Lesson on! Tobago re 173
Another Lesson on \Tobacco..... 180
Eighicen to een ve melas 186
Farmer or Professog oe es Un 192
The Ultimate Comparison....... 201
“Stone SOUP UIE so nuMeiunl Kae 222
Cheortes Verse aets oa liane 234
Guessing and (Gassing a. .\.\s meinen 240
The Diagnosis and Prescription.. 255
Planning forget clas anaes 261
Sealed. Lidia i Ui eae ete. Melber athe 275
Hard Time a is eae 278
Harder (Tie sone 287
An Awakening Dream.....<.... 310
Honey FV Rout Hi ak s)he eieneng 314
INSDIFAHGR Ne Wiehe iain a aa ee 316
The Kind epaarcene) seeks a nate 321

Advance Information ........+ 343

ILLUSTRATIONS

here behind at: WY interbinay ea). 5) Frontispiece v

One plant with no plant food, and one with all
the essential elements provided, and still
another with but one element lacking. All
planted the same day and cared for alike.. 106°

Corn on peatty swamp land, yielding 45 bushels
per acre when potassium was applied, but
complete failure on the untreated plot.... 108 \

Tubercles about as large as peas on the roots of
the cowpea. One tubercle may contain a
OS) POPNIS 5) 5 OST PR Ea 206

A world of work and 11 bushels of oats per acre 282°

“T wish you could have seen the untreated check
NAPS Dee LRA gOnem EA PRRPA 2 20) 44 87 343
“But I cut where it yielded two tons per acre’... 344

Limestone and raw rock phosphate makes the
difference between clover and no clover.. 348

ne Story) ot The Sol

CHAPTER I
THE OLD SOUTH

ERCY JOHNSTON stood waiting on the
broad veranda of an old-style Southern
home, on a bright November day in
1903. He had just come from Blue
Mound Station, three miles away, with
suit-case in hand.

‘Would it be possible for me to secure room and
board here for a few days?” he inquired of the
elderly woman who answered his knock.

‘Would it be possible?” she repeated, apparently
asking herself the question, while she scanned the
face of her visitor with kindly eyes that seemed to
look beneath the surface.

‘‘T beg your pardon, my name is Johnston, — Percy
Johnston—”’ he said with some embarrassment and
hesitation, realizing from her speech and manner
that he was not addressing a servant.

‘“‘No pardon is needed for that name,’’ she inter-
rupted; “Johnston is a name we’re mighty proud of
here in the South.”

“But I am from the West,” he said.

‘“‘We’re proud of the West, too; and you should
feel right welcome here, for this is ‘Westover,’ ”
waving her hand toward the broad fields surround-
ing the old mansion house. “I am Mrs. West, or
at least I used to be. Perhaps the title better be-
longs to my son’s wife at the present time; while I
am mother, grandma, and great-grandmother.

II

’

12 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘Yes, sir, you will be very welcome to share our
home for a few days if you wish; and we’ll take you
as a boarder. We used to entertain my husband’s
friends from Richmond,—and from Washington,
too, before the sixties; but since then we have grown
poor, and of late years we take some summer
boarders. ‘They have all returned to the city, how-
ever, the last of them having left only yesterday;
so you can have as many rooms as you like.

‘‘Adelaide!”’ she called.

A rugged girl of seventeen entered the hall from
a rear room.

‘“This is my granddaughter, Adelaide, Mr. Johns-
ton.”

Percy looked into her eyes for an instant; then
her lashes dropped. He remembered afterward
that they were like her grandmothers, and he found
ai ae repeating, ““The eye is the window of the
soul.”’

“My dear, will you ask Wilkes to show Mr.
Johnston to the southwest room, and to put a fire
in the grate and warm water in the pitcher ?”’

‘Thank you, that will not be necessary,” said
Percy. “I wish to see and learn as much as possible
of the country hereabout, and particularly of the
farm lands; and, if I may leave my suit-case to be
sent to my room when convenient, I shall take a
walk,—perhaps a long walk. When should I be
back to supper.”

‘At six or half past. My son Charles has gone
to Montplain, but he will be home for dinner.
He knows the lands all about here and will be glad,
I am sure, to give you any information possible.”

With rapid strides Percy followed the private
lane to the open fields of Westover.

“Ts he a cowboy, Grandma?” asked Adelaide, in
a tone which did not suggest a very high regard for

THE OLD SOUTH 13

cowboys. “Anyway,” she continued, detecting a
shade of disapproval in the grandmother’s face, “‘he
has a cowboy’s hat, but he doesn’t wear buckskin
trousers or spurs.”’

Percy’s hat was a relic of college life. Two years
before he had completed the agricultural course at
one of the state universities in the corn belt. Some-
what above the average in size, well proportioned,
accustomed to the heaviest farm work, and trained
in football at college, he was a sturdy young giant,
—‘‘strong as an ox and quick as lightning,”’ in the
exaggerated language of his football admirers.

CHAPTER II
Forty ACRES IN THE CorN BELT

ERCY JOHNSTON’S grandfather had
gone west from ‘“‘York State’’ and secured
from the federal government a 160-acre
‘‘Claim” of the rich corn belt land. His
father had received through inheritance
only 40 acres of this; and, marrying his

choice from the choir of the local Lutheran congre-
gation, he had farmed his forty and an adjoining
eighty acres, “rented on shares,” for only three
years, when he was taken with pneumonia from ex-
posure and overwork, and died within a week.

Percy was scarcely a year old when his father was
laid in the grave; but to the sorrowing mother he
was all that life held dear. Existence seemed pos-
sible to her only because she could bestow upon him
her double affection and because the double duties
which she took upon herself completely occupied her
time.

She was not in immediate financial need, for her
husband had been able to put some money in the
bank during the last year, after having paid for his
“outfit; the forty-acre farm was free from debt,
but under the law it must remain the joint property
of mother and child for twenty years.

Wisely or unwisely she rejected every opportunity
presented that would have given Percy a stepfather.
As daughter and wife she had learned much of the
art of agriculture, and, after some consultation with
a neighbor who seemed to be successful, she made her
own plans.

In her make up, sentiment was balanced with sense.
Even as a young wife she had sometimes driven the

14,

FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 16

mower or the sell-binder to ‘“‘help-out,”’ and she had
found pleasure and health in such hours of out-door
life. “I can work and not overwork,”’ she said to
her friends; and in any case the crops seemed to grow
better under the eye of the mistress.

Some years she employed a neighbor boy or girl,
and always hired such other help as she needed.
Prices were sometimes low and crops were not always
good; and only widowed mothers can know the full
story of her labor, love and sacrifice. With Percy’s
help he was sent to school and finally to the univer-
sity, choosing for himself the agricultural college,
much to the surprise and disappointment of his de-
voted mother.

“Why,” she asked, “why should my son go to
college to study agriculture? Have you not studied
farming in the practical school of experience all your
life? Surely we have done as much as could be done
on our own little farm; and you have also had the
benefit of the longer experience of our best farmers
hereabout, and of the accumulated wisdom of our
ancestors. Oh, I had hoped and truly believed that
you would become interested in engineering, or in
medicine, or may be in the law. I cannot understand
why you should think of going to college to study
farming. Surely you already know more than the
college professors do about agriculture.”’

Percy’s mother had too much good sense to have
raised a spoiled boy. He had been taught to work
and to think for himself. She loved her boy far bet-
ter than her own life,—loved as only a widowed
mother can who has risked her life for him, and who
has given to him all her thought and all her energy
from the best twenty years of her own life; but she
had never let herself enjoy that kind of selfishness
which prompts a mother to do for her child what he
should be taught to do for himself. Despite his

16 THE STORY \ OF THE Sor

natural love of sport and the severe trials he had
often brought to her patience and perseverance dur-
ing his boyhood days, he had reached a development
with the advance of youth that satisfied her high
ideal. His love and appreciation and tender care for
her repaid her every day, she told herself, for all the
years of watching, working, waiting. Never before
had he withstood her positive wish and final judg-
ment.

And yet it was she who had told him that he alone
must choose his life work and his college course in
preparation for that work; but, after the years of
toil, she had not dreamed that he would choose the
farm life.

‘“My darling boy,” she continued, “it leads to
nothing. This little farm is poorer to-day than it
was when your dear father and I came here to live
and labor. ‘To be sure, the lower held still grows as
good or better crops than ever; but I can remember
when that field was so wet and swampy that it could
not be cultivated, and it was in the work of ditching
and tiling that field,” she sobbed, ‘“‘that your father
took the sickness that caused his death.”’

Tears were in Percy’s eyes as he put his arm about
his mother and wiped her tears away.

‘‘But I must tell you what I know to be the truth,”’
she went on quickly. ‘“The older fields that your grand-
father cultivated are less productive now than when
he received them from our generous government.
Indeed, it was your father’s plan to continue to farm
here only for a few years longer until he could save
enough to enable him, with what we could have got-
ten from the sale of our own forty, to go farther west
and purchase a large farm of virgin soil. He realized,
my Son, that even that part of his father’s farm that
was first put under cultivation was becoming distinctly
reduced in productiveness. He remembered, too, the

FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 17

stories often repeated by your grandfather of the
run-down condition of the once exceedingly fertile
soils of the Mohawk Valley and other parts of New
York State.

‘And you know, Percy, there were many Dutch
farmers settled in New York. They were probably
the best farmers among all who came to America
from the Old World. I have heard your grandfather
explain their use of crop rotation, and they under-
stood well the value of clover and farm fertilizers.
But with all of their skill and knowledge, the land
grew poor, and now the very farm upon which
Grandpa was born is not worth as much as the actual
cost of the farm buildings. I hope you will consider
all of this. ‘The farm life is so unpromising for you,
and there are such great opportunities for success in
other lines. Still I feel that you must decide this ques-
tion for yourself, my Son, but tell me why you would
choose the life and work of a farmer.”

CHAPTER III
LINCOLN’s VIEW OF AGRICULTURE

ERCY had listened without interrupting,
grieved at her disappointment, and open
to any reasoning that might change his
mind.

‘Mother dearest,’ he said, “it was a
year ago that you said I would have only
till this fall to decide upon my college course and
that it should be a special preparation for my life
work. I have given much thought to it. You said
that I should choose for myself, and I have not con-
sulted much with others, but I have tried to con-
sider the matter from different points of view.
‘You know the Christmas present you gave me
of the Lincoln books ?”’ |
‘Yes, [ know, and you have read them so much.
I could not get you many books, but I knew there
could be nothing better for my boy to read than the
thoughts of that noble man. But, Percy dear, Lin-
coln was a lawyer, and he rose from the lowest walk
in life to the highest position in the country, and with
much less preparation than my own boy will have.
Suppose he had remained a farmer! Surely no
such success could ever have been reached. I am
not so foolish as to have any such high hopes for
you, Percy; but if you can only put yourself in the
way of opportunity, and make such _prepara-
tion as’ you. can | tol fll) with creda eeme
position of responsibility that may be offered
you! I had truly hoped that your study of Lin-
coln’s life would influence yours. To me Lincoln
was the noblest of all the noble men of our history,
18

LINCOLN’S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 19

and I doubt not of all history, save Him who came
to redeem the world.”

Percy stepped to his little homemade bookcase
and took a volume from the Lincoln set.

‘May I read you some words of Lincoln?” he
asked.

“Oh yes,” she answered wonderingly.

"On September 30th, 1859,’’ said Percy, | ‘Lin-
coln gave an address at Milwaukee, before the State
Agricultural Society of Wisconsin, and of all the
addresses of Lincoln it seems to me that this is the
greatest, because it deals with the greatest material
problem of the United States. I think I have
scarcely heard a public address in which the speaker
has not dwelt upon the fact that the farmer must
feed and clothe the world; and it seems to me that
the missionaries always speak of the famines and
starvation of so many people in India and other old
countries. Do you remember the lecture by the
medical missionary? Well, would it not be better
to send agricultural missionaries to India and China
to teach those people how to raise crops?

‘T have read and reread this address more than
any other in the Lincoln set. Let me read you some
of the paragraphs I have marked.

‘After making some introductory remarks about
the value of agricultural fairs, Lincoln began his
address as follows:

“I presume I am not expected to employ the
time assigned me in the mere flattery of
the farmers as a class. My opinion of them
is that, in proportion to numbers, they are
neither better nor worse than other people.
In the nature of things they are more numerous
than any other class; and I believe there are really
more attempts at flattering them than any other,
the reason of which I cannot perceive, unless it be

20 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

that they can cast more votes than any other. On re-
flection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause
of suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort
a politician and in no sort a farmer, to address you.

“But farmers being the most numerous class, it
follows that their interest is the largest interest. It
also follows that that interest is most worthy of all
to be cherished and cultivated—that if there be
inevitable conflict between that interest and any
other, that other should yield.

‘Again, I suppose that it is not expected of me to
impart to you much specific information on agricul-
ture. You have no reason to believe, and do not be-
lieve, that I possess it; if that were what you seek in
this address, any one of your own number or class
would be more able to furnish it. You, perhaps, do
expect me to give some general interest to the occa-
sion, and to make some general suggestions on prac-
tical matters. I shall attempt nothing more. And in
such suggestions by me, quite likely very littie will be
new to you, and a large part of the rest will be pos-
sibly already known to be erroneous.

‘““My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect
of greater thoroughness in all the departments of
agriculture than now prevails in the Northwest—per-
haps I might say in America. To speak entirely with-
in bounds, it is known that fifty bushels of wheat, or
one hundred bushels of Indian corn, can be produced
from an acre.’ ”

Percy paused: ‘You know, Mother, that our corn
has averaged some less than fifty bushels per acre for
the last five years, and as you say, the lower field has
been much better than the old land, and I think you
are quite right in your belief that as an average the
land is growing poorer although we cultivate better
than we used to do, and our seed corn is of the best
variety and saved with much care. But let me read

LINCOLN’S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 21

further :

‘Less than a year ago I saw it stated that a man,
by extraordinary care and labor, had produced of
wheat what was equal to two hundred bushels from
an acre. But take fifty of wheat, and one hundred of
corn, to be the possibility, and compare it with the
actual crops of the country. Many years ago I saw
it stated, in a patent office report, that eighteen bush-
els was the average crop throughout the United
States; and this year an intelligent farmer of [Ili-
nois assured me that he did not believe the land har-
vested in that State this season had yielded more
than an average of eight bushels to the acre; much
was cut, and then abandoned as not worth threshing,
and much was abandoned as not worth cutting.’ ”’

‘IT know it is true,’’ said the mother, ‘“‘that wheat
was once very much grown in Central and Northern
Illinois, but 1859 must have been an unusually poor
year, for it was grown for twenty years after that,
although it finally failed so completely that its culti-
vation has been practically abandoned in those sec-
tions for nearly twenty years. However, the chinch
bugs were a very important factor in discouraging
wheat growing and the land has been very good for
corn, especially since the tile-drainage was put in;
but on the whole is it not as I told you?”

“But note these statements,’’ said Percy, turning
again to the book:

“Tt is true that heretofore we have had better
crops with no better cultivation, but I believe that it
is also true that the soil has never been pushed up to
one-half of its capacity.

‘“ What would be the effect upon the farming
interest to push the soil up to something near its full
capacity?”

‘“‘But what can he mean,”’ said the mother. ‘‘How
can anyone do better than we have done? We change

a2 THE STORY (OF (Tei sol:

our crops, and sow clover with the oats, and return
as much as we can to the land. But let me hear
further what Lincoln said:”

“Yes, Mother, this is what he said:

‘‘ ‘Unquestionably it will take more labor to pro-
duce fifty bushels of wheat from an acre than it will
to produce ten bushels from the same acre; but will
it take more labor to produce fifty bushels from one
acre than from five? Unquestionably thorough cul-
tivation will require more labor to the acre; but will
it require more to the bushel? If it should require
just as much to the bushel, there are some probable,
and several certain, advantages in favor of the thor-
ough practice. It is probable it would develop those
unknown causes which of late years have cut down
our crops below their former average. It is almost
certain, I think, that by deeper plowing, analysis of
the soils, experiments with manures and varieties of
seeds, observance of seasons, and the like, these
causes would be discovered and remedied. It is cer-
tain that thorough cultivation would spare half, or
more than half, the cost of land, simply because the
same produce would be got from half, or from less
than half, the quantity of land. This proposition is
self-evident, and can be made no plainer by repeti-
tions or illustrations. The cost of land is a great
item, even in new countries, and it constantly grows
greater and greater, in comparison with other items,
as the country grows older.’ ”

Percy paused and said: ‘If I understand correctly
these words of Lincoln, the land need not become
poor. But I do not know why land becomes poor.
I do not know what the soil contains, nor do I know
what corn is made of. We plow the ground and plant
the seed and cultivate and harvest the crop, but I do
not know what the corn crop, or any crop, takes from
the soil. I want to learn how to analyze the soil and

LINCOLN’S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 23

crop and to find out if possible why soils become poor,
in order, as Lincoln suggests, that the cause may be
discovered and remedied.”

“Tt may be that the college professors could teach
you in that way,” said the mother, ‘“‘but you know the
farm life is so full of work and so empty of mental
culture.”’

“T used to think so too,” said Percy, “but I fear
we have worked too much with our hands and too
little with our minds; that we have done much work
in blindness as to the actual causes that control our
crop yields; and that we have not found the mental
culture that may be found in the farm life. Let me
read again. These are Lincoln’s words:

‘* ‘No other human occupation opens so wide a field
for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor
with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know noth-
ing so pleasant to the mind as the discovery of any-
thing that is at once new and valuable—nothing that
so lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pursuit
of such discovery. And how vast and how varied a
field is agriculture for such discovery! ‘The mind,
already trained to thought in the country school, or
higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaust-
less source of enjoyment. Every blade of grass is a
study; and to produce two where there was but one
is both a profit and a pleasure. And not grass alone,
but soils, seeds, and seasons—hedges, ditches, and
fences—draining, droughts, and irrigation—plowing,
hoeing, and harrowing—reaping, mowing, and thresh-
ing—saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops,
and what will prevent or cure them—implements,
utensils, and machines, their relative merits, and how
to improve them—hogs, horses, and cattle—sheep,
goats and poultry—trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and
flowers—the thousand things of which these are
specimens—each a world of study within itself.

24 THE STORY OF Die 301.

“In all this book learning is available. A capac-
ity and taste for reading gives access to whatever
has already been discovered by others. It is the
key, or one of the keys, to the already solved prob-
lems. And not only so: it gives a relish and facility
for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. The
rudiments of science are available, and highly avail-
able. Some knowledge of botany assists in dealing
with the vegetable world—with all growing crops.
Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection
and application of manures, and in numerous other
ways. The mechanical branches of natural phil-
osophy are ready help in almost everything, but es-
pecially in reference to implements and machinery.

“The thought recurs that education—cultivated
thought—can best be combined with agricultural
labor, on the principle of thorough work; that
careless, half-performed, slovenly work makes no
place for such combination; and thorough work,
again, renders sufficient the smallest quantity of
ground to each man; and this, again, conforms to
what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and
more devoted to the arts of peace than heretofore.
Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than
in former times, and ere long the most valuable of
all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable
subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No com.
munity whose every member possesses this art, can
ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms.
Such community will be alike independent of crown-
ed kings, money kings, and land kings.’ ”

CHAPTER IV
LIFE’s CHOICE

ERCY read these words as though they
were his own; and perhaps we may say
they were his own, for, as Emerson
says: ‘Thought is the property of him
who can entertain it.”

The mother listened, first with won-
der; then with deepened interest, which changed to
admiration for the language and for her son, who
seemed to be filled with the spirit which had led
Lincoln to see the problems and the possibilities of
the farm life in a light that was wholly new.

‘Surely those are noble thoughts,” she said,
‘from a noble and wise man. I shall only hope that
you will find some opportunity to make the best pos-
sible of your life. We have such a small farm, and
the land hereabout is all so high in price that to en-
large the farm seems almost hopeless. In part be-
cause of this difficulty it had seemed to me that
greater opportunities might be open for you in other
lines. Don’t you feel that you will be greatly handi-
capped in the beginning ?”

‘‘Perhaps,” said Percy, “in some ways: but not in
other ways. We hear on every hand that this is an
age of specialists, that the most successful man can-
not take time to prepare himself well for many dif-
ferent lines of work; that he must make the best
possible preparation in some one line for which he
may have special talent or special interest; and then
endeavor to go farther in that line than any one has
gone before. When I first wrote to the State Uni-
versity I asked how long a time would likely be re-

25

26 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

quired for me to complete all the subjects that are
taught there, and the registrar replied that, if I could
carry heavy work every year, I might hope to take
all the courses now offered in about seventy years.
In considering this point of preparation for future
work, it has seemed to me that if I leave the farm
life and devote myself to law or to engineering, I
must in large measure sacrifice about ten years of
valuable experience in practical agriculture. I have
learned enough about farming so that I can manage
almost as well as the neighbors; and without this
knowledge, gathered, as you say, in the school of
experience, I can see that serious mistakes would
often be made.

‘You know that Doctor Miller bought the Bron-
son farm two years ago. Well, he has been giving
some directions himself concerning its management.
He has had no experience in farming, and last year,
after he had the new barn built, he directed his men
to put the sheaf oats in the barn so they would be
safe from the weather. He did not understand that
oats must stand in the shock for two or three weeks
to become thoroughly ‘“‘cured”’ before they can safe-
ly be even stacked out of doors; and the result was
that his entire oat crop rotted in the barn.

‘People who have lived always in the city some-
times express the most amusing opinions of farm
conditions so well understood even by a ten-year-
old country boy. I recently overheard two travel-
ing men remarking about the differences which they
could plainly observe between the corn crops in dif-
ferent fields as they rode past in the train.

‘“ ‘Some fields have twice as good corn as other
adjoining fields,’ one remarked. ‘How do you
account for the difference,’ asked the other. ‘Oh, I
suppose the one farmer was too stingy of his seed,’
was the reply.

LIFE’S CHOICE 27

‘“‘T am convinced that there are hundreds or per-
haps thousands of valuable facts that have been ac-
quired through experience and observation by the
average farm boy of eighteen or twenty years that
would be of little or no value to him in most other
occupations; and in this respect I should be handi-
capped if I leave the farm life and begin wholly at
the bottom in some other profession. Perhaps ag-
riculture is not a profession, but I think it should be
if the highest success is to be attained.”’

‘“T surely hope you will be successful, Percy, and
your reasoning sounds alright; but other occupations
seem to lead to greater wealth than farming.”

‘I very much doubt,” replied Percy, “if there is
any other occupation that is so uniformly successful
as farming, in the truest sense. It provides con-
stant employment, a good living, and a comfortable
home for nearly all who engage in it; and as a rule
they have made no such preparation as is required
for most other lines of work.

“But there is still another side to the farm life,
Mother dear, or to any life for that matter. Your
own life has taught me that to work for the love of
others is a motive which directs the noblest lives. If
agricultural missionaries are needed in India, they
are also needed in parts of our own country where
farm lands that were once productive are now great-
ly depleted and in some cases even abandoned for
farming; and if the older lands of the corn belt are
already showing a decrease in productive power, we
need the missionary even here. If I can learn how
to make land richer and richer and lead others to
follow such a system, I should find such satisfaction
in the effort.”

CHAPTER ON
Worn Out Farms

i ELL, you found some mighty poor
land, I reckon,’ was the greeting
Percy received from Grandma West
as he returned from his walk over
Westover and some neighboring
farms.

‘T found some land that produces very poor
crops,” he replied, “‘but I don’t know yet whether I
should say that the land is poor.”

“Well, I know it’s about as poor as poor can be;
but it was not always poor, I can tell you. When
I was a girl, if this farm did not produce five or six
thousand bushels of wheat, we thought it a poor
crop; but now, if we get five or six hundred bushels,
we think we are doing pretty well. My husband’s
father paid sixty-eight dollars an acre for some of
this land, and it was worth more than that a few years
later and, mind you, in those days wheat was worth
less and niggers a mighty sight more than they are
nowadays; but, somehow, the land has just grown
poor. We don’t know how. We have worked hard,
and we have kept as much stock as we could, but we
could never produce enough fertilizer on the farm to
go very far on a thousand acres.

‘Yes, Sir, we have just about a thousand acres here,
and we still own it,—and with no mortgage on it,
I’m mighty glad to say. But, laws, the land is poor,
and you can get all the land you want about here for
ten dollars an acre. There comes Charles, now. He
can tell you all about this country for more than
twenty miles, I reckon.

28

WORN OUT FARMS 29

Wilkes!’ A negro servant answered the call,
and took the horse as Charles West stopped at the
side gate.

‘Wilkes was born here in slave times, nigh sixty
years ago,” she continued. ‘He is three years older
than my son Charles. He has remained with us ever
since the war, except for a few months when he went
away one time just to see for sure that he was free
and could go. But he came back mighty homesick
and he’ll want to stay here till he dies I reckon.

“Charles, this is Mr. Johnston, Percy Johnston,
as he says; but he thinks he is no kin of General Joe
or Albert Sidney. He’s been looking at the land
hereabout, but I don’t think he’l! want any of it after
seeing the kind of crops we raise.”

With this introduction, the mother disappeared
within the house, and Charles took her seat on the
vine-covered veranda.

‘“T feel that I owe an apology to you, Sir,’ said
Percy, “for presenting myself here with bag and
baggage, and asking to share the hospitality of your
home, with no previous arrangements having been
made; but by chance I met your friend, Doctor God-
dard, on the train, and, in answer to my inquiry as
to whom I could go to for correct information con-
cerning the history and present condition and value
of farm lands in this section of the country, he ad-
vised me to stop off at Blue Mound Station and con-
sult with you. Had I known that you were to be in
Montplain to-day, of course [ should have gone di-
rectly there. Your mother very graciously consented
to receive me as a belated summer boarder, a kind-
ness which [| greatly appreciate, I assure you.

‘My mother and I have a small farm in Illinois,
—so small that it would be lost in such an estate as
Westover, but the price of land is very high in the
West at the present time; and I am really consider-

30 THE ‘STORY OF THE) S50i1L

ing the question of selling our little forty-acre farm
and purchasing two or three hundred acres in the
East or South. My thought is that I might secure
a farm that was once good land, but that has been
run down to such an extent that it can be bought for
perhaps ten or twenty dollars an acre. I should want
the land to be nearly level so that it would not be
difficult to prevent damage from surface washing. I
should prefer, of course, to purchase where there is
a good road and not more than five miles from a rail-
way station.

“Tf I secure such a farm, it would be my purpose
to restore its fertility. If possible I should want to
make the land at least as productive as it ever was,
even in its virgin state.”

“Well, Sir,” said Mr. West, “if you could accom-
plish your purpose and ultimately show a balance on
the right side of the ledger, it would be a work of
very great value to this country. There will be no
difficulty in securing such land as you want with loca-
tion and price to suit you; but I think that you should
know in advance that older men than you have pur-
chased farms hereabout with very similar intentions,
but with the ultimate result that they have lost more,
financially, than we who are native to the soil; for,
while we were once well-to-do and are now poor, we
still own our land, impoverished as it is. However,
the farm still furnishes us a comfortable living, sup-
plemented, to be sure, with some income from other
sources.

“T am very willing to give as much information as
I can regarding our lands and the agricultural condi-
tions and common practices, although I fear that this
knowledge will discourage you from making any in-
vestments in our worn-out farms. If you still de-
cide to make the trial, I surely hope you will be suc-
cessful, for we need such an object lesson above all

WORN OUT FARMS aj

else.

‘‘T assume that you will wish to locate near a town
of considerable size, in order that you can haul
manures from town, and perhaps some feed also;
and have a good market for your milk and other
products.”’

“No, Sir,” said Percy, “I should prefer not to
engage in dairying, and I do not wish to make use of
fertilizer made from my neighbors’ crops. We have
some object lessons of that kind in my own state; and
I have no doubt that some can be found in this state
who feed all they produce on their own land and per-
haps even larger amounts of feed purchased from
their neighbors, or hauled from town, and who, in
addition to using all of the farm fertilizer thus pro-
duced, haul considerable amounts of such materials
from the livery stables in town. With much hard
work, with a good market for the products of the
dairy and truck garden, and with business skill in pur-
chasing feed from their neighbors when prices are
low, such men succeed as individuals; but do they
furnish an object lesson which could be followed by
the general farmer ?”’

‘‘T had not looked at the matter from that point of
view,’ said Mr. West, “but it is plain to see that on
the whole there can be only a small percentage of such
farmers; and in reality they are a detriment to their
neighbors who permit their own hay and grain to be
hauled off from their farms; but certainly these are
the methods followed by our most successful farmers,
and these are they who live on the fat of the land.”

“Are they farmers or are they manufacturers ?”’
asked Percy. ‘It seems to me that, in large mea-
sure, their business is to manufacture a finished
product from the raw materials produced upon other
farms, either in the immediate neighborhood or in
the newer regions of the West. As you know, much

33 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

of our surplus produce from the farms of the corn
belt is shipped into the eastern and southern states,
there to be used as food for man and beast, not only
in the cities, but also to a considerable extent in the
country. Instead of living on the fat of the land,
such manufacturers live in the country at the expense
of special city customers who may have fat jobs and
are able to pay fancy prices for country produce
made by the impoverishment of many farms. In
most cases, if such a ‘successful farmer’ were com-
pelled to pay average prices for what he buys and
allowed to receive only average prices for what he
sells, his fat would have plenty of lean streaks.”

CHAPTER VI
THE MUSICALE

INNER was served at the family table,
with Mr. West at the head and his
mother at the foot.

“The eye is the window of the
soul,’ thought Percy, as he met the
glance of Adelaide sitting opposite.

Certain he was that he had never before looked into
such alluring eyes.

Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and
yet at times she was both. With the other children
she was a child that still loved to romp and play
with the rest, free as a bird. Her mother, a sweet-
faced woman, some years her husband’s junior,
made sisters of all her daughters, the more naturally
perhaps, because the grandmother was still so active
and so interested in all phases of homemaking that
she seemed mother to them all. Adelaide’s two
older sisters were married and her brother Charles,
also older than herself, by three years, was a senior
in college. Adelaide had just finished her course in
the Academy where the long service of a maiden
aunt as teacher had secured certain appreciated
privileges, without which it is doubtful if both
Charles and Adelaide could have been sent away to
school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the
eight-year-old baby brother with two sisters between
comprised the younger members of the family.

Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school,
also occupied a place at the table. The evening
meal was disposed of without delay, for there was
something of greater importance to follow. A mus-

33

34 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

icale in the near-by country church had been in prep-
aration and Percy heartily accepted an invitation to
accompany the family to the evening’s entertain-
ment. Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs.
West and the grandmother, for all the children had
walked the distance before the carriage arrived.

Without having specialized in music, nevertheless
Percy had improved the frequent opportunities he
had had, especially while at the university, and he
had learned to appreciate quality in the musical
world. Consequently he was not a little surprised
and greatly pleased to sit and listen to a class of
music that he had never before heard rendered in
country places; but, as he listened for Adelaide’s
singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself
wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly
revealed the soul.

‘It seemed like the old times,” said the grand-
mother, with something like a sigh, as she took her
place in the carriage. “If our land was only like
it used to be! but it’s become so mighty poor our
children can’t have many advantages these days.
The Harcourt’s and Staunton’s whom you met are
descendants of ancestors once well known in this
state.”

‘It seems to me that the land need not have
grown poor,” said Percy. “If the land was once
productive, its fertility ought to be maintained by
the return of the essential materials removed in
crops or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need
not become poor; but of course I know too little
about this land to suggest at the present time what
method could best be adopted for its improvement.”

‘‘We can tell you what the best method is,” she
quickly replied. ‘‘Just put on plenty of ordinary
farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don’t have enough to
cover fifty acres a year.’”

THE MUSICALE a

For a time each seemed lost in thought, or lis-
tening to the husband and wife who sat in the front
seat quietly talking of the evening’s performances.
Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned
as belonging to persons to whom he had been pre-
sented at the church. It gradually dawned upon
him that he had spent the evening with the aris-
tocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Cul-
ture, refinement, and poverty were the chief char-
acteristics of the people who had been assembled.

“Tt need not have been,” he repeated to himself;
“surely, it need not have been,” and then he won-
dered if these were not much sadder words than the
oft repeated “it might have been.”’

‘May I ask where your people came from, Mrs.
West ?” he questioned.

‘““Where we came from?” she repeated, “I don’t
quite understand.”

“Excuse me,” said Percy, “but in the West it is
so common to ask people where they are from. You
know the West is settled with people from all sec-
tions of the East, and many from Europe and from
Canada, and I thought your ancestors may have
moved here from some other state, as from Pennsyl-
vania for example, where my mother’s people once
lived.”

‘Let me advise you, young man,”’ said the grand-
mother briskly, and in a tone that reminded Percy
of the twinkle he had at times noticed in her eyes
when she seemed young again—‘“‘Let me advise you
never to ask a Virginian if he was born in Pennsyl-
vania. That’s more than most Virginians can stand.
Once a Virginian, always a Virginian,—both now,
hereafter, and hitherto. It’s mighty hard to find a
Virginian who came from anywhere except from the
royal blood of England; aithough some may con-
descend to ackn@wledge kinship to the Scottish roy-

36 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

alty.|/ |

The grandmother’s voice was raised to a pitch
which commanded the attention of the other mem-
bers in the carriage and a hearty laugh followed her
jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy’s temporary
embarrassment.

“Well,” she continued, “‘to answer your question:
my husband and my children are direct descendants
of Colonel Charles West, a brother of Lord Dela-
ware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry
goes back to Henry the Second, of England, and to
David the First, of Scotland; and my granddaughter
is the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. So
now you know where we come from,’ and she
laughed again like a girl.) Yes,” she added, “we
have a family tree six feet from branch to branch,
but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it
is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live
with the past when the summer boarders are here.”’

As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the chil-
dren’s voices could be heard in the rear; for Mr.
West had been living over again his younger days
with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had
taken its own time.

CHAPTER VII
A Bit oF History

OW, I shall be at home to-day and glad
to assist you in any way possible,” an-
nounced Mr. West at the breakfast
table.

‘That is very kind of you,” Percy
replied. “I want especially to learn
some of the things you know about the soils of West-
over. Can you show me the best land and the poor-
est land on the estate ?”’

“T think I can,’’ said Mr. West. ‘‘We have some
land that has not grown a crop in fifty years, and we
have other land that still produces a very fair crop if
properly rotated.”

‘And what rotation do you practice ?”’

“Well, the system we have finally settled into and
have followed for many years is to plow up the run-
out pasture land and plant to corn. ‘The second year
we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed
down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay
from the land for two years, and afterward we use
the field for pasture for six or eight years, or until
finally it produces only weeds and foul grass. Then
we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and
again plow the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are
the principal products sold from the farm.”

‘In this way,’ said Percy, “you grow one crop of
corn on the same field about once in ten or twelve
years.” |

“Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two,
crops of small grain. We usually have about seven-
ty-five acres of corn, nearly a hundred acres of small

37

«6

38 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than a
hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres
of pasture land, besides about two hundred acres of
timber land which has not been cultivated for many
years.”

‘Was the timber land that we see about here form-
erly cultivated?” asked Percy.

“Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation
when I was a boy, although some had been allowed
to go back to timber even before I was born. On
our own farm we have some timber land that, so far
as I have been able to learn, was never under culti-
vation; and the character of the trees is different on
that land. There you will find original pine, but on
the worn-out land the “old-field” pine are found.
They are practically worthless, while the original
pine makes very valuable lumber.

‘With our system of rotation we keep about all of
our farm under control; but the smaller farms were
necessarily cropped more continuously to support the
family, and they became so unproductive that many
of them have been completely abandoned for agricul-
tural purposes; and even some of the large planta-
tions were poorly managed, one part having been
cropped continuously until too poor to pay for crop-
ping, while the remainder was allowed to grow up in
scrub brush and ‘‘old-field”’ pine; and, of course, the
expense of clearing such land is about as much as the
net value of the crops that could be grown until it
again becomes too poor for cropping.”’

‘“Then the recleared lands are not as productive as
when they were first cleared from the virgin for-
est?’

“Oh, by no means. In the virgin state these lands
grew bountiful crops almost continuously for a hun-
dred years or more. Virginia was famed at home
and abroad for her virgin fertility. Great crops of

A BIT OF HISTORY 39

corn, wheat, and tobacco were grown. ‘Tobacco was
a valuable export crop, and there were many Vir-
ginians whose mothers came to America with passage
paid for in tobacco. History records, you may re-
member, that it was the custom for a time to permit
a young man to pay into a general store house a hun-
dred pounds of tobacco,—and this was later increased
to one hundred fifty pounds,—to be used in payment
of passage for young women who were thus enabled
to come to America; and there was a very distinct
understanding that only those who had come forth
with the tobacco were eligible as suitors for the hand
of any ‘imported’ maiden. As a matter of fact some
such arrangement as this was almost a necessity,”
said Mr. West, as he noted Adelaide’s almost incred-
ulous look. ‘‘Among the first settlers in Virginia,
young men greatly predominated; and in the main
the people in the home country were themselves in
poverty. Under the hereditary laws of England the
father’s estate and title became the possession of his
eldest son; and in large measure the other children
of the family were thrown absolutely upon their own
resources, so that many, even with royal blood in their
veins, were very glad to embrace any opportunity of-
ferd to seek a new home in this land of virgin rich-
ness.

“Of course,’ he continued, smilingly and in direct
answer to Adelaide’s inquiring look, ‘“‘those young
women were in no sense bound to accept the attention
or the offer of any man; but naturally most of them
did become the wives of those who were able to offer
them a husband’s love and a home with more of life’s
comforts perhaps than they had ever known before.
They were at perfect liberty, however, to remain in
the enjoyment of single blessedness if they chose, and
I doubt not,” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes,
“that some of them had no other choice.”’

CHAPTER VIII
WESTOVER

ITH an auger in his hand, by means
of which a hole could be quickly
bored into the soil to a depth of three
or four feet, Percy joined Mr. West
for the tramp over the plantation.

In general the estate called West-
over consists of undulating upland. A small stream
crosses one corner of the farm bordered by some
twenty acres of bottom land which is subject to fre-
quent overflow, and used only for permanent pasture.
Several draws or small valleys are tributary to the
stream valley, thus furnishing excellent surface
drainage for the entire farm. In some places the
sides of these valleys are quite sloping and subject
to moderate erosion when not protected by vegeta-
tion. Above and between these slopes the upland
is nearly level. As they came upon one of these
level areas, grown up with small forest trees, Mr.
West stopped and said:

‘Now, right here is probably as poor a piece of
land as there is on the farm. ‘This land will posi-
tively not grow a crop worth harvesting unless it is
well fertilized.”

“If we were in the Illinois corn belt,’ replied
Percy, “I should expect to find the land in this posi-
tion to be the most productive on the farm. Our
level uplands are now valued at from one hundred
fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. A farm of one
hundred eighty acres, five miles from town, sold
for two hundred and fourteen dollars an acre a few
days before I started east.”’

40

WESTOVER AI
“Well,” said Mr. West, “this may have been

good land once, but if so it was before my time. Of
course most of our uplands here have been cropped
for upwards of two hundred years; and about all
that has ever been done to keep up the fertility of
the soil has been to rotate the crops. To be sure,
the farm manure has always been used as far as it
would go, but the supply is really very small com-
pared to the need for it.”

‘Do you think that the proper rotation of crops
would maintain the fertility of the soil?” asked
Percy.

‘No, I have tried too many rotations to think
HS but I suppose it is a help in that direction, don’t

ou!

“I would say that crop rotation may help to main-
tain the supply of some important constituents of a
fertile soil, but it will certainly hasten the depletion
of some other equally essential constituents.”

“Well,” that’s a new idea to me. I may not quite
grasp your meaning; but first tell me about these
tests you are making.”

When they stopped on the area of poor land as
designated by Mr. West, Percy had turned his auger
into the earth and drawn out a sample of moist soil,
which he molded into the form of a ball. He broke
this in two, inserted a piece of blue paper, and
pressed it firmly together. He then laid the ball of
soil aside, secured another sample with the auger,
and formed it into a cake with a hollow in the upper
surface. He took from his pocket a slender box
or tube of light wood, removed the screw cap, and
drew out a glass-stoppered bottle.

‘This bottle contains hydrochloric acid,’ said
Percy. ‘‘It is often incorrectly called ‘muriatic acid’.
It consists of two elements, hydrogen and chlorin,
from which its name is derived. But you are per-

42 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

haps already familiar with the chemical elements.”

‘Well, I heard lectures at William and Mary for
four years, and they included some chemistry as it
was then taught; but they certainly did not include
the application of chemistry to agriculture, and I am
greatly interested to know the meaning of these
tests you are making here on our own farm under
my own eyes. You may take it for granted that I
know absolutely nothing of such use of chemistry as
you are evidently turning to some practical value.”

‘‘“Any other farmer can make these tests as well
as I can,’ said Percy. ‘This bottle of acid cost me
fifteen cents and it can be duplicated for the same
price at almost any drug store. The acid is very
concentrated, in fact about as strong as can easily
be produced, but it need not be especially pure. Some
care should be taken not to get it on the clothing
or on the fingers, although it is not at all dangerous
to handle, but it tends to burn the fingers unless soon
removed, either by washing with water or by rub-
bing it off with the moist soil.”

“T use this acid to test the soil for the presence
or absence of limestone. Ordinary limestone con-
sists of calcium carbonate. NHere, again the chemi-
cal name alone is sufficient to indicate the elements
that compose this compound. It is only necessary
to keep in mind the fact that the ending -ate on the
common chemical names signifies the presence of
oxygen. Thus calcium carbonate is composed of
the three primary elements, calcium, carbon, and
oxygen.

“Of course the chemical element is the simplest
form of matter. An element is a primary substance
which cannot be divided into two or more sub-
stances. All known matter consists of about eighty
of these primary elements; and, as a matter of
fact, most of these are of rare occurrence—many of

WESTOVER 43

them much more rare than the element gold.

“About ninty-eight per cent. of the soil consists of
eight elements united in various compounds or com-
binations; and only ten elements are essential for the
growth and full development of corn or other
plants. If any one of these ten elements is lacking,
it is impossible to produce a kernel of corn, a grain
of wheat, or a leaf of clover; and in the main the
supply is under the farmer’s own control. But we
can discuss this matter more fully later. Let us see
what we have here.”

Percy poured a few drops of the hydrochloric
acid into the hollow of the cake of soil.

‘What should it do?” asked Mr. West.

‘Tf the soil contains any limestone, the acid should
produce foaming, or effervescence,” replied Percy;
‘but it is very evident that this soil contains no lime-
stone. You see the hydrochloric acid has power to
decompose calcium carbonate with the formation of
carbonic acid and calcium chlorid, a kind of salt
that is used to make a brine that won’t freeze in the
artificial ice plants. The carbonic acid, if produced,
at once decomposes into water and carbon dioxid.
Now, the liberated carbon dioxid is a gas and the
rapid generation or evolution of this gas constitutes
the bubbling or foaming we are looking for; but
since there is no appearance of foaming we know
that this soil contains no limestone.”’

‘“Then you have already found that those three ele-
ments,—calcium, carbon, and oxygen, you called
them, I think—you find that those elements are all
lacking in this soil.”

‘No, this test does not prove that,” said Percy.
‘It only proves that they are not present as limestone.
Calcium may be present in other compounds, espe-
cially in silicates, which are the most abundant com-
pounds in the soil and in the earth’s crust; and, as

44 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

indicated by the ending -ate, oxygen is contained in
calcium silicate as well as in calcium carbonate.”

“T see; the subject is much more complicated than
I thought.”

‘‘Somewhat, perhaps,”’ Percy replied; “‘but yet it is
quite simple and very easily understood, if we only
keep in mind a few well established facts. Certainly
the essential science of soil fertility is much less com-
plicated than many of the political questions of the
day, such as the gold standard or free-silver basis,
the tariff issues, and reciprocity advantages, regarding
which most farmers are fairly well informed,—at
least to such an extent that they can argue these ques-
tions for hours.”’

‘“T think you are quite right in that,” said Mr.
West. “Of course, it is important that every citizen
entitled to the privilege of voting in a democracy like
ours should be able to exercise his franchise intelli-
gently; but the citizen who is responsible for the man-
agement of farm lands ought surely to be at least as
well informed concerning the principles which under-
lie the maintenance of soil fertility; provided, of
course, that such knowledge is within his reach; and
from what you say I am beginning to believe that such
is the case. At any rate this simple test seems to show
conclusively that this soil contains no limestone, and it
is common knowledge that limestone soils are good
soils.”’

Percy took up the ball of soil containing the slip of
blue paper, broke it in two again, and it was seen that
the paper had changed in color from blue to red.

‘“‘There’s a change, for certain,” said Mr. West,
‘that has some meaning to you I suppose.”

“This is litmus paper,” said Percy. “It is pre-
pared by moistening specially prepared paper with a
solution of a coloring matter called litmus, and the pa-
per is then dried. This coloring matter has the prop-

WESTOVER 45

erty of turning blue in the presence of alkali and
red in the presence of acid. The blue paper is prepared
with a trace of alkali, and the red paper with a trace
of acid. If more than a trace were present the lit-
mus paper would not be sufficiently sensitive for the
test.

“This little bottle containing two dozen slips of
paper cost me five cents, and it can be obtained at
most drug stores.

‘Alkali and acid are exactly opposite terms, like
hot and cold. ‘The one neutralizes the other. ‘This
test with litmus paper is a test for soil acidity, and
the fact that the moisture of the soil has turned the
litmus from blue to red shows that this soil is acid,
or sour. ‘The soil moisture contained enough acid
to neutralize the trace of alkali contained in the blue
paper and to change the paper to a distinctly light red
color; and the fact that the paper remains red even
after drying, shows that the soil contains fixed acids
or acid salts, and not merely carbonic acid, which
if present would completely volatilize as the paper
dries.

‘Now, these two tests are in harmony. The one
shows the absence of limestone, and the other shows
the presence of acidity, and consequently the need of
limestone to correct or neutralize the acidity, for lime-
stone itself is an alkali.”’

‘But limestone soils are not alkali soils, are they ?”’
asked Mr. West.

‘Not in the sense of containing injurious alkali, like
sodium carbonate, the compound which is found in
the ‘black alkali’ lands of the arid regions of the far
West; but chemically considered limestone is truly an
alkali; and, as such, it has power to neutralize this
soil acidity.”

‘Ts the acidity harmful to the crops?”

“It is not particularly harmful to the common crops

46 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

of the grass family, such as wheat, corn, oats, and
timothy; but some of the most valuable crops for
soil improvement will not thrive on acid soils. ‘This
is especially true of clover and alfalfa.”

‘“That is certainly correct for clover so far as this
kind of soil is concerned,” said Mr. West. ‘‘Clover
never amounts to much on this kind of land, except
where heavily fertilized. When fertilized it usually
grows well. Does the farm fertilizer neutralize the
acid?”

“Only to a small extent. It is true that farm
manures contain very appreciable amounts of lime and
some other alkaline, or basic, substances, but in addi-
tion to this, and perhaps of greater importance, is the
fact that such fertilizer has power to feed the clover
crop as well as other crops. In other words it fur-
nishes the essential materials of which these crops are
made. In addition to this the decaying organic mat-
ter has power to liberate some plant food from the
soil which would not otherwise be made available,
although to that extent the farm manure serves as a
soil stimulant, this action tending not toward soil en-
richment but toward the further depletion of the store
of fertility still remaining in the soil.

‘This seems a complicated problem,” said Mr.
West, “‘but may I now show you some of our more
productive land?”

‘As soon as I collect a sample of this,” replied
Percy, and to Mr. West’s surprise he proceeded to
bore about twenty holes in the space of two or three
acres. The borings were taken to a depth of about
seven inches, and after being thoroughly mixed to-
gether an average sample of the lot was placed in a
small bag bearing a number which Percy recorded
in his note book together with a description of the
land.

“T wish to have an analysis made of this sample,”

’

WESTOVER 47

remarked Percy, as they resumed their walk.

“But I thought you had analyzed this soil,’’ was
the reply.

“Oh, I only tested for limestone and acidity,” ex-
plained Percy. ‘I wish to have exact determinations
made of the nitrogen and phosphorus, and perhaps of
the potassium, magnesium, and calcium. All of these
are absolutely essential for the growth of every agri-
cultural plant; and any one of them may be deficient
in the soil, although the last three are not so likely
to be as the other two.”’

“How long will it take to make this analysis?” was
asked.

“About a week or ten days. Perhaps I shall col-
lect two or three other samples and send them all to-
gether to an analytical chemist. It is the only way
to secure positive knowledge in advance as to what
these soils contain. In other words, by this means
we can take an absolute invoice of the stock of fer-
tility in the soil, just as truly as the merchant can take
an invoice of the stock of goods carried on his
shelves.”

“So far as we are concerned, this would not be an
invoice in advance,’ remarked Mr. West, with a
shade of sadness in his voice. ‘If we knew the con-
tents of the crops that have been sold from this farm
during the two centuries past, we would have a fairly
good invoice, I fear, of what the virgin soil contained;
but can you compare the invoice of the soil with that
of the merchant’s goods?”

“Quite fairly so,” Percy replied. ‘The plant food
content of the plowed soil of an acre of normal land
means nearly, if not quite, as much in the making of
definite plans for a system of permanent agriculture,
as the merchant’s invoice means in the future plans of
his business.

“Tt should not be assumed that the analysis of the

48 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

soil will give information the application of which
will always assure an abundant crop the following
season. In comparison, it may also be said, however,
that the merchant’s invoice of January the first may
have no relation to the sales from his store on Jan-
uary the second. Now, the year with the farmer is
as a day with the merchant. ‘The farmer harvests his
crop but once a year; while the merchant plants and
harvests every day, or at least every week. But I
would say that the invoice of the soil is worth as much
to the farmer for the next year as the merchant’s in-
voice is to him for the next month.

It should be remembered, however, that both must
look forward, and plans must be made by the mer-
chant for several months, and by the farmer for sev-
eral years. Your twelve-year rotation is a very good
example of the kind of future planning the success-
ful farmer must do. On the other hand, some of
your neighbors, who have not practiced some such
system of rotation now have ‘old-field’ pine on land
long since abandoned, and soil too poor to cultivate
on land long cropped continuously.”

“This is a kind soil,’ remarked Mr. West, as he
paused on a gently undulating part of the field.

“That is a new use of the word to me,” said Per-
cy. ‘Just what do you mean by a ‘kind’ soil ?”

‘Well, if we apply manure here it will show in the
crops for many years. It is easy to build this soil up
with manure; but, of course, we have too little to
theatit ment,

‘The soil is almost neutral,’ said Percy, testing
with litmus and acid. “Does clover grow on this
soil ?”’

“Very little, except where we put manure.”

Another composite sample of the soil was col-
lected, and they walked on.

“Now, here,” said Mr. West, ‘‘is about the most

WESTOVER 49

productive upland on the farm.”

“Ts that possible?” asked Percy, the question be-
ing directed more to himself than to his host.

‘That is according to my observation for about
fifty years,” he replied. ‘‘Where we spread the farm
fertilizer over this old pasture land and plow it
under for corn, we often harvest a crop of eight
barrels to the acre, while the average of the field
will not be more than five barrels.—A barrel of
corn with us is five bushels.”

They had stopped on one of the steepest slopes in
the field.

“These hillsides would be considered the poorest
land on the farm if we were in the corn belt,” said
Percy, ‘‘but I think I understand the difference. Your
level uplands when once depleted remain depleted,
because the soil that was plowed two hundred years
ago is the same soil that is plowed to-day; but these
slopes lose surface soil by erosion at least as rapidly
as the mineral plant food is removed by cropping;
and to that extent they afford the conditions for a
permanent system of agriculture of low grade,
unless, of course, the erosion is more rapid than the
disintegration of the underlying bed rock, which
I note is showing in some outcrops in the gullies.

‘“T want some samples here,” he continued, and
at once proceeded to collect a composite sample of
the surface soil and another of the sub-soil.

“In the main this soil is slightly acid,” said Percy,
after several tests with the hydrochloric acid and the
litmus paper; ‘‘although occasionally there are
traces of limestone present. The mass of soil seems
to be faintly acid, but here and there are little pieces
of limestone which still produce some localized
benefit, and probably prevent the development of
more marked acidity throughout the soil mass.”’

“Tf I can get to an express office this afternoon,”’

50 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

he continued, ‘‘I shall be glad to forward these four
composite samples to an analyst.”

“Tf you wouldn’t mind riding to Montplain with
Adelaide when she goes for her music lesson this
afternoon, it would be very convenient,’ said Mr.
West.

“With your daughter’s permission that would
suit me very well,” he replied. ‘I shall be glad to
spend one or two days more in this vicinity, and
then I wish to visit other sections for a week or two,
after which I would be glad to stop here again on
my return trip and probably I shall have the report
of the chemist concerning these samples.”’

CHAPTER IX
THe BLack PERIL

S Percy stepped out of the house in the
early afternoon upon the announce-
ment from Wilkes that ‘De ca’age is
ready,” he noted that the “‘ca’age’’ was
the two-seated family carriage and
that Adelaide had already taken her

place in the front seat, as driver, with her music
roll and another bundle tucked in by her side. Her
glance at Percy and at the rear seat was also suf-
ficient to indicate his place.

‘This does not seem right to me, Miss West,”
said Percy. ‘Unless you prefer to drive I shall be
very glad to do so and let you occupy this more
comfortable seat.”’

“No thank you,” she replied, in a tone that left
no room for argument. ‘“‘I often drive our guests
to and from the station, and I much prefer this
seat.’

The rear seat was roomy and low, so that Percy
could scarcely see the road ahead even by sitting on
the opposite side from the driver.

Aside from an occasional commonplace remark
both the driver and the passenger were allowed to
use the time for meditation.

While Adelaide was already an experienced
horsewoman, she was rarely permitted to drive the
colts to the village, although she enjoyed riding the
more spirited horses, or driving with her brother
in the “buck board.”’

A mile from the village the road wound through
a wooded valley, and then climbed the opposite

St

Le THE STORY OF THE SOIL

slope, passing the railway station a quarter of a
mile from town and the “depot hotel’? near by.
Here Percy left the carriage with the bags of soil,
it being arranged that he would be waiting ,at the
hotel when Adelaide returned from the village.

Adelaide’s ‘‘hour’’ was from four to five, and be-
ing the last pupil for the day, the teacher was not
prompt to close.

“T did not realize the days were becoming so
short,’ said Miss Konster as she opened the door.
‘I’m sorry you have so far to drive.”

“Oh I don’t mind,” said Adelaide, ‘I know the
way home well enough. You see I have the double
carriage, for I brought a guest to the depot as usual,
although he is to return with me, and is probably
very tired of waiting at the ‘depot hotel.’ ”’

It was nearly dark as Percy took his place in the
rear seat, Adelaide having again declined to yield
her position as driver, and now she had more pack-
ages nearly filling the seat beside her.

The team leisurely took the homeward way and
nothing more was said except an occasional word
of encouragement to the horses. They passed the
lowest point in the valley and began to ascend the
gentle slope, when the carriage suddenly stopped,
and Adelaide uttered a muffled scream. ‘‘Come,
Honey,” said a masculine voice.

As Percy half rose to his feet, he saw that a negro
had grasped Adelaide in an effort to drag her from
the carriage. A blow from Percy staggered the
brute and he released his hold of Adelaide, but, as
he saw Percy jump from the carriage on the oppo-
site side, he paused.

‘‘De’s a man heah. Knock him, Geo’ge,” he yelled,
as he turned to again grapple with Adelaide.

“Coward,” cried Adelaide, as she saw Percy jump
from the carriage and dart up the road. Facing this

THE BLACK PERIL 53

black brute, she was standing alone now with one
hand on the back of the seat. As the negro sprang
at her the second time he uttered a scream like the cry
of a beast and fell sprawling on his face. Almost at
the same moment his companion was fairly lifted
from his feet and came down headlong beside the
carriage.

“Look out for the horses,” called Percy, as he
drove the heels of his heavy shoes into the moaning
mass on the ground.

‘Lie there, you brute,” he cried, “don’t you dare
to move.”

‘I have the lines,’ said Adelaide hoarsely, “but
can’t I do something more?”

‘No, they’re both down,” he answered. ‘Wait a
minute.”

He found himself between the negroes lying with
their faces to the ground. Instantly he grasped each
by the wrist and with an inward twist he brought
forth cries for mercy. It was a trick he had learned
in college, that, by drawing the arm behind the back
and twisting, a boy could control a strong man.

‘“Can’t I help you?’’ Adelaide called again, and
Percy saw that she was out of the carriage and stand-
ing near.

“Will the horses stand?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, they’re quiet now.”

“Then take the tie rope and tie their feet together.
Use the slip knot just as you do for the hitching
post,” he directed. “If they dare to move I can
wrench their arms out in this position. Right there
at the ankles. Tie them tight and as closely together
as you can. Wrap it twice around if it’s long
enough.”

Adelaide tied one end of the rope around the
ankle of one negro and wrapped the other end
around the ankle of the other, drawing their feet to-

54 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

gether and fastening the ends of the rope with a
double hitch, which she knew well how to make.

Percy gave the rope a kick to tighten it.

‘‘Now get onto your feet and I’ll march you to
town,” he ordered, adding pressure to the twist upon
their wrists and drawing them back upon their knees.
Thus assisted, they struggled to their feet.

“T am afraid you will have to drive home alone,
ae West,” began Percy, when Adelaide interrupted
with:

‘No, no, if you are going back to town, | will fol-
low you,” she said. “I can easily turn the team and I
will keep close behind.”

Thus tied together, Percy almost ran his prisoners
toward the village, still holding each firmly by the
wrist. As they reached the “depot hotel,” he called
for assistance, and several men quickly appeared.

Percy made a brief report of the attack as they
moved on to the town house, where the villians were
placed in shackles and left in charge of the marshall.

“Will you drive, please, Mr. Johnston?” asked
Adelaide as he stepped to the carriage; for Adelaide
had followed almost to the door of the jail house.

‘Yes, please,” he replied, taking the seat beside
her.

“T hope you will pardon my calling you a coward,
I felt so desperate, and it seemed to me for the mo-
ment that you were leaving me.” Adelaide’s voice
still had an excited tremor to it.

“T heard you say ‘coward,’”’ said Percy, “but I
didn’t realize that you referred to me. I saw the two
brutes almost at the same time, the one who attacked
you and the other on the same side near the horses’
heads. I struck the one as best I could from my po-
sition, and as he yelled and the horses reared, I ran
up the slope ahead of the team and came down at the
other brute with a. blow in the neck, but I was sur-

THE BLACK PERIL ci

prised to find them both sprawling on the ground;
and under the street lights I saw that one of them had
an eye frightfully jammed. Iam sure I struck neither
of them in the eye.”’

Adelaide made no reply, but she knew now that
the piercing, beastly cry from the negro reaching for
her was brought forth because the heel of her shoe
had entered the socket of the brute’s eye.

“You’re mighty nigh too late for supper,” said
grandma West, as they stopped at the side gate.
Adelaide hurried to her father who took her in his
arms as he saw how she trembled.

“My child!” he said.

Yes, child she was as she relaxed from the tension
of the last hour and related the experience of the even-
ing.

‘‘T cannot express our gratitude to you, Sir,” said
th West; “I am glad you landed the devils in
pail’;

‘Tam only thankful I was there when it happened,”
replied Percy. ‘I am sure no man could have done
less. I have promised to return to town in the morn-
ing to serve as legal witness in the case. I hope your
daughter need not be called upon for that purpose.”

‘Probably that will not be necessary,’ Mr. West
replied.

CHAPTER >
THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN

HE others had retired but Percy and his
host continued their conversation far
into the night.

‘There are almost as great varia-
tions among the negroes as among
white people,” Mr. West was saying.

‘To a man like Wilkes who was born and raised
here on the farm, I would entrust the protection of
my wife and children as readily as to any white man.
He has been educated, so to speak, to a sense of
duty and honor; and negroes of his class have al-
most never been known to violate a trust. Of course
there are bad niggers, but as a rule such negroes
have grown up under conditions that would develop
the evil in any race of men.

‘During the Secession it was the most common
thing for the men to go to war and leave their de-
fenseless women and children wholly in the care of
their slaves; and even though the federal soldiers
were fighting to free the slaves and their masters
to keep them in slavery, rarely did a negro fail to
remain faithful to his trust. They hid from the
northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and
corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valu-
ables; and in most cases were ready to suffer them-
selves before they would reveal the hidden prop-
erty. To be sure there were masters who abused
their slaves, and some of these were naturally ready
to desert at the first opportunity; but in the main the
slave owner was more kind to his human property
than the considerate soldier was to his horse, and

56

_“--

THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN 57

the negro as a race is appreciative of kindness.”

“T suppose the depreciation in soil fertility and
crop yields dates largely from the freeing of the
slaves, does it not?” asked Percy.

“Well, that was one factor, but not the most po-
tential factor. Much land in the south had been
abandoned agriculturally long before the war, and
much land in New York and New England has been
abandoned since the war. ‘The freeing of the ne-
groes produced much less effect in the economic con-
ditions of the south than many have supposed. The
great injury to the South from the war was due to
the war itself and not to the freeing of slaves. In
the main it cost no more to hire the negro after the
war than it cost to feed and clothe him before; and
the humane slave owner had little difficulty in get-
_ ting plenty of negro help after the war. Very com-
monly his own slaves remained with him and were
treated as servants, not particularly differently than
they had been treated as slaves. Of course there
were some brutal slave holders, just as there are
brutal horse owners, and such men suffered very
much from the loss of slave labor.

‘The southern people have no regrets for the
freeing of the slaves. Probably it was the best
thing that ever happened to us; and the South would
have less regret for the war itself, except that our
recovery from it was greatly delayed by the recon-
struction policy which was followed after the war.
The immediate enfranchisement of the negro, es-
pecially in those sections where this resulted in plac-
ing all the power of the local government in the
hands of the negro, was a worse blow to the South
than the war itself.

“Tt is believed that this would not have been done
if Lincoln had lived. Lincoln was always the Presi-
dent of all the people of the United States, and his

58 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

death was a far greater loss to the South than to the
North. To place the power to govern the intelligent
white people of the South absolutely in the hands of
their former ignorant slaves was undoubtedly the most
abominable political blunder recorded in history; and
even this was intensified by the unprincipled white-
skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon
our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called
reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the his-
tory of modern civilization.”

“T quite agree with you,” said Percy, “‘and so far as
I know them the soldiers of the northern armies also
agree with you. Several of my own relatives fought
to free the negro slave; but none of them fought to
enslave their white brothers of the South by putting
them absolutely under negro government. And yet
there is one possible justification for that abominable
reconstruction policy. It may have averted a subse-
quent war which might have lasted not for four years,
but for forty years. Even if this be true, perhaps
there is no credit in the policy for any man who helped
to enforce it, but you will grant that there were two
important results from those bitter years of recon-
struction :

“First, the negro learned with certainty at once and
forever that he was a free man.

“Second, he at once acquired a degree of inde-
pendence effectually preventing the development of a
situation throughout the South, in which the negro,
though nominally free, would have remained virtually
a slave, a situation which, if once established, might
have required a subsequent war of many years for its
complete eradication. Even under the conditions which
have prevailed, there have been isolated instances of
peonage in the southern states since the war; and if
the education and gradual enfranchisement of the
negro had been left wholly in the hands of their

THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN sg

former masters, from the immediate close of the war,
I can conceive of conditions under which slavery
would essentially have been continued.”’

‘Such a possibility is, of course, conceivable,’’ said
Mr. West, ‘“‘and we must all admit that there were
some slave holders who would have taken advantage
of any such opportunity; but had Lincoln lived the
terms made would probably have been such that the
South would have felt in honor bound to enforce
them. Probably the enfranchisement would have
been based upon some sort of qualification such as the
southern states have very generally adopted in subse-
quent years; but the idea of social equality of slave
and master was so repulsive to the white people of the
South that it could not be tolerated under any sort of
government.”

‘This question of social equality,’’ remarked Per-
cy, “has probably been the cause of more misunder-
standing between the North and the South than all
other questions relating to the negro problem. I
have rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who
did not have it firmly fixed in his mind that the com-
mon idea of the northern people is that the negro
race should be made the social equal of the white race.
This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have
read it in southern newspapers; and I have found it
in books written by southern authors; but, Mr. West,
I have never yet heard that idea advanced by a man
or woman of the North.

“Of course there have been visionary theorists or
‘cranks’ in all ages, and there must have been some
basis for this almost universal erroneous opinion in the
South that the people of the North advocate social
equality or social intercourse between the white and
colored races; and yet nothing could be farther from
the truth. In all my life in the North, I think I have

never seen a colored person dining with a white man.

)

60 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

This does not prove that there are no such occur-
rences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely
rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the
South I have seen a white woman bring her colored
maid, or nurse, to the dining car and sit at the same
table with herself and husband. Of course there is no
suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in
this, but there is a much closer relationship than is
common or would be allowed in the North.”

“That may be true,’”’ said Mr. West, ‘and there
was in slave times a very intimate relationship between
the negro nurses and the white children of the South.
Some of our people are ready to take offence at the
suggestion that we talk negro dialect, and perhaps we
would all prefer to say that the negroes have learned
to talk as we talk; but the truth is that the negroes
were brought to America chiefly as adults; and, as is
usually the case when adult people learn a new
language, they modified ours because their own Afri-
can language did not contain all of the sounds of the
English tongue. Similarly we hear and recognize
the other nationalities when they learn to speak Eng-
lish. Thus we have the Irish brogue, the German
brogue, and the French brogue, or dialect.

‘The negro children learned to speak the dialect
as spoken by their own parents; and as a very general
rule the white children learned to talk as their negro
nurses talked. So far as there is a southern dialect
it is due to the modification of our language by the
negro.”

“You have mentioned several things,” said Per-
cy, “that are much to the credit of the negro who has
had a fair chance to be trained along right lines; and
I think the modification of our language which his
presence has brought about in the South is not without
some credit. It is generally agreed that the most
pleasing English we hear is that of the Southern ora-

THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN 61

tor.
“Referring to social conditions, the most marked
difference which I have noticed between the North
and South, and really, it seems to me, the only differ-
ence of importance, is that the South has separate
schools for white and colored, whereas in the North
the school is not looked upon as a social institution.

‘‘As a rule no more objection is raised to white and
colored children sitting on separate seats in the same
school room than to their sitting on separate seats in
the same street car. The school is regarded as a place
for work, where each has his own work to do, much
the same as in the shop or factory where both white
and colored are employed. The expense of the single
school system is, of course, much less than where sep-
arate schools are maintained; and perhaps an equally
important point is that in the single system the same
moral standards are held up by the teachers for both
white and colored children.”

“That point is worthy of consideration,” said
Mr. West. “It is very certain that a class of ne-
groes has grown up in these more recent years that
was practically unknown in slave times when white
men were more largely responsible for their moral
training. The vile wretches who made the attack
this evening probably never received any moral
training. It is conceivable that the moral influence
of the white children over the negroes in the same
school might exert a lasting benefit, even aside from
the influence of the teacher; and the relationship of
the school room could not be any real disadvantage
to the white child. But this could only be brought
about where white teachers were employed. Some
such arrangement would doubtless have been made
had the mind of Lincoln directed the general policy
of reconstruction; but it is doubtful now if the negro
teacher will ever be wholly replaced, although time

62 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

has wrought greater changes in political lines since
the black years of the reconstruction.”

“Yes,” said Percy, ‘‘and those changes which have
been brought about in the South have the full sym-
pathy and approval of the great majority of the
Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful
if the North will be able to completely banish such a
source of vice and corruption as the open saloon
until some limitation is placed upon the franchise by
an educational qualification.

CHAPTER XI
JUDGMENT Is COME

HE goddess of sleep seemed to have de-
serted Westover. Adelaide lay in her
mother’s arms, either awake and rest-
less or in fitful sleep from which she
frequently awoke with a muffled scream
or a physical contortion. Once, as she

nestled closer, her mother heard her murmur: “You
must pardon me.”

Percy, from the southwest room, was sure he
heard horses feet at the side gate. The murmur of
low voices reached his ear, and then he recognized
that horsemen were riding away.

The house was astir at early dawn; and as soon
as breakfast was over Mr. West had the colts
hitched to the ‘“‘buckboard” and he drove with
Percy to Montplain.

‘“T think your testimony will not be needed this
morning,” said Mr. West, “but it may be needed
later, and it is well that you should report to the
officers at any rate, since you promised to be there
this morning.”

Percy pointed out the place where the attack had
been made, and he looked for a stump of a small
tree or for any other object upon which the negro
could have fallen with such force as to mash his eye;
but he saw nothing.

As soon as they reached the village, Mr. West
drove directly to the town house; and there two
black bodies were seen hanging from the limb of an
old tree in the courthouse yard.

Percy noted that his companion showed no sign

63

64 THE STORY O8 THE SOIL

of surprise: and, after the first shock of his com-
plete realization of the work of the night, he looked
calmly upon the scene. ‘They had stopped almost
under the tree.

‘Are these the brutes who made the attack and
whom you captured and delivered to the officer?”
asked Mr. West.

niulney are, he @epked:

‘In your opinion have they received justice ?”

“Yes, Sir,’ Percy replied "but IT fear without
due process of law.”

‘‘Let me tell you, Sir, there is no law on the stat-
utes under which justice could be meted out to these
devils for the nameless crime which ends in death
by murder or by suicide of the helpless victim, a
crime which these wretches committed only in their
black hearts—thanks to you, Sir.”

As he spoke, the town marshall approached fol-
lowed by the negro pastor of the local church and
a few of his followers. Silently they lowered the
bodies to the ground, placed them upon improvised
stretchers, and carried them to the potters field out-
side the village, where rough coffins and graves were
ready to receive them.

As Mr. West and Percy returned to Westover
they discussed the lands which in the main were ly-
ing abandoned on either side of the road.

‘Here,’’ said Mr. West, as he paused on the
brow of a sloping hillside, ‘‘was as near to West-
over as the Union army came. ‘The position of the
breastworks may still be seen. The Southern army
lay across the valley yonder. ‘These two trees are
sprouts from an old stump of a tree that was shot
away. About seventeen hundred confederate dead
were buried in trenches in the valley, but they were
later removed. ‘The federal dead were carried
away as the Union army retreated. We never

~~

‘oe

JUDGMENT IS COME 65

learned their number. For three days Westover
was made the headquarters of the confederate officers,
and my mother worked day and night to prepare
food for them.”

They stopped at Westover for a few moments,
Percy remaining in the ‘‘buckboard” while Mr.
West reported to his family what they had seen in
Montplain.

‘Our report,” said Mr. West, ‘“‘hideous and hor-
rible as it is, will help to restore the child to calm
and quiet. To speak frankly, Sir, occurrences of
this sort, sometimes with the worst results, are suf-
ficiently frequent in the South so that we constantly
feel the added weight or burden whenever the sis-
ter, wife, or daughter is left without adequate pro-
tection.”

The remaining hours of the morning were devoted
to a drive over the country surrounding Westover;
and Mr. West consented to Adelaide’s request that
she be allowed to drive Percy to the station at Mont-
plain, where he was to take the afternoon train for
Richmond. She chose the ‘“‘buckboard”’ but insisted
upon driving.

They talked of their school and college days, of
the books they had read, of anything in fact except
of the experiences of the past twenty-four hours.
Even when they entered the valley no shadow crossed
Adelaide’s face; but as they neared the station her
voice changed, and as Percy looked into her winsome,
frankly upturned face, she said:

‘“Hlave I truly been pardoned for my cruel words
last evening? Iam sure you were as manly and noble
as any man could have been.”’

‘And I am sure you were the bravest little woman
I have ever known,” replied Percy, “and I admire
you the more for calling me a coward when you
thought I was running away; so there is nothing to

\-

66 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

pardon I am sure.”
She gave him her hand as a child at parting, but
he thought as he looked into her eyes that he saw the

soul of a woman.

CHAPTER XII
THE RESTORATION

ERCY carried with him a most interesting
and attractive circular of information con-
cerning the rapid restoration of the farm
lands of the South. It also stated that
further information could be secured from
a certain real estate agent in Richmond,

who was found to be still in his office when Percy ar-
rived in the city late in the afternoon.

The agent was delighted to receive a call from the
Western man, and assured him that he would gladly
show him several plantations not far from the city
which could be purchased at very reasonable prices.
Indeed he could have his choice of these old southern
homesteads for the very low price of forty dollars
an acre. A map of an adjoining county showed the
exact location of several such farms, some of which
were of great historical interest. At what time in the
morning could he be ready to be shown one of these
rare bargains?

‘“‘What treatment do these lands require to restore
their productiveness?’’ asked Percy.

“No treatment at all, Sir, except the adoption of
your western methods of farming and your system of
crop rotation. I tell you the results are marvelous
when western farmers get hold of these famous old
plantations. Just good farming and a change of crops,
that’s all they need.”

‘Does clover grow well?” asked Percy. ““We grow
that a good deal in the West.”

“Oh, yes, clover will grow very well, indeed, but
cowpeas is a much better crop than clover. Our best

67

68 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

farmers prefer the cowpea; and after a crop of cow-
peas, you can raise large crops of any kind.”

“Of course you know of those who have been suc-
cessful in restoring some of these old farms,” Percy
suggested.

“Oh, yes, Sir, many of them, and they are making
money hand over fist, and their lands are increasing
in value, and no doubt will continue to increase just
as your western lands have done. Yes, Sir, the great-
est opportunity for investment in land is right here
and now, and these old plantations are being snapped
up very rapidly.”’

“T shall be glad to know of some of these success-
ful farmers who are using the improved methods.
Will you name one, just as an example, and tell me
about what he has done to restore his land?”

“Well,” said the agent, ““There’s T. O. Thornton,
for example. Mr. Thornton bought an old plantation
of a thousand acres only six years ago at a cost of
six dollars an acre. He has been growing cowpeas
in rotation with other crops; and, as I say, he is mak-
ing money hand over fist. A few months ago he re-
fused to consider fifty dollars an acre for his land,
but still there are some of these old plantations left
that can be bought for forty dollars, because the peo-
ple don’t really know what they are worth. How-
ever, our lands are all much higher than they were a
few years ago.”

‘Where does Mr. Thornton live?” asked Percy.

“Oh, he lives at Blairville, nearly a hundred miles
from Richmond. Yes, he lives on his farm near
Blairville. I tell you he’s making good all right, but
I don’t know of any land for sale in that section.”

“T think I will go out to Blairville to see Mr.
Thornton’s farm,” said Percy. “Do you know when
the trains run?”

‘Well, I’m sorry to say that the train service is

THE RESTORATION 69

very poor to Blairville. There is only one train a
day that reaches Blairville in daylight, and that leaves
Richmond very early i in the morning.’

“That is alright,” said Percy, “it will probably
get me there in time so that I shall be sure to find
Mr. Thornton at home. I thank you very much,
Sir. Perhaps I shall be able to see you again when
I return from Blairville.”

“When you return from Blairville is about the
most uncertain thing in the world. As I said, the
train service is mighty poor to Blairsville, and it’s
still poorer, you'll find, when you want to leave Blair-
ville. Why, a traveling man told me he had been on
the road for fifteen years, and he swore he had
spent seven of ’em at Blairville waiting for trains.
Better take my advice and look over some of the fine
old plantations right here in the next county, and
then you can take all the rest of the month if you
wish getting in and out of Blairville.”

About eight o’clock the following morning Percy
might have been seen walking along the railroad
which ran through Mr. Thornton’s farm about two
miles from Blairville. He saw a well beaten path
which led from the railroad to a nearby cottage
and a knock brought to the door a negro woman
followed by several children.

“Can you tell me where Mr. Thornton’s farm
is?” he inquired.

“Yes, Suh,” she replied. ‘This is Mistah Tho’n-
ton’s place, right heah, Suh. Leastways, it was his
place; but we done bought twenty acahs of it heah,
wheah we live, ’cept taint all paid fo’ yit. Mistah
Tho’nton lives in the big house over theah ’bout half
a mile.”

‘May I ask what you have to pay for land here?”

“Oh, we have to pay ten dollahs an acah, cause
we can’t pay cash. My ol’ man he wo’ks on the rail-

70 THE STORY Of THE SOIL

road section and we just pay Mistah Tho’nton foh
dollahs every month. My chil’n wo’k in the ga’den
and tend that acah patch o’ co’n.”’

“Do you fertilize the corn?”

“Yes, Suh. We can’t grow nothin’ heah without
fe’tilizah. We got two hundred pounds fo’ three
dollahs last spring and planted it with the co’n.”’

As Percy turned in at Mr. Thornton’s gate he
saw a white man and two negroes working at the
barn. ‘‘Pardon me, but is this Mr. Thornton?”’
asked Percy as he approached.

“That is my name.”’

‘Well, my name is Johnston. I am especially in-
terested in learning all I can about the farm lands
in this section and the best methods of farming. I
live in Illinois, and have thought some of selling our
little farm out there and buying a larger one here
in the East where the land is much cheaper than
with us. A real estate agent in Richmond has told
me something of the progress you are making in
the improvement of your large farm. I hope you
will not let me interfere with your work, Sir.”

“Oh this work is not much. I’ve had a little lum-
ber sawed at a mill which is running just now over
beyond my farm, and I am trying to put a shed up
here over part of the barn yard so we can save
more of the manure. I shall be very glad to give
you any information I can either about my own
farming or about the farm lands in this section.”

“You have about a thousand acres in your farm
I was told.”

“Yes, we still have some over nine hundred acres
in the place, but we are farming only about two
hundred acres, including the meadow and pasture
land. The other seven hundred acres are not
fenced, and, as you will see, the land is mostly
grown up to scrub trees.”’

THE RESTORATION a1

“Your corn appears to be a very good crop.
About. how many acres of corn do you have this

eary’

‘“T have only fourteen acres. That is all I could
cover with manure, and it is hardly worth trying
to raise corn without manure.”

‘Do you use any commercial fertilizer ?”’

“Well, I've been using some bone meal. I’ve no
use for the ordinary complete commercial fertilizer.
It sometimes helps a little for one year; but it seems
to leave the land poorer than ever. Bone meal lasts
longer and doesn’t seem to hurt the land. I see from
the agricultural papers that some of the experiment
stations report good results from the use of fine-
ground raw rock phosphate; but they advise using
it in connection with organic matter, such as man-
ure or clover plowed under. I am planning to get
some and mix it with the manure here under this
shed. Do you use commercial fertilizers in II-
linois ?”’

“Not to speak of, but some of our farmers are
beginning to use the raw phosphate. Our experi-
ment station has found that our most extensive soil
types are not rich in phosphorus, and has repub-
lished for our benefit the reports from the Mary-
land and Ohio experiment stations showing that the
fine-ground natural rock phosphate appears to be
the most economical form to use and that it is likely
to prove much more profitable in the long run, al-
though it may not give very marked results the first
year or two. May I ask what products you sell
from your farm, Mr. Thornton?”

“T sell cream. I have a special trade in Rich-
mond, and I ship my cream direct to the city. I also
sell a few hogs and some wheat. I usually put wheat
after corn, and have fourteen acres of wheat seeded
between the corn shocks over there. Sometimes I

72 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

don’t get the wheat seeded, and then I put the land
in cowpeas. I usually raise about twenty-five acres
of cowpeas, and the rest of the cleared land I use
for meadow and pasture. I usually sow timothy
after cowpeas, and I like to break up as much old
pasture land for corn as I can put manure on.”

‘IT was told that you had been offered fifty dol-
lars an acre for your farm, Mr. Thornton, but that
you would not consider the offer.”’

Mr. Thornton laughed heartily at this remark.

‘That must have come from the Richmond land
agent,” he said. ‘Someone else was telling me that
story a short time ago. The fact is one of those
real estate agents was out here last spring and he
asked me if I would consider an offer of fifty dol-
lars an acre for our land. I told him that I didn’t
think that I would as long as any one who wishes to
buy can get all the land he wants in this section for
five or ten dollars an acre. What's as near Agia
came to having an offer of fifty dollars an acre for
this land. The land adjoining me on the south is
for sale, and I am sure you could buy that farm of
about seven hundred acres for four dollars an acre
after they get the timber off. Some of the land has
not been cropped for a hundred years, I guess; and
there are a few trees on it that are big enough for
light saw-stuff. A man has bought the timber that
is worth cutting, and he is running a saw over there
now; but he’ll get out all that’s good for anything in
a few months.”’

‘“May I ask how long you have been farming
here, Mr. Thornton ?”’

‘Twelve years on this farm,” he replied. ‘You
see this estate was left to my wife and her sister
who still lives with us. We were married twelve
years ago and I have been working ever since to
make a living for us on this old worn-out farm. Of

THE RESTORATION 73

course I have made some little improvements about
the barns, but we’ve sold a little land too. The
railroad company wanted about an acre down where
that little stream crosses, for a water supply, and I
got twelve hundred dollars for that.”

‘Now, I’ve already taken too much of your
time,’ said Percy. “I thank you for your kindness
in giving me so much information. If there is no
objection I shall be glad to take a walk about over
your farm and the adjoining land, and perhaps I
can see you again for a few moments when [| ré-
turn.”

“Certainly,”’ Mr. Thornton replied. ‘There is
no objection whatsoever. We are going to Blairville
this morning, but we shall be back before noon and
I shall be glad to see you then. I fear you have
been given some misinformation by the real estate
agents. Some of them, by the way, are Northern
men who came down here and bought land and when
they found they could not make a living on it, they
sold it to other land hunters, and I suppose that they
made so much in the deal that they stayed right
here as real estate agents. ‘They are great adver-
tisers; but I reckon our Southern real estate men
can just about keep even. ‘The agent who was out
here last spring told me he showed one Northern
man a farm for $12 an acre and he was afraid to
buy. Then he took him into another county and
showed him a poorer farm for $45 and he bought
that at once.

“The road there runs out through the fields. Our
land runs back to the other public road and beyond
that is the farm I told you of where the saw mill is
running. I’ve got some pretty good cowpeas you'll
pass by. I haven’t got them off the racks yet.”

Percy found the cowpea hay piled in large
shocks over tripods made of short stout poles which

74 THE STORY Of FHE SOIL

served to keep the hay off the ground to some ex-
tent, and this permitted the cowpeas to be cured
in larger piles and with less danger of loss from
molding.

“T find that the soil on your farm and on the other
farms in very generally acid,” said Percy a few hours
later when Mr. Thornton asked what he thought of
the conditions of farming. “Have you used any
lime for improving the soil?”

“Yes, I tried it about ten years ago, and it helped
some, but not enough to make it pay. I put ten bar-
rels on about three acres. I thought it helped the
corn and wheat a little, and it showed right to the
line where I put cowpeas on the land, but I don’t
think it paid, and it’s mighty disagreeable stuff to
handle.”

“Do you remember how much it cost?’ Percy
asked.

“Yes, Sir. The regular price was a dollar a bar-
rel, but by taking ten barrels I got the ton for eight
dollars; but I’d rather have eight dollars worth of
bone meal.”

“T think the lime would be a great help to clover,”
said Percy.

“Yes, that might be. They tell me that they used
to grow lots of clover here; but it played out com-
pletely, and nobody sows clover now, except occa-
sionally on an old feed lot which is rich enough to
grow anything. It takes mighty good land to grow
clover; but cowpeas are better for us. They do pret-
ty well for this old land, only the seed costs too
much, and they make a sight of work, and they’re
mighty hard to get cured. You see they aren’t ready
for hay till the hot weather is mostly past. If we
could handle them in June and July, as we do tim-
othy, we’d have no trouble; but we don’t get cowpeas
planted till June, and September is a poor time for

THE RESTORATION 75

haying.”

“Tt seems to me that clover is a much more satis-
factory crop,’ said Percy. ‘One can sow clover
with oats in the spring, or on wheat land in the late
winter, and there is no more trouble with it until it
is ready for haying about fifteen months later, unless
the land is weedy or the clover makes such a growth
the first fall that we must clip it to prevent either the
weeds or the clover from seeding. This means that
when you are planting your ground for cowpeas the
next year after wheat or oats, we are just ready to
begin harvesting our clover hay; and besides the reg-
ular hay crop we usually have some growth the fall
before which is left on the land as a fertilizer, and
then we get a second crop of clover which we save
either for hay or seed. Even after the seed crop is
harvested there is usually some later fall growth, and
some let the clover stand till it grows some more the
next spring and then plow it under for corn.”

“IT can see that clover would be much better than
cowpeas if we could grow it; but, as I said, it’s
played out here. Our land simply won’t grow it any
more. Not having to plow for clover would save a
great deal of the work we must do for our cowpeas.”’

‘Some of our farmers follow a three-year rota-
tion and plow the ground only once in three years,”’
said Percy. ‘“They plow the ground for corn, disk
it the next spring when oats and clover are seeded,
and then leave the land in clover the next year. In
that way they regularly harvest four crops, including
the two clover crops, from only one plowing; and
in exceptional seasons I have known an extra crop of
clover hay to be harvested in the late fall on the land
where the oats were grown.”

_°Tn regard to the lime question,”’ Percy continued,
‘IT wonder if you know of the work the Pennsylvania
Experiment Station has been doing with the use of

76 THE STORY) OF Wik SOIL

ground limestone in comparison with burned lime.”

‘‘No, I never heard of ground limestone being
used. I supposed it had to be burned. I should think
it would be very expensive to grind limestone.

“No, it costs much less to grind it than to burn
it,’ Percy replied. ‘Mills are used for grinding
rock in cement manufacture, and the rock phosphate
and bone meal must all be ground before using them
either for direct application or for the manufacture
of acidulated fertilizers; and limestone is not so hard
to grind as some other rocks. Furthermore it does
not need to be so very finely ground. If fine enough
so that it will pass through a sieve with ten meshes
to the inch it does very well. ‘That you see would
be a hundred meshes to the square inch; and, of
course, a great deal of it will be much finer than that.
In fact the ground limestone used in the Pennsylvania
experiments was only fine enough so that about ninety
per cent. of it would pass a sieve with ten meshes to
the inch, and yet the limestone gave decidedly bet-
ter results than the burned lime, and it is not nearly
so disagreeable to handle. Besides this, the ground
limestone is much less expensive. It can be obtained
at most points in Illinois for about a dollar and fifty
cents a ton.”’

‘A dollar and fifty cents a ton!’’ exclaimed Mr.
Thornton. ‘Well, that is cheap, but how about the
freight and the barrels and bags? Freight is a big
item with us.”

‘The dollar and fifty cents includes the freight,”
was the reply.

‘Includes the cost and the freight both?”

‘Yes, and the Illinois farmers have it shipped in
bulk, so there is no expense for barrels or bags. Of
course the supplies of both coal and limestone are
very abundant, and with a well equipped plant the
actual cost of grinding does not exceed twenty-five

THE RESTORATION 77

cents aton. The original cost of the material ground
and on board cars at the works varies from about
sixty cents to one dollar a ton, and this leaves a very
fair margin of profit.

‘The men who furnish the ground limestone
realize that very large quantities of it are needed if
the soils of Illinois are to be kept fertile, and they
also realize that the ultimate prosperity of the coun-
try depends upon agricultural prosperity. ‘Their far-
sightedness and patriotism combine to lead them to
try to sell carloads of limestone instead of tons of
burned lime. As a matter of fact five or ten dollars
profit on a car of limestone, the use of which in large
quantities is thus made possible in systems of positive
soil improvement, is very much better for all con-
cerned than a profit of half that much on a single ton
of burned lime which is used as a soil stimulant in
systems of soil exhaustion.”

‘Tt is certainly true,” said Mr. Thornton, “‘that all
other great industries depend upon agriculture, di-
rectly or indirectly. I have thought of it many times.
It seems to me that fishing is about the only exception
of importance.”’

Mr. Thornton requested that Percy remain for
lunch in order that they might return to the field to
let him see the soil acidity tests made.

CHAPTER XIII

Wuy Percy WENT To COLLEGE
" AM interested to know where you learned
these things about acid soils and lime and
limestone,’ said Mr. Thornton.
“Mostly in the agricultural college,”
replied Percy, “but much of the informa-
tion really comes from the investigations
that are conducted by the experiment stations. For
example, the best information the world affords
concerning the comparative value of burned lime
and ground limestone is furnished by the Pennsyl-
vania Agricultural Experiment Station. ‘Those ex-
periments have been carried on continuously since
1882, and the results of twenty years’ careful investi-
gations have recently been published. A four-year
rotation of crops was practiced, including corn, oats,
wheat, and hay, the hay being clover and timothy
mixed. With every crop the limestone has given
better results than the burned lime. In fact the
burned lime seems to have produced injurious re-
sults of late years, and the analysis of the soil shows
that there has been large loss of humus and nitro-
gen where the burned lime has been used, the actual
loss being equivalent to the destruction of more than
two tons of farm manure per acre per annum.

“Well, we surely need this information,” said
Mr. Thornton. ‘I have always supposed that the
teachers in the agricultural college knew little or
nothing of practical farming.”

‘IT did not go to college to learn practical farm-
ing, if we mean by that the common practice of ag-
riculture,” replied Percy. “I already knew what we

78

WHY PERCY WENT TO COLLEGE 79

call practical farming; that is, how to do the ordin-
ary farm work, including such operations as plow-
ing, planting, cultivating, and harvesting; but it
seems to me, Mr. Thornton, that this sort of prac-
tical farming has resulted in practical ruin for most
of these Eastern lands. The fact is there is a side
to agriculture that I knew almost nothing about as
a so-called practical farmer, and I am coming to
believe that what we commonly call practical farm-
ing is often the most impractical farming, —certain-
ly this is true if it ultimately results in depleted and
abandoned lands. The truly practical farmer is the
man who knows not only how to do, but also what
to do and why he does it. The Simplon railroad
tunnel connecting Switzerland with Italy is twelve
miles long,—the longest in the world. It was dug
from the two ends, but under the mountain, six miles
from either end, the two holes came together ex-
actly, within a limit of error of less than six inches,
and made one continuous tunnel twelve miles long.
Now, this was not all accomplished by the practical
men who knew how to handle a spade in digging a
ditch. The work was controlled by science, and it
was known in advance what the results would be. I
do not mean that it was known how hard the digging
would be, nor how much trouble would be caused
by caving or by water; but it was known that if the
practical work was done, the final outcome would be
successful.

“T think it is even more important that we under-
stand enough of the sciences which underlie the
practice of agriculture so we may know in advance
that when the practical farm work is done the soil
will be richer and better rather than poorer and less
productive because of our impractical farming.

“As I said, I did not go to the agricultural col-
lege to learn the practice or art of farming; I went

80 THE STORM OF THE SOIL

to learn the science of agriculture; but, as a matter
of fact, I found the college professor knew about
as much of practical agriculture as I did and a great
deal of science that I did not know. I found that
the Dean of the college, who is also Director of the
Experiment Station, had been born and raised on
the farm, had done all kinds of farm work, the
same as other farm boys, had gone through an ag-
ricultural college, and after his graduation had re-
turned to the farm and remained there for ten
years doing his own work with his own hands. He
has had as much actual farm experience as you have
had, Mr. Thornton, and ten years more than I have
had. He was finally called from the farm to be-
come an assistant in the college from which he was
graduated, and in a few years he was advanced to
head professor in agriculture. About ten years ago
he was made dean and director of the agricultural
college and experiment station in my own state;
and I have been told that he will not recommend
any one for a responsible position in an agricultural
college unless he has had both farm experience and
scientific training. He and most of his associates
are owners of farms and would return to them again
if they did not feel that they are of more service
to agriculture as teachers and investigators.”

“TI am very glad to know about this,” said Mr.
Thornton. ‘Certainly your opinion, based upon
such knowledge as you have of your own college, is
worth more than all the common talk I have ever
heard from those who never saw an agricultural
college. I wish you would tell me something more
in regard to what crops are made of and about the
methods of making land better even while we are
taking crops from it every year.”

CHAPTER XIV
A LEsson IN FARM SCIENCE

HE subject is somewhat complicated,”
Percy replied, “‘yet it involves no more
dificult problems than have been solved
in many other lines. The chief trouble
is that we have done too little thinking
about our own real problems. Even

in the country schools we have learned something of
banking and various other lines of business, some-
thing of the history and politics of this and other
countries, something of the great achievements in
war, in discovery and exploration, in art, literature,
and invention; but we have not learned what our
soils contain nor what our crops require. Not one
farmer in a hundred knows what chemical elements
are absolutely required for the production of our
agricultural plants, and one may work hard on the
farm from four o’clock in the morning till nine
o’clock at night for forty years and still not learn
what corn is made of.

‘All agricultural plants are composed of ten
chemical elements, and the growth of any crop is ab-
solutely dependent upon the supply of these plant
food elements. If the supply of any one of these
plant food elements is limited, the crop yield will
also be limited. The grain and grass crops, such as
corn, oats, wheat, and timothy, also the root crops
and potatoes, secure two elements from the air, one
from water, and seven from the soil.

“The supply of some elements is constantly re-
newed by natural processes, and iron, one of the ten,
is contained in all normal soils in absolutely inex-

SI

82 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

haustible amount; while other elements become de-
ficient and the supply must be renewed by man, or
ee yields decrease and farming becomes unprofit-
able.

‘‘Matter is absolutely indestructible. It may change
its form, but not a pound of material substance can
be destroyed. Matter moves in cycles, and the key
to the problem of successful permanent agriculture is
the circulation of plant food. While some elements
have a natural cycle which is amply sufficient to
meet all requirements for these elements as plant
food, other elements have no such cycle, and it is the
chief business of the farmer to make these elements
circulate. :

“Take carbon, for example. ‘This element is well
represented by hard coal. Soft coal and charcoal are
chiefly carbon. The diamond is pure crystallized car-
bon, and charcoal made from pure sugar is pure, un-
crystallized carbon. ‘This can easily be made by
heating a lump of sugar on a red hot stove until only
a black coal remains. Now these different solid ma-
terials represent carbon in the elemental form or free
state. But carbon may unite with other elements to
form chemical compounds, and these may be solids,
liquids, or gases.

Thus carbon and sulfur are both solid elements,
one black and the other yellow, as generally found.
If these two elements are mixed together under or-
dinary conditions no change occurs. ‘The result is
simply a mixture of carbon and sulfur. But, if this
mixture is heated in a retort which excludes the air,
the carbon and sulfur unite into a chemical com-
pound called carbon disulfid. ‘This compound is
neither black, yellow, nor solid; but it is a colorless,
limpid liquid; and yet it contains absolutely nothing
except carbon and sulfur.”

‘“That seems strange,’’ remarked Mr. Thornton.

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 83

“Yes, but similar changes are going on about us
all the time,’ replied Percy. ‘“‘We put ten pounds
of solid black coal in the stove and an hour later we
find nothing there, except a few ounces of ashes
which represent the impurities in the coal.”

eng the coal is burned up and destroyed, is it
not?”

‘‘The carbon is burned and changed, but not des-
troyed. In this case, the heat has caused the car-
bon to unite with the element oxygen which exists in
the air in the form of a gas, and a chemical com-
pound is formed which we call carbon dioxid. This
compound is a colorless gas. This element oxygen
enters the vent of the stove and the compound car-
bon dioxid passes off through the chimney. If there
is any smoke, it is due to small particles of unburned
carbon or other colored substances.

‘As a rule more or less sulfur is contained in
coal, wood, and other organic matter, and this also
is burned to sulfur dioxid and carried into the air,
from which it is brought back to the soil in rain in
ample amounts to supply all of the sulfur required
by plants.

“Everywhere over the earth the atmosphere con-
tains some carbon dioxid and this compound fur-
nishes all agricultural plants their necessary supply of
both carbon and oxygen. In other words, these are
the two elements that plants secure from the air. The
gas, carbon dioxid, passes into the plant through the
breathing pores on the under side of the leaves.
These are microscopic openings but very numerous.
A square inch of a corn leaf may have a hundred
thousand breathing pores.”

“Now, as we go on, I am especially anxious to get
at this question of supply and demand,” said Mr.
Thornton. ‘I think I understand about iron and
sulfur, and also that these two elements, carbon

84 THE STORY OF THE S0IrL

and oxygen, are both contained in the air in the
compound called carbon dioxid, and that this must
supply our crops with those two elements of plant
food. Id like to know about the supply. How
much is there in the air and how much do the crops
requires’

“As you know,” said Percy, “the atmospheric
pressure is about fifteen pounds to the square inch.”’

“Yes, I’ve heard that, I know.”

“Well, that means, of course, that there are fifteen
pounds of air resting on every square inch of the
earth’s surface; in other words, that a column of air
one inch square and as high as the air goes, perhaps
fifty miles or more, weighs fifteen pounds.”

Whes, that is,very clear.

‘There is only one pound of carbon in ten thou-
sand pounds of ordinary country air. Now, there
are one hundred and sixty square rods in an acre,
and since there are twelve inches in a foot and six-
teen and one-half feet in a rod, it is easy to compute
that there are nearly a hundred million pounds of
air on an acre, and that the carbon in this amounts
to only five tons. A three-ton crop of corn or hay
contains one and one-fourth tons of the element
carbon; so that the total amount of the carbon
in the air, over an. acre of land is sumeens
for only four such crops; while a single crop of
corn yielding a hundred bushels to the acre,
such as “we often. raise, in’ Illinois’ on jie
feed-lots or other pieces of well treated
land, would require half of the total supply
of carbon contained in the air over an acre. How-
ever, the largest crop of corn ever grown, of which
there is an established authentic record, was not
raised in IIlinois, but in the state of South Caro-
lina, in the county of Marlborough, in the year
1889, by Z. J. Drake; and, according to the authen-

oo

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 85

tic report of the official committee that measured
the land and saw the crop harvested and weighed,
and awarded Drake a prize of five hundred dol-
lars given by the Orange Judd Publishing Com-
pany,—according to this very creditable evidence,
that acre of land yielded 239 bushels of thoroughly

” ai@-dried corn; and such a crop, Mr. Thornton,

would require as much carbon as the total amount
contained in the air over an acre of land.”
_ “Well, that is astonishing! Then there must
be some other source of supply besides the air.”’
“There is no other direct source from which
plants secure carbon; but of course the air is in
constant motion. Only one-fourth of the earth’s
surface is land, and perhaps only one-fourth of this
land is cropped, and the average crop is about one-
fourth of three tons; so that the total present sup-
ply of carbon in the air would be sufficient for about
two-hundred and fifty years. But as a matter of
fact the supply is permanently maintained by the
carbon cycle. Thus the carbon of coal that is burned
in the stove returns to the air in carbon dioxid; and
all combustion of coal and wood, grass and weeds,
and all other vegetable matter returns carbon to the
atmosphere. All decay of organic matter, as in
the fermentation of manure in the pile and the rot-
ting of vegetable matter in the soil, is a form of
slow combustion and carbon dioxid is the chief pro-
duct of such decay. Sometimes an appreciable
amount of heat is developed, as in the steaming pile
of stable refuse lying in the barnyard, while the
heat evolved in the soil is too quickly disseminated
to be apparent. |
“Tn addition to all this, every animal exales car-
bon. dioxid. The body heat and the animal force
or energy are supplied by the combustion of organic
food within the body, and here, too, carbon dioxid

86 THE STORY OR THE SOIL

is the chief product of combustion.

“Thus, as a general average, the amount of car-
bon removed from the atmosphere by growing
plants is no greater than the amount returned to the
air by these various forms of combustion or decay.
In like manner the supply of combined oxygen is
maintained, both carbon and oxygen being fur-
nished to the plant in the carbon dioxid.

‘‘As a matter of fact, the air consists very largely
of oxygen and nitrogen, both in the free state, but
in this form these elements cannot be utilized in the
growth of agricultural plants. The only apparent
exception to this is in case of legume crops, such as
clover, alfalfa, peas, beans, and vetch, which have
power to utilize the free nitrogen by means of their
symbiotic relationship with certain nitrogen-fixing
bacteria which live, or may live, in tubercles on their
roots.

“Carbon and oxygen constitute about ninety per
cent. of the dry matter of ordinary farm crops, and
with the addition of hydrogen very important plant
constituents are produced; such as starch, sugar,
fiber, or cellulose, which constitute the carbohy-
drate group. As the name indicates, this group con-
tains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the last two
being present in the same proportion as in water.

‘‘Water is composed of the two elements, hydro-
gen and oxygen, both of which are gases in the free
state. Water is taken into the plant through the
roots and decomposed in the leaves in contact with
the carbon dioxid under the influence of sunlight and
the life principle. The oxygen from the water and
part of that from the carbon dioxid is given off into
the air through the breathing pores, while the car-
bon, hydrogen, and part of the oxygen, unite to form
the carbohydrates. These three elements constitute
about ninety-five per cent. of our farm crops, and

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 87

yet every one of the other seven plant food elements
is just as essential to the growth and full develop-
ment of the plant as are these three.”

‘‘Then so long as we have air above and moisture
below, our crops will not lack for carbon, oxygen, and
hydrogen. Is that the summing up of the matter?”

© Yes, Sir, Percy replied.

“And those three elements make up ninety-five per
cent. of our farm crops. Is that correct?”

) hes, Of, aS an average.”

‘Well, now it seems to me, if nature thus provides
ninety-five per cent. of all we need, we ought to find
some way of furnishing the other five per cent. It
makes me think of the young wife who told he hus-
band she could live on bread and water, with his love,
and he told her that if she would furnish the bread
he’d skirmish around and get the water. But, say,
did that South Carolina man use any fertilizer for
that immense crop of corn?”

‘Some fertilizer, yes. He applied manure and
fertilizer from February till June. In all he applied
1000 bushels (about 30 tons) of farm manure, 600
bushels of whole cotton seed, 900 pounds of cotton
seed meal, 900 pounds of kainit, 1100 pounds of
guano, 200 pounds of bone meal, 200 pounds of acid
phosphate, and 400 pounds of sodium nitrate.”’

‘“T would also like to know the facts about this nitro-
gen business,’ said Mr. Thornton. “I’ve understood
that one could get some of it from the air, and I
would much rather get it that way than to buy it
from the fertilizer agent at twenty cents a pound.
Cowpeas don’t seem to help much, and we don’t have
the cotton seed, and we never have sufficient manure
to cover much land.”’

“Tt is a remarkable fact,”’ said Percy, “‘that of the
ten essential elements of plant food, nitrogen is the
most abundant, measured by crop requirements, and

88 THE STORY OP RE sol

at the same time the most expensive. The air above
an acre of land contains enough carbon for a hundred
bushels of corn per acre for two years, and enough
nitrogen for five hundred thousand years; and yet
the nitrogen in commercial fertilizers costs from fif-
teen to twenty cents a pound. At commercial prices
for nitrogen, every man who owns an acre of land is
a millionaire.” i

“You mean he has millions in the air,’’ amended
Mr. Thornton. _. :

“Yes, that is the better way to put it,’’ Percy ad-
mitted, ‘“‘but the fact is he can not only get this nitro-
gen for nothing by means of legume crops, but he
is paid for getting it, because those crops are profita-
ble to raise for their own value. Clover, alfalfa, cow-
peas, and soy beans are all profitable crops, and they
all have power to use the free nitrogen of the air.

‘There are a few important facts to be kept in
mind regarding nitrogen:

“A fifty-bushel crop of corn takes 75 pounds of
nitrogen from the soil. Of this amount about 50
pounds are in the grain, 24 pounds are in the stalks,
and 1 pound in the cobs. A fifty-bushel crop of oats
takes 48 pounds of nitrogen from the soil, 33
pounds in the grain, and 15 in the straw. A twenty-
five-bushel crop of wheat also takes 48 pounds of
nitrogen from the soil, 36 pounds in the grain and
12 in the straw.

“These amounts will vary to some extent with the
quality of the crops, just as the weight of a bushel of
wheat varies from perhaps 56 to 64 pounds, al-
though as an average wheat weighs 60 pounds to
the bushel.”

“You surely remember figures well,’ remarked
Mr. Thornton as he made some notations.” el

“Tt is easy to remember what we think about much
and often,’ said Percy; ‘‘as easy to remember that

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 86

a ton of cowpea hay contains 43 pounds of nitrogen
as that Blairville is 53 miles from Richmond.”’

“T have added those figures together,’ continued
Mr. Thornton, ‘‘and I find that the three crops, corn,
oats, and wheat, would require 171 pounds of nitro-
gen. Now suppose we raise a crop of cowpeas the
fourth year, how much nitrogen would be added to
the soil in the roots and stubble ?”’

“Not any.”

_ “Do you mean to say that the roots and stubble
of the cowpeas would add no nitrogen to the soil?
Surely that does not agree with the common talk.”

“Tt is even worse than that,” said Percy. ‘The
cowpea roots and stubble would contain less nitro-
gen than the cowpea crop takes from a soil capable
of yielding thirty bushels of corn or oats. Only about
one-tenth of the nitrogen contained in the cowpea
plant is left in the roots and stubble when the crop is
harvested. Suppose the yield is two tons per acre
of cowpea hay! Such a crop would contain about
86 pounds of nitrogen, and about 1o pounds of
nitrogen per acre would be left in the roots and
stubble.”’

‘Well that wouldn’t go far toward replacing the
171 pounds removed from the soil by the corn, oats,
and wheat, that’s sure,’’ was Mr. Thornton’s com-
ment.

“Tt is worse than that,’ Percy repeated. “Land
that will furnish 48 pounds of nitrogen for a
crop of oats or wheat will furnish more than to
pounds for a crop of cowpeas. At the end of such
a four-year rotation such a soil would be about
200 pounds poorer in nitrogen per acre than at
the beginning, if all crops were removed and nothing
returned.” | ahi "

“low much would it cost.to put that nitrogen
back in commercial fertilizer?” asked Mr. Thorn-

90 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

ton.

‘“That depends, of course, upon what kind of fer-
tilizer is used.”’

‘‘Well most people around here who use fertilizer
buy what the agent calls two-eight-two, and it costs
about one dollar and fifty cents a hundred pounds;
gut it gan be bought by the ton for about tweny-five |
dollars.”

‘“ “Two-eight-two’ means that the fertilizer is
guaranteed to contain two per cent. of ammonia,
eight per cent. of available ‘phosphoric acid’, and
two per cent of potash.”

‘‘Ammonia is the same as nitrogen, is it not?”

"No, it is not the same,” replied Percy. “Am-
monia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. In
order to have a clear understanding of the relation
between ammonia and nitrogen we only need to
know the combining weights of the elements. The
smallest particle of an element is called an atom.
Hydrogen is the lightest of all the elements and the
weight of the hydrogen atom is used as the stand-
ard or unit for the measure of all other atomic
weights; thus the atom of hydrogen weighs one.”

“One what?” interrupted Mr. Thornton.

‘No one knows,” replied Percy. ‘“‘The atom is
extremely small, much too small to be seen with the
most powerful microscope; but you know all things
are relative and we always measure one thing in
terms of another. We say a foot is twelve inches
and an inch is one-twelfth of a foot, and there we
stop with a definition of each expressed in terms
of the other, and both depending upon an arbitrary
standard that somebody once adopted, and yet,
while the foot is known in most countries, it is rare
that two countries have exactly the same standard
for this measure of length.

We do not know the exact weight of the hydro-

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE gI

gen atom, but we do know its relative weight. If
the hydrogen atom weighs one then other atomic
weights are as follows:

12 for carbon

14 for nitrogen
16 for oxygen

24 for magnesium
31 for phosphorus
32 for sulfur

39 for potassium
40 for calcium

56 for iron

“This means that the iron atom is fifty-six times
as heavy as the hydrogen atom. ‘These atomic
weights are absolutely necessary to a clear under-
standing of the compounds formed by the union or
combination of two or more elements.

“One other thing is also necessary. ‘That is to
keep in mind the number of bonds, or hands, pos-
sessed by each atom. ‘The atom of hydrogen has
only one hand, and the same is true of potassium.
Each atom of oxygen has two hands; so that one
oxygen atom can hold two hydrogen atoms in the
chemical compound called water (H-O-H or H2QO).
Other elements having two-handed atoms are mag-
nesium and calcium. Strange to say, the sulfur
atom has six hands but sometimes uses only two,
the others seemingly being clasped together in pairs,
I will write it out for you, thus:

Hydrogen sulfid: H-S-H or H2S
Sulfur dioxid: O=S=O or SO2

ZO
Sulfur trioxid: O= Ss or SO3
NO

92 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“The carbon atom has four hands, and atoms of
nitrogen and phosphorus have five hands, but some-
times use only three. Thus, in the compound called
ammonia, one atom of nitrogen always holds three
atoms of hydrogen; so, if you buy seventeen pounds
of ammonia you would get only fourteen pounds of
nitrogen and three pounds of hydrogen. ‘This
means that, if the two-eight-two fertilizer contains
two per cent. of ammonia, it contains only one and
two-thirds per cent. of the actual element nitrogen,
and a ton of such fertilizer would contain thirty-
three pounds of nitrogen. In other words it would
take six tons of such fertilizer to replace the nitro-
gen removed from one acre of land in four years
if the crop yields were fifty bushels of corn and
oats, twenty-five bushels of wheat, and two tons of
cowpea hay.”

“Six tons! Why, that would cost a hundred and
fifty dollars! Well, well, I thought I knew we
couldn’t afford to keep up our land with commer-
cial fertilizer; but I didn’t think it was that bad. Al-
most forty dollars an acre a year!”

“Tt need not be quite that bad,” said Percy. “You
see this two-eight-two fertilizer contains eight per
cent. of so-called ‘phosphoric acid’ and two per cent.
of potash, and those constituents may be worth
much more than the nitrogen; but, so far as nitro-
gen is concerned, the two hundred pounds would
cost from thirty to forty dollars in the best nitro-
gen fertilizers in the market, such as dried blood or
sodium nitrate.”

“Well, even that would be eight or ten dollars a
year per acre, and that is as much as the land is
worth, and this wouldn’t include any other plant
food elements, such as ‘phosphoric acid’ and potash.
Would it?”

“No, that much would be required for the nitro-

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 93

gen alone if bought in commercial form. I under-
stand that the farmers who use this common com-
mercial fertilizer, apply about three hundred
pounds of it to the acre perhaps twice in four years.
That would cost about eight dollars for the four
years, and the total nitrogen applied in the two ap-
plications would amount to 10 pounds per acre.

“It is not quite correct to call ‘phosphoric acid’
and potash plant food elements. ‘They are not ele-
ments but compounds.”’ |

“Like ammonia, which is part nitrogen and part
hydrogen ?”’ |

“The problem is somewhat similar, but not just
the same,” Percy replied. ‘These compounds con-
tain oxygen and not hydrogen.”

‘Well, I understand that both oxygen and hydro-
gen are furnished by natural processes, the oxygen
from carbon dioxid in the carbon cycle, and the hy-
drogen from the water which falls in rain.”

‘That is all true, but you really do not buy the
hydrogen or oxygen. While they are included in the
two-eight-two guarantee, the price is adjusted for
that. Thus the cost of nitrogen would be just the
same whether you purchase the fertilizer on the basis
of seventeen cents a pound for the actual element ni-
trogen, or fourteen cents a pound for the ammonia.”’

“Yes, [ see how that might be, but I don’t see why
the guarantee should be two per cent. of ammonia
instead of one and two-thirds per cent. of nitrogen,
when the nitrogen is all that gives it value.”’

“There is no good reason for it,’’ said Percy.
“It is one of those customs that are conceived in
ignorance and continued in selfishness. It is very
much simpler to consider the whole subject on the
basis of actual plant food elements, and I am glad
to say that many of the state laws already require
the nitrogen to be guaranteed in terms of the actual

94 ‘THE STORY) OF THE SOIL

element, and a few states now require the phosphorus
and potassium also to be reported on the element
basis.”’

‘That is hopeful, at least,’ said Mr. Thornton.
“Now, if I am not asking too many questions or
keeping you here too long, I shall be glad to have
you explain two more points that come to my mind:
First, how much of that two hundred pounds of ni-
trogen can I put back in the manure produced on the
farm; and, second, just what is meant by potash
and phosphoric acid ?”’

Percy made a few computations and then replied:
“Tf you sell the wheat; feed all the corn, oats, and
cowpea hay and half of the straw and corn fodder,
and use the other half for bedding; and, if you save
absolutely all of the manure produced, including both
the solid and liquid excrement; then it would be
possible to recover and return to the land about 173
pounds of nitrogen during the four years, compared
with the 200 pounds taken from the soil.

“T can’t understand that,’ said Mr. Thornton.
‘How can that be when one of the crops is cow-
pease”

“In average live-stock and dairy farming,” Per-
cy continued, ‘‘about one-fourth of the nitrogen con-
tained in the food consumed is retained in the milk
and animal growth, and you can make the computa-
tions for yourself. It should be kept in mind, more-
over, that much of the manure produced on the aver-
age farm is wasted. More than half of the nitrogen
is in the liquid excrement, and it is extremely difh-
cult to prevent loss of the liquid manure. There is
also large loss of nitrogen from the fermentation
of manure in piles; and when you smell ammonia
in the stable, see the manure pile steaming, or col-
ored liquid soaking into the ground beneath, or
flowing away in rainy weather, you may know that

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 9

nitrogen is being lost. How many tons of manure
can you apply to your land under such a system of
farming as we have been discussing?” ,

“Well, ve figured a good deal on manure,” was
the reply, “and I think with four fields producing
such crops as you counted on, that I could possibly
put ten or twelve tons to the acre on one field every

€ar.’’

“That would return from 100 to 120 pounds of
nitrogen;”’ said Percy, “instead of the 173 pounds
possible to be returned if there is no loss. There are
three methods that may be used to reduce the loss
of manure: One of these is to do the feeding on the
fields. Another is to haul the manure from the sta-
ble every day or two and spread it on the land. The
third is to allow the manure to accumulate in deep
stalls for several weeks, using plenty of bedding to
absorb the liquid and keep the animals clean, and then
haul and spread it when convenient.”

“T’m afraid that last method would not do at all
for the dairy farmer,” said Mr. Thornton. ‘You
see we have to keep things very clean and in sanitary
condition.”

‘Most often the cleanest and most sanitary meth-
od the average farmer has of handling the manure in
dairying,” said Percy, “is to keep it buried as much
as possible under plenty of clean bedding; and one
of the worst methods is to overhaul it every day by
‘cleaning’ the stable, unless you could have concrete
floors throughout, and flush them well once or twice
a day, thus losing a considerable part of the valuable
excrement. If you allow the manure to accumulate
for several weeks at a time, it is best to have suf-
ficient room in the stable or shed so that the cows
need not be tied. If allowed to run loose they will
find clean places to lie down even during the night.

‘In case of horses, the manure can be kept buried

96 THE STORY*OF THE SOIL

for several weeks if some means are used to prevent
the escape of ammonia. Cattle produce what is
called a ‘cold’ manure, while it is called ‘hot’ from
horses because it decomposes so readily. One of the
best substance to use for the prevention of loss of
ammonia in horse stables is acid phosphate, which
has power to unite with ammonia and hold it in a
fixed compound. About one pound of acid phos-
phate per day for each horse should be sprinkled over
the manure. Of course the phosphorus contained in
the acid phosphate has considerable value for its own
sake, and care should be taken that you do not lose
more phosphorus from the acid phosphate applied
than the value of all the ammonia saved by this
means. Porous earth floors may absorb very con-
siderable amounts of liquid from wet manure lying
underneath the dry bedding, and the acid phosphate
sometimes injures the horses’ feet; so that, as a rule,
it is better to clean the horse stables every day and
supply phosphorus in raw phosphate at one-fourth
of its cost in acid phosphate.”’

‘Before we leave the nitrogen question,” said Mr.
Thornton, ‘‘I want to ask if you can suggest how we
can get enough of the several million dollars’ worth
we have in the air to supply the needs of our crops ©
and build up our land?”

‘‘“Grow more legumes, and plow more under, either
directly or in manure.”

‘That sounds easy, but can you suggest some prac-
tical system ?”

‘“T think so. I know too little of your conditions
to think I could suggest the best system for you to
adopt; but I can surely suggest one that will supply
nitrogen for such crop yields as we have considered:
Suppose we change the order of the crops and grow
wheat, corn, oats, and cowpeas, and grow clover with
the wheat and oats, plowing the clover under in the

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 97

spring as green manure for corn and cowpeas. If
necessary to prevent the clover or weeds from pro-
ducing seed, the field may be clipped with the mower
in the late summer when the clover has made some
growth after the wheat and oats have been removed.
Leave this season’s growth lying on the land. As
an average it should amount to more than half a ton
of hay per acre. The next spring the clover is al-
lowed to grow for several weeks. It should be
plowed under for corn on one field early in May and
two or three weeks later the other field is plowed for
cowpeas. The spring growth should average nearly
a ton of clover hay per acre. In this way clover
equivalent to about three tons of hay could be plowed
under. Clover hay contains 40 pounds of nitro-
gen per ton; so this would supply about 120 pounds
of nitrogen in addition to the 173 pounds possible to
be supplied in the manure. This would make possi-
ble a total return of 293 pounds, while we figured
some 200 pounds removed. Of course if you save
only 100 pounds in the manure the amount returned
would be reduced to 200 pounds.”’

‘There are two questionable points in this plan,”
said Mr. Thornton, ‘‘One is the impossibility, or at
least the difficulty, of growing clover on this land.
The other point is, How much of that 120 pounds of
nitrogen returned in the clover is taken from the soil
itself? I remember you figured 86 pounds of nitro-
gen in two tons of cowpea hay, but you also as-
sumed that about 29 pounds of it would be taken
from the soil.

Da cs, that is true,” Percy replied, "at least 20
pounds and probably more. You see the cowpeas
grow during the same months as corn and on
land prepared in about the same manner. . If the
soil will furnish 75 pounds of nitrogen to the
corn crop, and 48 pounds to the oats and wheat,

98 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

it would surely furnish 29 pounds to the cowpeas.
Of course this particular amount has no special
significance, but the other definite amounts removed
in corn, oats, and wheat aggregate 171, and the 29
pounds were added to make the round 200 pounds.
Perhaps 210 pounds would be nearer th truth, in
which case the soil would furnish about half as much
nitrogen to the cowpea crop as to the corn crop.
This is reasonable considering that corn is the first
crop grown after the manure is applied. You will
remember that only one-tenth of the total nitrogen
of the cowpea plant remains in the roots and stub-
blezy

‘Yes, that’s what we figured on.”’

‘The cowpea is an annual plant. It is planted,
produces its seed, and dies the same season. It has
no need to store up material in the roots for future
use. Consequently the substance of the root is largely
taken into the tops as the plant approaches matur-
ity. It is different with the clover plant. ‘This is a
biennial with some tendency toward the perennial
plant. It lives long and develops an extensive root
system, and it stores up material in the roots during
part of its life for use at a later period. About one-
third of the total nitrogen content of the clover plant
is contained in the roots and stubble. ‘This means
that the roots and stubble of a two-ton crop of clover
would contain about forty pounds of nitrogen, or
more than we assumed was taken from the soil by the
cowpeas. But there is still another point in favor
of the clover. The cowpeas make their growth dur-
ing the summer months when nitrification is most ac-
tive, whereas the clover growth we have counted
on occurs chiefly during the fall and spring when
nitrification is much less active, consequently the
clover probably takes even a larger proportion | ot
its nitrogen from the air than we have counted on.”

A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 99

“That is rather confusing,” said Mr. Thornton,
“you say the cowpea grows when nitrification is most
active, and yet you say that it takes less nitrogen from
the air than clover. Isn’t that somewhat contradic-
tory?”

“T think not,’ said Percy. “Let me see.—Just
what do you understand by nitrification?”

“Getting nitrogen from the air, is it not?”

“No, no. That explains it. Getting nitrogen from
the air is called nitrogen fixation. This action is
carried on by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as the
clover bacteria, the soy bean bacteria, the alfalfa bac-
teria, which, by the way, are evidently the same as
the bacteria of sweet clover, or mellilotus. Then we
also have the cowpea bacteria, and these seem to be
the same as the bacteria of the wild partridge pea,
a kind of sensitive plant with yellow flowers, and a
tiny goblet standing upright at the base of each com-
pound leaf,—the plant called Cassia Chamaecrista
by the botanist.”

“Nitrification is an altogether—”’

“Well, I declare! Excuse me, Sir, but that’s
Charlie calling the cows. Scotts, I don’t see where
the time has gone! You'll excuse me, Sir, but I must
look after separating the cream. You will greatly
oblige me, Mr. Johnston, if you will have dinner with
us and share our home to-night. In addition to the
pleasure of your company, I confess that I am might-
ily interested in this subject; and I would like espe-
cially to get a clear understanding of that nitrifica-
tion process, and we’ve not had time to discuss the
potash and ‘phosphoric acid’, which I know cost
some of our farmers a good part of all they get for
their crops, and still their lands are as poor as ever.”

“T appreciate very much your kind invitation, Mr.
Thornton. I came to you for correct information
regarding the agricultural conditions here, and you

100 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

were very kind and indulgent to answer my blunt
questions, even concerning your own farm practice
and experience. I feel, Sir, that I am already greatly
indebted to you, but it will certainly be a great pleas-
ure to me to remain with you to-night.

For more than two hours they had been standing,
leaning, or sitting in a field beside a shock of cow-
pea hay, Percy toying with his soil auger, and Mr.
Thornton making records now and then in his pocket
note book.

CHAPTER XV
COEDUCATION

ERCY took a lesson in turning the cream
separator and after dinner Mrs. Thorn-
ton assured him that she and her sister
were greatly disappointed that they had
not been permitted to hear the discussion
concerning the use of science on the farm.

“We have never forsaken our belief that these
old farms can again be made to yield bountiful
crops,” she said, ‘‘as ours did for so many years
under the management of our ancestors. ‘Hope
springs eternal in the human breast.’ I stop with
that for I do not like the rest of the couplet. We
can see that some marked progress has been made
under my husband’s management, although he feels
that it is very slow work building up a run-down
farm. But he has raised some fine crops on the
fields under cultivation,—as much as ten barrels of
corn to the acre, have you not, Dear?” she asked.

“Yes, fully that much, but even ten barrels per
acre on one small field is nothing compared to the
great fields of corn Mr. Johnston raises in the West,
and it makes a mighty small show here on a nine-
hundred-acre farm, most of which hasn’t been crop-
ped for more than twenty years; and even then it
was given up because the negro tenants couldn’t raise
corn enough to live on.

“T’ve talked some with the fertilizer agents, but
they don’t know much about fertilizers, except what
they read in the testimonials published in the adver-
tising booklets. I have had some good help from
the agricultural papers, but most that is written for

IO]

102 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

the papers doesn’t apply to our farm, and it’s so in-
definite and incomplete, that I’ve just spent this whole
evening asking Mr. Johnston questions; and I haven’t
given him a chance to answer them all yet.”’

‘“T am sure you have not asked more quetions this
afternoon than I did this forenoon,” Percy remarked;
‘and all your answers were based on authentic his-
tory or actual experience, while my answers were only
what I have learned from others.”

‘Well, if we were more ready to learn from oth-
ers, it would be better for all of us,”’ said Mr. Thorn-
ton. ‘‘Experience is a mighty dear teacher and, even
if we finally learn the lesson, it may be too ever-
lasting late for us to apply it. Now we all want
to learn about that process called nitrification.”

“Tt is an extremely interesting and important pro-
cess,” said Percy. ‘‘It includes the stages or steps by
which the insoluble organic nitrogen of the soil is con-
verted into soluble nitrate nitrogen, in which form it
becomes available as food for all of our agricultural
plants.”

“Excepting the legumes?” asked Mr. Thornton.

“Excepting none,’ Percy replied. ‘The legume
plants, like clover, take nitrogen from the soil so
far as they can secure it in available form, and in this
respect clover is not different from corn. The respect
in which it is different is the power of clover to
secure additional supplies of nitrogen from the air
when the soil’s available supply becomes inadequate to
meet the needs of the growing clover. If the condi-
tions are suitable for nitrogen-fixation, then the
growth of the legume plants need not be limited by
lack of nitrogen; whereas, nitrogen is probably the
element that first limits the growth and yield of all
other crops on your common soils.”

‘Now, what do you think of that, Girls? With

millions of dollars’ worth of nitrogen in the air over

COEDUCATION 103

every acre, our crops are poor just because we don’t
use it. I wish you would tell me something about
the suitable conditions for nitrogen-fixation, Mr.
Johnston. You understand, Girls, that nitrogen-fix-
ation is simply getting nitrogen from the inexhaustt-
ble supply in the air by means of little microscopic
organisms called bacteria, which live in little balls
called tubercles attached to the roots of certain plants
called legumes, like cowpeas and clover. Corn and
wheat and such crops can’t get this nitrogen. Now,
Mr. Johnston is telling about nitrification, a process
which is entirely different from nitrogen-fixation. Ex-
cuse me, Mr. Johnston, but I wanted to make this
plain to Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell.”

“TI am glad you did so,”’ Percy replied. “As I
was saying, nitrification has no connection whatever
with the free nitrogen of the air.

“All plants take their food in solution; that is,
the plant food taken from the soil must be dissolved
in the soil water or moisture. Of the essential ele-
ments of plant food, seven are taken from the soil
through the roots into the plant. These seven do
not include those of which water itself is composed.
Now, these seven plant food elements exist in the soil
almost exclusively in an insoluble form. In that con-
dition they are not available to the plant for plant
food; and it is the business of the farmer to make
this plant food available as fast as is needed by his
growing crops.

“The nitrogen of the soil exists in the organic mat-
ter; that is, in such materials as plant roots, weeds,
and stubble, that may have been plowed under, or
any kind of vegetable matter incorporated with the
soil, including all sorts of crop residues, green ma-
nures, and the common farm fertilizer from the sta-
bles. When these organic materials are decomposed
and distinegrated to such an extent that their struc-

104 THE STORY OF: THE SOIL

ture is completely destroyed, the resulting mass of
partially decayed black organic matter is called hu-
mus. The nitrogen of the soil is one of the con-
stituents of this humus or other organic matter. It
is not contained in the mineral particles of the soil.
On the other hand the other six elements of plant
food are contained largely in the mineral part of
the soil, as the clay, silt, and sand. ‘Thus the iron,
calcium, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are
called abundant elements, are contained in the mineral
matter, and usually is considerable amounts, while
they are found in the organic matter in very small
proportion. ‘The phosphorus and sulfur are found
in very limited quantities in most soils, but they are
present in both organic and mineral form.

“Practically the entire stock or store of all of the
elements in the soil is insoluble and consequently un-
available for the use of growing plants; and, as I
said, some of the chief plans and efforts of the farm-
er should be directed to the business of making plant
food available.

“The nitrogen contained in the insoluble organic
matter of the soil is made soluble and available by
the process called nitrification. Three different kinds
of bacteria are required to bring about the complete
change.’

“Are these bacteria different from the nitrogen-
fixing bacteria ?’’ asked Mr. Thornton.

“Entirely different,’ Percy replied, “‘and there are
three distinct kinds, one for each of the three steps
in the process.

“The first may be called ammonia bacteria. “They
have power to convert organic nitrogen into ammonia
nitrogen; that is, into the compound of nitrogen and
hydrogen; and this step in the process is called am-
monification.

‘The other two kinds are the true nitrifying bac-

COEDUCATION 105

teria. One of them converts the ammonia into ni-
trites, and the other changes the nitrites into ni-
trates. [hese two kinds are known as the nitrite
bacteria and the nitrate bacteria.

‘Technically the last two steps in the process are
nitrification proper; but, speaking generally, the
term nitrification is used to include the three steps,
or both ammonification and nitrification proper.

‘Now, the nitrifying bacteria require certain con-
ditions, otherwise they will not perform their func-
tions. Among these essential conditions are the pres-
ence of moisture and free oxygen, a supply of car-
bonates, certain food materials for the bacteria them-
selves, and a temperature within certain limits.

“You may remember, Mr. Thornton, that more
soil nitrogen is made available for cowpeas during
the summer weather than for clover during the cool-
er fall and spring?”

“Yes, I remember that distinction.”’

“TI declare,’’ said Miss Russell, ‘““Tom talks as
though he had been there and seen the things going
on. I haven’t seen you using any microscope.”

“Well, I tell you, I’ve mighty near seen ’em,” was
the reply. ‘‘Mr. Johnston makes everything so
plain that I can mighty near see what he saw when
he looked through the microscope.”

“T greatly enjoyed my microscopic work,’’ said
Percy, “‘and still more the work in the chemical lab-
oratory where we finally learned to analyze soils, to
take them apart and see what they contain,—how
much nitrogen, how much phosphorus, how much
limestone, or how much soil acidity, which means that
limestone is needed. ‘Then I also enjoyed the work
in the pot-culture laboratory, where we learned not
to analyze but to synthesize; that is, to put different
materials together to make a soil. Thus, we would
make one soil and put in all of the essential plant

106 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

food elements except nitrogen, and another with only
phosphorus lacking, and still another with both nitro-
gen and phosphorus present, and all of the other es-
sential elements provided, except potassium, or mag-
nesium, or iron. ‘These prepared soils were put in
glass jars having a hole in the bottom for drainage,
and then‘the same kind of seeds were planted in
each jar or pot. Some students planted corn, others
oats or wheat or any kind of farm seeds. I grew
rape plants in one series of pots, and I have a photo-
graph with me which shows very well that all of the
plant food elements are essential.

‘You see one pot contained no plant food and one
was prepared with all of the ten essential elements
provided. Then the other pots contained all but one
of the necessary soil elements, as indicated in the
photograph.

“Why, I never saw anything like that,” said Mrs.
Thornton. |

“But I have many a time,” said her husband,
“right here on this old farm; I don’t know what’s
lacking, of course, but some years I’ve thought most
everything was lacking. But, according to this pot-
culture test, you can’t raise any crops if just one of
these ten elements is lacking, no matter how much
you have of the other nine; and it seems to make no
difference which one is lacking, you don’t get any
crop. Is that the fact, Mr. Johnston?”

“Yes, Sir,’’ Percy replied. ‘Where all of the ele-
ments are provided, a fine crop is produced, but in
each case where a single element is omitted that is
the only difference, and in some cases the result is
worse than where no plant food is supplied. It seems
to hurt the plant worse to throw its food supply com-
pletely out of balance than to leave it with nothing
except what it draws from the meager store in the
seed planted. Of course all the pots were planted

‘ayuyp AOf pavpa pun finp awns
ay? payunjid py ‘“bursy9n) Juawmaza auo yng YM s41ayjio
Ns pun ‘papraoud szuawmaza jnyuassa ay, fo 77D yym auo pun poof yunjd ou yyM od auc

COEDUCATION 107

with the same kind of seed at the same time, and
they were all watered uniformly every day.”

‘Those results are very striking, indeed,’’ said
Miss Russell,’ but I suppose one would never see
such marked differences under farm conditions ?”’

“Only under unusual or abnormal conditions,”’
Percy replied, “but the fact is that as a very general
rule our crop yields are limited chiefly because the
supply of available plant food is limited. Sometimes
the clover crop is a complete failure on untreated
land, while it lives and produces a good crop if the
soil is properly treated; and in such cases the difter-
ence developed in the field is just as marked as in the
pot-cultures. In general we may set it down as an
absolute fact that the productive power of normal
land depends primarily upon the ability of the soil
to feed the crop.

‘‘T have here a photograph of a corn field on very
abnormal soil. ‘They had the negative at the Ex-
periment Station and I secured a print from it, in
part because I became interested in a story con-
nected with this experiment field, which our professor
of soil fertility reported to us.

“This shows a field of corn growing on peaty
swamp land, of which there are several hundred thou-
sand acres in the swamp regions of Illinois, Indiana,
and Wisconsin. ‘This peaty soil is extremely rich
in humus and nitrogen, well supplied with phosphor-
us and other elements, except potassium; but in this
element it is extremely deficient. This land was
drained out at large expense, and produced two or
three large crops because the fresh grass roots con-
tained some readily available potassium; but after
three or four years the corn crop became a complete
failure, as you see from the untreated check plot on
the right; while the land on the left, where potas-
sium was applied, produced forty-five bushels per

108 THE STOR®) OF THE SOIL

acre the year this photograph was taken, and with
heavier treatment from sixty to seventy-five bushels
are produced.”

‘Seventy-five bushels would be fifteen barrels of
corn per acre. How’s that, Little Wife?” asked
Tom.

‘“Tts even more wonderful than the pot culture,”’
replied Mrs. Thornton; “but how much did the po-
tassium cost, Mr. Johnston.”

‘‘About three dollars an acre,” replied Percy; but
of course the land has almost no value if not treated;
and as a matter of fact the three dollars is less than
half the interest on the difference in value between
this land and our ordinary corn belt land. ‘These
peaty swamp lands are to a large extent in scattered
areas, and commonly, if a farmer owns some of this
kind of land, he also owns some other good land,
perhaps adjoining the swamp; but this is not always
the case, and was not with the man in the story I
mentioned. ‘This man lived a few miles away and
his farm was practically all of this peaty swamp
land type. He heard of this experiment field and
came with his family to see it.

‘““As he stood looking, first at the corn on the treat-
ed and untreated land, and then at his wife and large
family of children, he broke down and cried like a
child. Later he explained to the superintendent who
was showing him the experiments, that he had put
the best of his life into that kind of land. ‘The
land looked rich,’ said he,—‘as rich as any land I
ever saw. I bought it and drained it and built my
home on a sandy knoll. The first crops were fairly
good, and we hoped for better crops; but instead
they grew worse and worse. We raised what we could
on a small patch of sandy land, and kept trying to
find out what we could grow on this black bogus
land. Sometimes I helped the neighbors and got a

eM aggre:

Corn on peaty swamp land, yielding 45 bushels per acre where
potassium was applied, but complete
failure on the untreated plot.

COEDUCATION 109

little money, but my wife and I and my older children
have wasted twenty years on this land. Poverty,
poverty, always! How was I to know that this
single substance which you call potassium was all we
needed to make this land productive and valuable?
Oh, if I had only known this twenty years ago, be-
fore my wife had worked like a slave,—before my
children had grown almost to manhood and woman-
hood, in poverty and ignorance!’ ”

“Why wasn’t the matter investigated sooner?”
asked Miss Russell. ‘‘Why didn’t the government
find out what the land needed long before ?”’

“Tam a Yankee,” said Percy. “Why have Ameri-
can statesmen ridden back and forth to the national
capitol through a wilderness of depleted and aban-
doned farms in the eastern states for half a century
or more before the first appropriation was made for
the purpose of agricultural investigation? and 4. ay,
even now, does not this rich federal government ap-
propriate to the agricultural experiment station in
every state a fund at least equal to the aggregate
salaries of the congressmen from the same state, this
fund to be used exclusively for the purpose of dis-

covering and demonstrating profitable systems of |

permanent agriculture on every type of soil? Wh
_ do we as a nation expend five hundred million dollars
' annually for the development of the army and navy,
and only fifteen millions for agriculture, the one in-
dustry whose ultimate prosperity must measure the
destiny of the nation?

“Moralists sometimes tell us that the fall of the
Babylonian Empire, the fall of the Egyptian Empire,
of the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire, were
all due to the development of pride and immorality
among those peoples; whereas, we believe that civi-
lization tends rather toward peace, security, and high-
er citizenship. Is not the chief explanation for the

110 THE ‘STORY OF THE, SOIL

ultimate and successive fall of those great empires to
be found in the exhausted or wasted agricultural re-
sources of the country?

‘The land that once flowed with milk and honey
might then support a mighty empire, with indepen-
dent resources sufficient for times of great emergen-
cies, but now that land seems almost barren and sup-
ports a few wandering bands of marauding Arabs
and villages of beggars. .

‘The power and world influence of a nation must
pass away with the passing of material resources;
for poverty is helpless, and ignorance is the inevitable
result of continued poverty. Only the prosperous
can afford education or trained intelligence.

‘Old land is poorer than new land. There are
exceptions, but this is the rule. This fact is known
andxrecognized by all America.

“What does it mean? It means that the practice
of the past and present art of agriculture leads to-
ward land ruin,—not only in China, where famine
and starvation are common, notwithstanding that
thousands and thousands of Chinese are employed
constantly in saving every particle of fertilizing ma-
terial, even gathering the human excrements from
every house and by-place in village and country, as
carefully as our farmers gather honey from their
hives; not only in India where starvation’s ghost is
always present, where, as a rule, there are more hun-
gry people than the total population of the United
States; not only in Russia where famine is frequent;
but, likewise in the United States of America, the
present practice of the art of agriculture tends to-
ward land ruin.

“Nations rise and fall; so does the productive
power of vast areas of land. Better drainage, bet-
ter seed, better implements, and more thorough til-
lage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend

COEDUCATION rt

toward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger
crops only hastens soil depletion. dh

“To bring about the adoption of systems of farm-
ing that will restore our depleted Eastern and South-
ern soils, and that will maintain or increase the pro-
ductive power of our remaining fertile lands of the
Great Central West, where we are now producing
half of the total corncrop of the entire world, is not
only the most important material problem of the
United States; but to bring this about is worthy of,
and will require, the best thought of the most influ-
ential men of America.. Without a prosperous agri-

- culture here there can be no permanent prosperity for

our American institutions. "While some small coun-

| tries can support themselves by conducting trade,

commerce, and manufacture, for other countries,

American agriculture must not only be self-support-
ing, but, in large degree, agriculture must support our
other great industries.

“Without agriculture, the coal and iron would re-
main in the earth, the forest would be left uncut, the
railroads would be abandoned, the cities depopulated,
and the wooded lands and water-ways would again
be used only for hunting and fishing. Shall we not
remember, for example, that the coal mine yields a
single harvest—one crop—and is then forever aban-
doned; while the soil must yield a hundred—yes, a
thousand crops, and even then it must be richer and
more productive than at the beginning, if those who
come after us are to continue to multiply and replen-
ish the earth.

“Even the best possible system of soil improve-
ment, we must admit, is not the absolute and final so-
lution of this, the most stupendous problem of the
United States. If war gives way to peace and pes-
tilence to science, then the time will come when the
soils of America shall reach the limit of the highest

i

i112 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

productive power possible to be permanently main-
tained, even by the general adoption of the most
practical scientific methods; and before that limit is
reached, if power, progress, and plenty are to con-
tinue in our beloved cout there must be developed
and enforced the law of bs survival of the fittest;
otherwise there is no te for America
different from that of China, India, and Russia, the
only great agricultural countries comparable to the
United States. An enlightened humanity must grant
' to all the right to live, but the reproduction and per-
petuation of the unfit can never be an absolute and
inalienable right.

‘Under the present laws and customs, a man may
spend half his life in the insane asylum or in the
penitentiary, and still be the father of a dozen chil-
dren with degenerate tendencies. ‘There should be
no reproduction from convicted criminals, insane per-
sons, or other degenerates. Thieves, grafters, bri-
bers and bribe-takers all belong in the same class,
and it should not be left possible for them to repro-
duce their kind. ‘They are a burden upon the public
which the public must bear, but the public is under
no obligation to permit their multiplication. The
children of such should never become the parents of
others. It is a crime against both the child and the
public.

‘‘No doubt you will consider this extremely vis-
ionary, and so it is; but unless America can see a
vision somewhat like this, a population that is
doubling three or four times each century, and an
area of depleted soils that is also increasing at a
rapid rate will combine to bring our Ship of State
into a current against which we may battle in vain;
for there is not another New World to bring new
wealth, new prosperity, and new life and light after
another period of ‘Dark Ages.’

SS a

COEDUCATION £13

‘Whether we shall ever apply any such intelli-
gence to the possible improvement of our own race
as we have in the great improvement of our cattle
and corn is, of course, an open question; but to some
extent you will agree that the grafter and the insane,
like the poet, are born and not made. Of course
there are, and always will be, marked variations,
mutants, or ‘sports,’ but, nevertheless, natural inher-
itance is the master key to the improvement of every

~ form of life; and it is an encouraging fact that some

of the states, as Indiana, for example, have already
adopted laws looking toward the reduction of the
reproduction of convicted degenerates.”’

CHAPTER XVI

Past SELF-REDEMPTION
F UT I have rambled far from the subject
assigned me,’’ Percy continued.

‘“That’s only because I interrupt and
ask so many side questions,” replied
Mr. Thornton; “but I hope yet to
learn more about those ‘suitable condi-

tions’ for nitrogen-fixation and nitrification. It be-
gins to look as though the nitrogen cycle deviates a
good deal from a true circle, and nature seems to
need some help from us to make that element cir-
culate as fast as we need it. I confess, too, that this
method appeals to me much more than the twenty-
cents-a-pound proposition of the fertilizer agent.”

‘Yes, indeed,’’ added Miss Russell; and if we
had to spend three dollars an acre on this farm our
‘Slough of Despond’ would be worse than the
slough, or swamp, Mr. Johnston has told us about.”

‘TI fear the practical and profitable improvement
of an acre of this land is more likely to cost thirty
dollars than three,’’ said Percy.

“Oh, for the land’s sake!” came the ejaculation.

‘Yes, ‘for the land’s sake’,”’ repeated Percy; ‘‘and
for the sake of those who must depend upon the land
for their support for all time hereafter.”

‘Flow ridiculous! Thirty dollars an acre for the
improvement of land that will not bring ten dollars
to begin with!”

“Tt is better to look at the other end of the un-
dertaking,” said Percy. “Suppose you invest thirty
dollars an acre and in a few years make your ten-
dollar land produce as much as our two-hundred dol-

114

PAST SELF-REDEMPTION 115

lar land!”

“But, Mr. Johnston; do-you realize how much
money it would require to expend thirty dollars an
acre on nine hundred acres?” continued Miss Rus-
sell, with stronger accentuation.

“Twenty-seven thousand dollars,’’ was the simple
reply.

“Well, Sir,” she said, ‘“‘you are welcome to this
whole farm for ten thousand dollars.”

“IT am not wishing for it,” he answered. ‘‘In fact
I would not take this farm as a gift, if I were obliged
to keep it and pay the taxes and had no other prop-
erty or source of income.”’

‘That’s just the kind of talk I’ve been putting up
to these girls,” said Mr. Thornton. ‘By the time
we live and pay about two hundred dollars a year
taxes on all this land, I tell you, there is nothing left;
and we'd been worse off than we are, except for the
sale we made to the railroad company.”

“Well, the Russells lived here very well for more
than a hundred years,” she retorted, “‘and my grand-
father supported one nigger for every ten acres of
the farm, but I would like to know any farmers about
here who can put thirty dollars an acre, or even ten
dollars an acre, back into their soil for improve-
ment.”

‘The problem is indeed a serious one,” said Per-
cy. “Unquestionably much of the land in these older
states is far past the point of possible self-redemption
under the present ownership. Land from which the
fertility has been removed by two hundred years of
cropping, until it has ceased to return a living to
those who till it, cannot have its fertility restored suf-
ficiently to again make its cultivation profitable, ex-
cept by making some considerable investment in or-
der to replace those essential elements the supply of
which has beeome so limited as to limit the crop

116 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

yields to a point where their value is below the cost
of production. Even on the remaining productive
lands in the North Central] States, if we are ever to
adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be
done while the landowners are still prosperous. If
the people of the corn belt repeat the history of the
Eastern States until their lands cease to return a profit
above the total cost of production, then they, too, will
have nothing left to invest in the improvement of
their lands.”

‘But their fertility could still be restored by out-
side capital?’ suggested Mr. Thornton. “I know
very well that is the only solution of our problem.”

‘Well, Tom, I would like to know where the out-
side capital is coming from,” said Miss Russell.

‘Marry rich,” he replied. ‘Don’t make such a
blunder as your sister did.”

‘“T fear that Mr. Johnston will suggest that we sell
some more land,’’ remarked Mrs. Thornton.

“Alright,” replied her sister; “‘and we will sell
it to him. If he won’t take the whole farm as a gift,
we'll cut it to any length he wishes. Do you con-
sider “Ten Acres Enough’, Mr. Johnston; or would
you prefer “Three Acres and Liberty?’ We'll do
our best to enable you to enjoy ‘The Fat of the
Land’. Just tell us how large a farm you want; I
know already that you do not want nine hundred
acres.’

‘‘My dear Miss Russell,” said Percy. “This is
so sudden;” whereupon Mr. Thornton nearly fell
from his chair and Mrs. Thornton laughed heartily
at the sister’s expense who blushed as she might have
done twenty years before.

‘“However,”’ Percy resumed, “‘if you should decide
to dispose of about half of that seven hundred acres
which you use only as a safety bank for most of your
two hundred dollars in taxes, please consider me a

-

PAST SELF-REDEMPTION 117

\

prospective taker.” J

‘““Take her,” said Mr. Phemien and again con-
fusion reigned. r

“Tom is so anxious to get rid of his sister-in-law
that he reminds me of the man whose mother-in-law
died,’ said Miss Russell. ‘He was too far from
home to return to the usual funeral, and they tele-
graphed him the sad news and asked if they should
embalm, cremate, or bury the remains. He wired
“back: “‘Embalm, cremate, and bury.’ ”

“That matter of outside capital is by no means so
substantial as it might seem,” said Percy. “It is
worth while to consider how little real wealth there
would be in America if the remaining rich lands
should become impoverished. ‘The railroads would
at once cease to pay dividends, and those who are now
millionaires in railroad stock would find themselves
on the rapid road to poverty. The manufacturer of
finished products from the raw materials raised on
the farm, the manufacturer of agricultural imple-
ments, and the great urban population whose income
is from the trade in raw materials and manufactured
goods would soon see their wealth shrivel. The great
sky scrapers of the cities would be left for the owls
and bats to harbor in, if our agricultural lands ceased
to yield their great harvests. Meanwhile the farm-
ing people would continue to live upon the meager
products still produced from the impoverished soil,
even though they had no surplus food to ship into
the cities. Human labor would replace that of do-
mestic animals on the farm, just as it has done in
China and India, in part because man’s labor is
worth more than that of the beast, when measured
only by the amount of food consumed, and in part
because a thousand bushels of grain will support five
times as many people as can be supported for the
same time upon the animal products that could be

|

118 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

produced by feeding the grain.”

“Oh, that is such a gloomy view to take of it,”
said Miss Russell. ~

“And all the world loves an optimist,” replied
Percy laughingly. ‘Soils do not wear out; there is
no poor land; the farms are better and the crops
larger than ever before; and we are the people of the
world’s greatest nation, with an assured future glory
which surpasses all conception.” ~

‘““As soon as we get the canal dug,” suggested Mr.
Thornton.

“Yes, we will surely be able to dig that Panama
ditch,” said Percy; “and probably our resources will
last to cut a gash or two in our own interior, if we
don’t build too many battle ships. You know Egypt
built three great pyramids before her resources be-
came reduced to such an extent that the people re-
quired all their energies to secure a living.”

4 J

)
CHAPTER XVII

More PROBLEMS

OW let us give Mr. Johnston a chance
to tell us about the nitrogen problem,”
said Mr. Thornton. “I’m pretty well

satisfied with the natural circulation

“ of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; but

I want to understand all I can of the
practical methods of securing and utilizing nitrogen;
and we have heard almost nothing about the other
six essential elements which the soil must furnish.

Let me see.—I think you said that iron, calcium,

magnesium and potassium are usually abundant in

the soil, while phosphorus and sulfur are very lim-

ited."’

“Yes, that is the rule under general or average
conditions, but it should be stated that the amount of
sulfur required by plants is very small as compared
with phosphorus, a difference which places a great
distinction between them. Besides considerable
quantities of sulfur are returned to the air in the
combustion of coal and organic matter, and this re-
turns to the soil in rain. ‘The information thus far
secured shows that sulfur rarely if ever limits the
crop yields under field conditions; and the same may
be said of iron, which is required by plants in very
small amount and is contained in practically all soils
in enormous quantities.

“While normal soils contain abundance of potas-
sium, with about half as much calcium and one-
fourth as much magnesium; yet, when measured by
crop requirements for plant food, the supplies of
these three elements are not markedly different. On

119g

“

120 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

the other hand, about 300 pounds of calcium are
lost per acre per annum by leaching from good soils
in humid climates, compared with about 10 pounds
of potassium and intermediate amounts of mag-
nesium; so that, of these three elements, calcium re-
quires by far the most consideration and potassium
the least, even aside from the.use of limestone to
correct or prevent soil acidity. \_

‘Among the conditions essential for nitrification
may be mentioned the presence of free oxygen and”
limestone; and of course all bacteria require certain
food seater. resembling other plants in this re-
spect.’’

‘Are they plants?’ asked Mrs. Thornton. “I
thought they were tiny little animals.”’

‘No, they are classified as plants,” replied Percy;
“but the scientists have difficulty with some of the
lower organism to decide whether they are plants or
animals. The college boys used to say that some
animals were plants in the botanical department and
animals again when they studied zoology. Orton
says it is easy to tell a cow from a cabbage, but im-
possible to assign any absolute, distinctive character
which will divide animal life from plant life.

‘The oxygen is essential for nitrification, because
that is an oxidation process. That is, it is a kind of
combustion, so to speak. The organic matter is oxi-
dized or converted into substances containing more
oxygen than in the original form. In ammonification
the carbon is separated or divorced from the nitro-
gen and united with oxygen. Some of the hydrogen
of the organic matter remains temporarily with the
carbon, and some is held temporarily with the nitro-
gen in the form of ammonia.

“The nitrite bacteria replace two of the hydrogen
atoms in ammonia with one of oxygen, and insert
another oxygen atom between the nitrogen and the

MORE PROBLEMS 121

remaining hydrogen, thus forming nitrous acid;
H—O—N=O, or HNO2z. |

‘The nitrate bacteria then cause the direct addition
of another oxygen atom, which is held by the two
extra bonds of the nitrogen atom, which you will re-
member is a five-handed atom.

‘Thus you will see the absolute need of free oxy-
gen in the nitrification process; and we can control
the rate of nitrification to a considerable extent by
our methods of tillage. In soils deficient in organic
matter, excessive cultivation may still liberate suf-
ficient nitrogen for a fairly satisfactory crop; and the
benefits of such excessive cultivation for potatoes and
other vegetables is more often due to increased nitri-
fication than to the conservation of moisture, to
which it is frequently ascribed by agricultural writers.

‘Thus the more we cultivate, the more we hasten
the nitrification, oxidation, or destruction of the or-
ganic matter or humus of the soil. Where the
soil is well supplied with decaying organic matter,
we rarely need to cultivate in a humid section like
this, except for the purpose of killing weeds.

‘The presence of carbonates in the soil is essen-
tial for nitrification, because the bacteria will not
continue the process in the presence of their own
product. Nitrification ceases if the nitrous or nitric
acid remains as such; but, in the presence of car-
bonates, such as calcium carbonate (ordinary lime-
stone) or the double carbonate of magnesium and
calcium (magnesian limestone, or dolomite), the
nitrous acid or nitric acid is converted into a neutral
salt of calcium or magnesium, one of these atoms
taking the place of two hydrogen atoms and form-
ing, say, calcium nitrate: Ca(NO3)2. At the same
time the hydrogen atoms take the place of the cal-
cium in limestone (CaCO3), and form carbonic acid
(H?COs), which at once decomposes into water

122 THE STORY OF THE SOIL
(H2O) and carbon dioxid (CO), which thus es-

capes as a gas into the air or remains in the pores
of the soil.

“The fact that nitrification will not proceed in
the presence of acid reminds us that only a certain
degree of acidity can be developed in sour milk.
Here the lactic acid bacteria produce the acid from
milk sugar, but the process stops when about seven
tenths of one per cent. of lactic acid has developed.
If some basic substance, such as lime, is then added, ©
the acid is neutralized and the fermentation again
proceeds.

“Tn the general process of decay and oxidation of
the organic matter of the soil, the nitrogen thus
passes through the forms of ammonia, nitrous acid,
and nitric acid, and at the same time the carbon
passes into various acid compounds, including the
complex humic and ulmic acids, and_ smaller
amounts of acetic acid (found in vinegar),
latic acid, oxalic acid (found in oxalis), and tar-
taric acid (found in grapes). ‘The final oxidation
products of the carbon and hydrogen are carbon
dioxid and water, which result from the decom-
position of the carbonic acid.

“Now the various acids of carbon and nitrogen
constitute one of the most important factors in soil
fertility. They are the means by which the farmer
can dissolve and make available for the growing
crops the otherwise insoluble mineral elements,
such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium,
all of which are contained in most soils in great
abundance. ‘These elements exist in the soil chiefly
in the form of insoluble silicates. Silicon itself is
a four-handed element which bears somewhat the
same relation to the mineral matter of the soil as
carbon bears to the organic matter. Quartz sand is

silicon dioxid (Si02). Oxygen, which is present

;

MORE PROBLEMS 123

in nearly all substances, including air, water, and
most solids, constitutes about one-half of all known
matter. Silicon is next in abundance, amounting to
more than one-fourth of the solid crust of the
earth. Aluminum is third in abundance (about
seven per cent), aluminum silicate being common
clay. Iron, calcium, potassium, sodium, and mag-
nesium, in this order, complete the eight abundant
elements, which aggregate about ninety-eight per

cent. of the solid crust of the earth.

“Tt is worth while to know that about two and
one-half per cent. of the earth’s crust is potassium,
while about one-tenth of one per cent. is phos-
phorus; also that when a hundred bushels of corn
are sold from the farm, seventeen pounds of phos-
phorus, nineteen of potassium, and seven of mag-
nesium are carried away.

“The acids formed from the decaying organic
matter not only liberate for the use of crops the min-
eral elements contained in the soil in abundance, but
they also help to make available the phosphorus of
raw phosphate, when naturally contained in the soil,
as it is to some extent in all soils, or when applied
to the soi] in the fine-ground natural phosphate from
the mines.

“Now the increase or decrease of organic mat-
ter in the soil is measured with a very good degree
of satisfaction by the element nitrogen, which is a
regular constituent of the organic matter of the
soil; and you are already familiar, Mr. Thornton,
with the amounts of nitrogen contained in average
farm manure and in some of our most common
crops.”’

“Yes, Sir, I have some of the figures in my note
book and I mean to have them in my head very
soon. But, say, that organic matter seems to be a
thing of tremendous importance, and I’m sure we’ve

™ “

124 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

got mighty little of it. I think about the only thing
we'll need to do to make this old farm productive
again is to grow the vegetation and plow it under.
As it decays, it will furnish the nitrogen, and liber-
ate the phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and mag-
nesium; and we may have plenty of all of them just
waiting to be liberated.” “i

“That is altogether possible,” ‘said Percy; but it
must be remembered that your soil is acid and con-
sequently will not grow clover or alfalfa successfully, ~
or even cowpeas very satisfactorily. A liberal use
of ground limestone and large use of clover may be
sufficient to greatly improve your soil; but if I am
permitted to separate Miss Russel and the Thorn-
tons’’— Mr.) Thornton's’ hilargaue "Fla, ha’ cue
Percy short. He crimsoned and the ladies smiled at
each other with expressions that revealed nothing
whatever.

‘‘Now let me finish,’ Percy continued, when Mr.
Thornton had somewhat subsided. ‘“‘I say, if I am
permitted to separate Miss Russell and the Thorn-
tons from about three hundred acres of their land, I
shall certainly wish to know its total content of
phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, be-
fore I make any purchase; and, if you will remem-
ber the pot cultures and the peaty swamp land, I
think you will agree with me.”’

“Well, I shall be mighty glad to know that my-
self,’ said Mr. Thornton, ‘‘and we shall much ap-
preciate it if you can tell us how to secure that in-
formation.”

“We can collect some soil tomorrow,” Percy re-
plied, ‘‘and send it to a chemist for analysis.”

“Good,” said Mr. Thornton; “now just one
more question, and I think I shall sleep better if I
have it answered tonight. Just what is meant by
potash and phosphoric acid?”

MORE PROBLEMS 125

“Potash,” said Percy, “is a compound of potas-
sium and oxygen. The proportions are one atom
of oxygen and two atoms of potassium, which you
may remember are single-handed and weigh thirty-
nine, so that seventy-eight of potassium unite with six-
teen of oxygen. A better name for the compound is
potassium oxid: K2O. The Latin name for potassium
is kalium, and K is the symbol used for an atom of
that element. If you were to purchase potassium in
the form of potassium chlorid, which in the East is
often called by the old incorrect name ‘muriate of
potash,’ the salt might be guaranteed to contain a
certain percentage of potash, which, however, con-
sists of eighty-three per cent. of potassium and seven-
teen per cent. of oxygen.”

“Just what is this potassium chlorid, or ‘muriate
of potash’ ?”’

‘Pure potassium chlorid contains only the two
elements, potassium and chlorin.”’

‘But didn’t you say that it was guaranteed to con-

tain potash and that potash is part oxygen? Now
you say it contains only potassium and chlorin.”

“Yes, I am sorry to say, that this is one of those
blunders of our semi-scientific ancestors for which
we still suffer. The chemist understands that the
meaning of the guarantee of potash is the amount of
potash that the potassium present in the potassium
chlorid could be converted into. The best you can
do is to reduce the potash guarantee to potassium by
taking eighty-three per cent. of it; or, to be more
exact, divide by ninety-four and multiply by seventy-
eight, in order to eliminate the sixteen parts of oxy-

en.

‘Tt may be well to keep in mind that when the
druggist says potash he means potassium hydroxid,
KOH, a compound of potassium, hydrogen, and
oxyzen, as the name indicates.”’

a

126 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“You mentioned the word chlorin,’ said Mr.
Thornton. ‘That is another element?”

‘Yes, that is a very common element. Ordinary
table salt is sodium chlorid: NaCl. Sodium is call-
ed natrium in Latin, and Na is the symbol used in
English to be in harmony with all other languages,
for practically all use the same chemical symbols.
Sodium and potassium are very similar elements in
some respects, and in the free state they are very
peculiar, apparently taking fire when thrown into wa-.
ter. Chlorin in the free state is a poisonous gas.
Thus the change in properties is well illustrated
when these two dangerous elements, sodium and
chlorin, unite to form the harmless compound which
we call common salt.

‘Tt is a shame,’ continued Percy, “that agricul-
tural science has so long been burdened with such
a term as ‘phosphoric acid,’ which serves to compli-
cate and confuse what should be made the simplest
subject to every American farmer and landowner.
As agriculture is the fundamental support of Amer-
ica and of all her other great industries, so the fer-
tility of the soil is the absolute support of every
form of agriculture. Now, if there is any one fac-
tor that can be the most important, where so many
are positively essential, then the most important fac-
tor in the problem of adopting and maintaining
permanent systems of profitable agriculture on
American soils is the element phosphorus.

‘Phosphorus in very appreciable amount is posi-
tively necessary for the growth of every organism.
It is an absolutely essential constituent of the nucleus
of every living cell, whether plant or animal. Nu-
clein, itself, which is the substance nearest to the
beginning of a new cell, contains as high as ten per
cent. of the element phosphorus.

“On the other hand, phosphorus is the most lim-

MORE PROBLEMS iH

ited of all the plant food elements, measured by
supply and demand and circulation.

“What is phosphoric acid? Well, the professor
of chemistry says it is a compound containing three
atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus, and four of
oxygen. It is a syrupy liquid and one of the strong-
est mineral acids. In concentrated form it is as caus-
tic as oil of vitriol. Why, here you have a Century
dictionary. That should tell what phosphoric acid
is. This is what the Century says:

“Tt is a colorless oderless syrup, with an in-
tensely sour taste. It is tribasic, forming three dis-
tinct classes of metallic salts. The three atoms of
hydrogen may in like manner be replaced by alcohol
radicles, forming acid and neutral ethers. Phos-
phoric acid is used in medicine as a tonic.’

“That,” continued Percy, “‘is the complete defin-
ition as given by the Century dictionary as to
what phosphoric acid is, and I note that this is the
latest edition of the Century, copyrighted in 1902.”

‘‘We bought it less than a month ago,” said Mrs.
Thornton. “We can have so few books that we
thought the Century would be a pretty good library
in itself; Mr. Thornton has had too little time to
use it much as yet.”

“Well, even if I had used it,” said Mr. Thorn-
ton, “‘you see there are five volumes before I’d get
to the P’s. But, joking aside, I don’t get much out
of that definition except that phosphoric acid is a
sour liquid and is used in medicine.”

“The definition is entirely correct,’ said Percy.
“Any text on chemistry will give you a very similar
definition, and your physician and druggist will give
you the same information.”

“Well, I know the fertilizer agents claim to sell
phosphoric acid in two-hundred-pound bags which
wouldn’t hold any kind of liquid.”

i28 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

True,” replied Percy, ‘‘and I consider it a shame
that the farm boy who goes to the high school or col-
lege and is there taught exactly what phosphoric
acid is must, when he returns to the farm, try to
read bulletins from his agricultural experiment sta-
tion in which the term ‘phosphoric acid’ is used for
and what it is not. At the state agricultural college,
the professor of chemistry correctly teaches the
farm boy that phosphoric acid is a liquid compound
containing three atoms of hydrogen, one of phos-
phorus, and four of oxygen in the molecule; and
then the same professor, as an experiment station in-
vestigator, goes to the farmers’ institutes and incor-
rectly teaches the same boy’s father that phosphoric
acid is a solid compound containing two atoms of
phosphorus and five atoms of oxygen in the mole-
cule.’

‘But why do they continue to teach such confu-
sion?”

‘Well, Sir, if they know, they never tell. In some
manner this misuse of the name was begun, and
every year doubles the difficulty of stopping it.”’

‘Like the man that was too lazy to stop work
when he had once begun,” remarked Mr. Thorn-
ton.

‘Yes,’ said Percy, ‘‘but it is true that some of the
States have adopted the practice of reporting analy-
ses of soils and fertilizers on the basis of nitrogen
instead of ammonia; and, in the Corn Belt States,
phosphorus and potassium are the terms used to a
large extent instead of ‘phosphoric acid,’ and pot-
ash. The agricultural press is greatly assisting in
bringing about the adoption of the simpler system,
and the laws of some States now require that the
percentages of the actual plant food elements, as
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, shall be guar-
anteed in fertilizers offered for sale. It is one of

MORE PROBLEMS 129

those questions that are never settled until they are
settled right; and it is only a question of time until
the simple element basis will be used throughout the
United States, or at least in the Central and West-
ern States.

‘The so-called ‘phosphoric acid’ of the fertilizer
agent is a compound whose molecule contains two
atoms of phosphorus and five atoms of oxygen; and,
since the atomic weight of phosphorus is thirty-one
and that of oxygen sixteen, this compound contains
sixty-two parts of phosphorus and eighty parts of
oxygen. In other words, this ‘phosphoric acid’,
falsely so-called, contains a trifle less than forty-four
per cent. of the actual element phosphorus.”

‘Ts the bone phosphate of lime that the agents
talk about the same as the ‘phosphoric acid’ ?”’ asked
Mr. Thornton.

“No, by ‘bone phosphate of lime’, which is often
abbreviated B. P. L., is meant tricalcium phosphate,
a compound which contains exactly twenty per cent.
of phosphorus. ‘Thus, you can always divide the
guaranteed percentage of ‘bone phosphate of lime’
by five, and the result will be the per cent. of phos-
phorus.

‘‘As stated in your Century dictionary, true phos-
phoric acid forms three distinct classes of salts, be-
cause either one, two, or all of the three hydrogen
atoms may be replaced by a metallic element. Thus,
we have phosphoric acid itself containing the three
hydrogen atoms, one phosphorus atom, and four
oxygen atoms. This might be called trihydrogen
phosphate (H3P04). Now if one of the hydrogen
atoms is replaced by one potassium atom, we have
potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4) ; with
two potassium atoms and one hydrogen, we have di-
potassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4) ; and if
all hydrogen is replaced by potassium the compound

130 THE STOR OF THE SOIL

is tripotassium phosphate (K3P04). To make simi-
lar salts with two-handed metallic elements, like cal-
cium or magnesium, we need to start with two mole-
cules of phosphoric acid, H6(PO4)2; because each
atom of calcium will replace two hydrogen atoms.
Thus we havemonocalcium phosphate, CaH4(PO4)2,
dicalcium phosphate, Ca2H2(PO4)2, and tricalcium
phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2. It goes without saying that
monocalcium phosphate contains four atoms of hy-
drogen and that dicalcium phosphate contains two
hydrogen atoms. By knowing the atomic weights
(40 for calcium, 31 for phosphorus, and16 for oxy-
gen), it is easy to compute that the molecule of tri-
calcium phosphate weighs 310, of which 62 is phos-
phorus. This is exactly one-fifth, or twenty per cent.
This compound you will remember is sometimes call-
ed ‘bone phosphate of lime’. It is also called simply
‘bone phosphate’; because it is the phosphorus com-
pound contained in bones. It is sometimes called lime
phosphate, although it contains no lime in the true
sense, for it has no power to neutralize acid soils,
except when the phosphorus is taken up by plants
more rapidly than the calcium, which in such case
might remain in the soil to act as a base to neutralize
soil acids; but even then the effect of the small
amount of calcium thus liberated from the phos-
phate would be very insignificant compared with a
liberal application of ground limestone.”

“Well,” said Mr. Thornton stretching himself,
‘orange phosphate is my favorite drink but I fear
some of these phosphates you have just been giving
me are too concentrated. I ought to have the dose
diluted; but I like the taste of it, and if you’ll write

a book along this line, in this plain way just about
-as you have been giving it to me straight for almost
twelve hours, I tell you [’ll read it over till I learn to
understand it a heap better than I do now.”

CHAPTER XVIII
CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH

HE following day Percy collected soil sam-
ples to represent the common type of soil
on the farm. In the main the land was
nearly level and very uniform, although
here and there were small areas which
varied from the main type, and in places

the variation was marked. Percy and his host de-
voted the entire day to an examination of the soils of
the farm and the collection of the samples.

“The prevailing soil type is what would be called
a loam,” said Percy, ‘‘and a single set of composite
samples will fairly represent at least three-fourths of
the land on this farm.

“Tt seems to me that it is enough for the present
to sample this prevailing type, and later, if you de-
sire, you could collect samples of the minor types, of
which there are at least three that are quite distinct.

‘“A loam soil is one that includes a fair proportion
of the several groups of soil materials, including silt,
clay, and sand.’

‘What is silt?’ asked Mr. Thornton.

“Silt consists of the soil particles which are finer
than sand,—too small in fact to be felt as soil grains
by rubbing between the fingers, and yet it is distinctly
granular, while clay is a mere plastic or sticky mass
like dough. What are commonly called clay soils
consist largely of silt, but contain enough true clay
to bind the silt into a stiff mass. In the main such
soils are silt loams, but when deficient in organic mat-
ter they are yellow in color as a rule, and all such ma-
terial is usually called clay by the farmers.” |

131

132 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“Well, I had no idea that it would take us a whole
day to get enough dirt for an analysis,” remarked
Mr. Thornton, as they were collecting the samples
late in the afternoon. ‘‘Five minutes would have
been plenty of time for me, before I saw the holes
you’ve bored today.”’

“The fact is,’ replied Percy, “that the most difh-
cult work of the soil investigator is to collect the sam-
ples. Of course any one could fill these little bags
with soil in five minutes, but the question is, what
would the soil represent? It may represent little
more than the hole it came out of, as would be the
case where the soil had been disturbed by burrowing
animals, or modified by surface accumulations, as
where a stack may sometime have been burned. In
the one case the subsoil may have been brought up
and mixed with the surface, and in the other the min-
eral constituents taken from forty acres in a crop of
clover may have been returned to one-tenth of an
acres,

“Certainly such things have occurred on many
farms,’ agreed Mr. Thornton, ‘and they may have
occurred on this farm for all any one knows.”

‘Eighty tons of clover hay,” continued Percy, after
making a few computations, ‘‘would contain 400
pounds of phosphorus, 2400 pounds of potassium,
620 pounds of magnesium, and 2340 pounds of cal-
cium.”

‘“T don’t see how you keep all those figures in your
head, Mr. Johnston.”’

‘T1ow many pounds are there in a ton of hay?”
asked Percy.

‘Two thousand.”

‘‘How many pounds in a bushel of oats?”

“Thirty in Virginia, but thirty-two in Carolina.”

‘“How many in a bushel of wheat?”

LURby..

CHOsrn it? Ver rime ARTE 134

iy, ga

“Fifty-six pounds of shelled corn, or seventy
pounds of ears.”’

‘‘Potatoes ?”’

“Fifty-six pounds,—both kinds the same, but most
States require sixty pounds for the Irish potatoes.”

Percy laughed. ‘You see,” he said, “‘you have
more figures in your head than I have in mine. You
have mentioned twice as many right here, without a
moment’s hesitation, as I try to remember for the
plant food contained in clover. I like to keep in mind
the requirements of large crops, such as it is possible
to raise under our climatic conditions if we will pro-
vide the stuff the crops are made of, so far as we need
to, and do the farm work as it should be done. I
never try to remember how much plant food is re-
quired for twenty-two bushels of corn per acre, which
is the average yield of Virginia for the last ten years,
while an authentic record reports a yield of 239
bushels*from an acre of land in South Carolina. On
our little farm in Illinois we have one field of sixteen
acres, which was used for a pasture and feed lot for
many years by my grandfather and has been thor-
oughly tile-drained since I was born, that has pro-
duced as high as 2015 bushels of corn in one season,
thus making an average of 126 bushels per acre.

‘What I try to remember is the plant food require-
ments for such crops as we ought to try to raise, if we
do what ought to be done. I try to remember the
plant food required for a hundred-bushel crop of
corn, a hundred-bushel crop of oats, a fifty-bushel
crop of wheat, and four tons of clover hay. It is an
easy matter to divide these amounts by two, as I have
really been doing here in the East where it is hard
for people to think in terms of such crops as these
lands ought to be made to produce.

“The requirements of the clover crop I certainly

134 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

want to have in mind as a part of my little stock of
ever-ready knowledge. It is not very hard to re-
member that a four-ton crop of clover hay, which we
ought to harvest from one acre in two cuttings, con-
tains:

160 pounds of nitrogen,

20 pounds of phosphorous,
120 pounds of potassium,
31 pounds of magnesium,
117 pounds of calcium.

“Tt is just as easy to think in these terms as in per
cent. or pounds of butter fat, which I understand is
the basis on which you sell your cream.”

“Yes, I believe you are right in this matter, Mr.
Johnston, but I have never been able to see how we
could apply the figures reported from chemical
analysis.”

‘Neither do I see how any one but a chemist could
make much use of the reports which the analyst
usually publishes. Such reports will usually show the
percentages of moisture and so-called ‘phosphoric
acid’, for example, in a sample of clover hay, and per-
haps the percentages of these constituents in a sample
of soil; but to connect the requirements of the clover
crop with the invoice of the soil demand more of a
mental effort than I was prepared for before I went
to the agricultural college.

“On the other hand we were taught in college that
the plowed soil of an acre of our most common Illi-
nois corn belt land contains only 1200 pounds of
phosphorus, and that a hundred-bushel crop of corn
takes twenty-three pounds of phosphorus out of the
soil. Furthermore that about one pound of phos-
phorus per acre is lost annually in drainage water in
humid regions. By dividing 1200 by 24 it is easy to

CLOSER 'TO MOTHER EARTH © 135

see that fifty corn crops such as we ought to try to
raise would require as much phosphorus as the pres-
ent supply in our soil to a depth of about seven inches.
Of course there is some phosphorus below seven
inches, but it is the plowed soil we must depend upon
to a very large extent. The oldest agricultural experi-
ment station in the world is at Rothamsted, England.
On two plots of ground in the same field where
wheat has been grown every year for sixty years, the
soil below the plow line has practically the same com-
position, but on one plot the average yield for the last
fifty years has been thirteen bushels per acre, while
on the other the yield of wheat has averaged thirty-
seven bushels for the same fifty years.”

“The same kind of wheat ?”’ inquired Mr. Thorn-
ton.

“Yes, and great care has always been taken to have
these two plots treated alike in all respects, save one.”’

“And what was that?”

‘Plant food was regularly incorporated with the
plowed soil of the high-yielding plot.”

“You mean that farm manure was used ?”’

‘No, not a pound of farm manure has been used
on that plot for more than sixty years; and, further-
more, the two plots were very much alike at the be-
ginning; but, to the high-yielding plot, nitrogen, phos-
phorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sulfur
have all been applied in suitable compounds every
year.

‘That is to say,’’ observed Mr. Thornton, “that
the land itself has produced thirteen bushels of wheat
per acre and the plant food applied has produced
twenty-four bushels, making the total yield thirty-
seven bushels on the fertilized land.”’

‘That is certainly a fair way to state it,” replied
Percy: |

66

ell, that sounds as though something might be

136 THE STORY’ OF) THE SOIL

done with run-down lands. About what part of
the twenty-four bushels increase would it take to pay
for the fertilizers?”

‘About 150 per cent. of it,’’ Percy replied.

‘One hundred and fifty per cent.! Why, you can’t
have more than a hundred per cent. of anything.”

“Oh, yes, you can. The twenty-four bushels are
one hundred per cent. of what the fertilizers pro-
duced, and the land itself increased this by fifty per
cent., so that the fertilized land produced one hun-
dred and fifty per cent. of the increase from the plant
food applied.”’

“Well, that’s too much college mathematics for
me; but do you mean to say that it would take the
whole thirty-seven bushels to pay for the plant food
that produced the increase of twenty-four bushels ?”’

‘That is exactly what I mean. I see that you do
not like percentage any better than I do. Really the
acre is the best agricultural unit. We buy and
sell the land itself by the acre; we report crop yields
at so many bushels or tons per acre; we apply man-
ure at so many loads or tons per acre; we apply so
many hundred pounds of fertilizer per acre; sow
our wheat and oats at so many pecks or bushels per
acre; and we ought to know the invoice of plant
food in the plowed soil of an acre and the amounts
carried off in the crops removed from an acre.

‘Now, referring again to these figures from the
forty acres of clover at two tons per acre. If the
eighty tons were burned and the ashes mixed with
the surface soil on a tenth of an acre the increase
per acre would be as follows:

4,000 pounds of phosphorus
24,000 pounds of potassium

6,200 pounds of magnesium
23,400 pounds of calcium.

CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 137

“These, remember, are the amounts per acre that
would be added to the soil by burning the eighty
tons of clover on one-tenth of an acre.

‘Now compare these figures with the total
amounts of the same elements contained in the com-
mon corn belt prairie soil of Illinois, which are as
follows:

1,200 pounds of phosphorus
35,000 pounds of potassium

8,600 pounds of magnesium
15,400 pounds of calcium.

‘From these figures you will see that the analysis
of a single sample of soil collected from a spot of
ground that had sometime received such an addition
as this would be positively worse than worthless, be-
cause it would give false information, and that is
much worse than no information.

“The methods of chemical analysis have been de-
veloped to a high degree of accuracy, and it is not a
dificult matter to find a chemist who can make a
correct analysis of the sample placed in his hands;
but the chief difficulties lie, first, in securing samples
of soil that will truly represent the type or types of
soil on the farm; and, second, in the interpretation
of the results of analysis with reference to the adop-
tion of methods of soil improvement.”’

“Ts the report of the analysis as confusing with
respect to other elements as with potassium and
phosphorus, which, I understand, are likely to be re-
ported in terms of potash and a ‘phosphoric acid’
that is not true phosphoric acid?”

“Still worse,’ Percy replied. “The calcium is
commonly reported in terms of lime, or, as you
would say, quick lime; and yet the soil may be an
acid soil, like yours, and contain no lime whatever,

138 THE STORY '‘OFWHE SOIL

neither as quicklime nor limestone. I have seen an
analysis reporting half a per cent. of calcium oxid,
which would make five tons of quicklime in the
plowed soil of an acre; whereas the soil not only
contained no lime whatever, but was so acid that it
needed five tons of ground limestone per acre to
correct the acidity.

“The trouble is that when the chemist found cal-
cium in the soil existing in the form of acid silicate,
or calcium hydrogen silicate, he reported calcium
oxid, or lime, in his analytical statement, assuming
apparently that the farmer would understand that
the analytical statement did not mean what it said.”’

‘But some soils do contain lime, do they not?”

‘Some soils contain limestone,’ replied Percy,
“and the analysis of such a soil should report the
amount of limestone, or calcium carbonate, based
upon the actual determination of carbonate carbon
or carbon dioxid, which is a true measure of the
basic property of the soil, even though the lime-
stone may be somewhat magnesian in character.”

For a set of soil samples, Percy collected soil
from three different strata. The first sample repre-
sented the surface stratum from the top to six and
two-third inches; the second sample represented the
subsurface stratum from six and two-thirds to twen-
ty inches; and the third sample represented the sub-
soil from twenty to forty inches, each sample being
a composite of about twenty borings.

In collecting these the hole was bored to six and
two-third inches and somewhat enlarged by scraping
up and down with the auger, all of the soil being
put into a numbered bag. ‘Then, the hole was ex-
tended and the subsurface boring removed without
touching the surface soil. This boring to a depth of
twenty inches was put into a second bag. The hole
was then enlarged to the twenty-inch depth but the

CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 139

additional soil removed was dicarded as a mixture
of the surface and subsurface strata. Finally the
hole was extended to the forty-inch depth and the
subsoil from one groove of the auger was put into a
third bag. In this manner about an equal quantity
of soil was bagged from each stratum; and twenty
such borings taken with an auger about one inch in
diameter make a sufficient quantity to furnish to the
chemist.

“Of course the surface soil is by far the most im-
portant,” Percy explained. “It represents just about
the depth of earth that is turned by the plow in good
farming on normal soils; and it weighs about two
million pounds per acre. The subsurface stratum
extending from six and two-thirds to twenty inches
in depth represents the practical limit of subsoiling;
and this stratum weighs about four million pounds;
while the subsoil stratum weighs about six million
pounds, where the soil is normal, such as loam, silt
loam, clay loam, or sandy loam. Pure sand soil
weighs about one-fourth more, while pure peat soil
weighs only half as much as normal soil.”

‘“T wish you would tell me,” said Mr. Thornton,
“what the fertilizers cost that have been used on
that Rothamsted wheat field.”’

‘The annual application of nitrogen has been one
hundred twenty-nine pounds per acre,” said Percy.
“What will it cost?”

“Well, at twenty cents a pound, it would cost
$25.80,’ was Mr. Thornton’s reply after he had
figured a moment. “‘But why didn’t they grow clover
and get the nitrogen from the air?”

“For two reasons,” replied Percy. ‘First, when
those classic experiments were begun by Sir John
Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert in 1844, it was not
known that clover could secure the free nitrogen
from the air; and, second, the experiment was de-

140 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

signed to discover for certain whether wheat must be
supplied with combined nitrogen, by ascertaining the
actual effect upon the yield of wheat of the nitrogen
applied.”

‘And what was the actual effect of the nitrogen ?””’
questioned Mr. Thornton. “How much did the
wheat yield when they left out the nitrogen and ap-
plied all the other elements ?”’

“Only fifteen bushels,” was the reply.

“Only fifteen bushels! Only two bushels increase
for all the other elements, phosphorus, potassium,
magnesium, and calcium,—and I remember you said
that sulfur also was applied. Why didn’t they leave
off all these other elements, and just use the nitrogen
alone ?”’

‘They did on another plot in the same field.”

“Oh, they did do that ? What was the yield on that
plot?”

“Only twenty bushels.”’

“Only twenty bushels! Well, that’s mighty queer.
How do you account for that ?”’

“Does Mrs. Thornton sometimes make dough out
of flour and milk?” asked Percy.

‘‘Another Yankee question, eh?” said Mr. Thorn-
ton. “I told my wife once that I wished she could
make the bread my mother used to make; and she said
she wished I could make the dough her father used to
make. Yes, my wife makes dough, a good deal more
than I do, and she makes it of flour and milk, when
we aren’t reduced to corn meal and water.” |

‘Can she make dough of flour alone?’’ continue
Percy.

No,” replied Mr. Thornton.

‘Nor of milk alone ?”

! NO”?

‘Well, wheat cannot be made of nitrogen alone,
nor can it be made without nitrogen. On Broadbalk

CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 141

field at Rothamsted, where the wheat is grown, the
soil is most deficient in the element nitrogen. In other
words, nitrogen is the limiting element for wheat on
that soil; and practically no increase can be made in
the yield of wheat unless nitrogen is added. How-
ever, some other elements are not furnished by this
soil in sufficient amount for the largest yield of wheat,
and these place their limitation upon the crop at
twenty bushels. ‘To remove this second limitation re-
quires that another element, such as phosphorus,
shall be supplied.in larger amount than is annually
liberated in the soil under the system of farming
practiced.”’

“Yes, I see that,’ said Mr. Thornton, ‘“‘it’s like
eating pancakes and honey; the more cakes you have
the more honey you want. I think I can almost see
my way through in this matter; we are to correct the
acid with limestone, to work the legumes for niiro-
gen, and turn under everything we can to increase the
organic matter, and if we find that the soil won’t fur-
nish enough phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, or
calcium, even with the help of the decaying organic
matter to liberate them, why then it is up to us to in-
crease the supply of those elements.”

‘“You must remember that the calcium will be sup-
plied in the limestone;”’ cautioned Percy. ‘And, if
you use magnesian limestone, you will thus supply
both calcium and magnesium. Keep in mind that
magnesian only means that the limestone contains
some magnesium and that it is not a pure calcium
carbonate. The purest magnesian limestone consists
of a double carbonate of calcium and magnesium,
called dolomite.”

‘But I have heard that magnesian lime is bad for
soils,’ said Mr. Thornton.

‘That is true,” Percy replied, ‘‘and so is ordinary
lime bad for soils. The Germans say: ‘Lime makes

142 THE STORY OF THE SOL.

the fathers rich but the children poor.’ The English
saying is:

‘Lime and lime without manure
Will make both farm and farmer poor.’

‘Both of these national proverbs are correct for
common every-day lime; but you know, do you not,
that limestone soils are usually very good and very
durable soils?”

‘“That’s what I’ve always heard,” replied Mr.
Thornton.

“Well, there is no danger whatever from using too
much limestone; and all the information thus far se-
cured shows that magnesian limestone is even better
than the pure calcium limestone. I know two Illinois
farmers who are using large quantities of ground
magnesian limestone, and one of them had applied as
much as twenty tons per acre. On that land his corn
crop was good for eighty bushels per acre this year.
Of course that heavy application was more than was
needed, but initial applications of four or five tons
are very satisfactory, and these should be followed by
about two tons per acre every four to six years.”’

Mr. Thornton took his guest to Blairville that
evening as they had planned and he assured Percy that
should he decide to purchase land in that section
they would let him have three hundred acres of their
land at ten dollars an acre.

“T will let you know after I get the samples an-
alyzed for you,” said Percy. The price is low enough
and the location ideal, but still I want to have the in-
voice before I buy the goods. I will write you about
sending the samples to the chemist after I hear from
some I sent him from Montplain.”

CHAPTER XIX
From RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON

HE next day Percy spent a few hours at
the State Capitol in Richmond, where
he found the records of the State of
much interest.

Thus he found that in practically

every county there was more or less

land owned by the commonwealth, because of its

complete abandonment by former owners, and the

failure of any one to buy when sold by the state for
taxes.

Under such conditions the title to the land re-
turns to the State, and after two years it may be
sold by the State to any one desiring to purchase
and the former owner has no further right of re-
demption. Some of these lands which are owned
by the State, and on which the State has received no
taxes for many years, are still occupied by their
former owners or by “‘squatters,’’ and may continue
to be so occupied unless the land should be pur-
chased from the State by some one else who would
demand full possession. Such purchasers, however,
are likely to be unpopular residents in the commun-
ity, if the transaction forces poor people from a
place they have called home, even though they had
no legal right to occupy it.

Percy found that the report of the State Auditor
showed that the clerk of the court of Powhatan
county had returned to the State $1.05 “‘for sales of
lands purchased by the commonwealth at tax sales,”
while from Prince Edward county the State received
a similar revenue amounting to $17.39 for the same

143

44.) THE STORY/O8 THE SOM,

year. ‘The total revenue to the commonwealth from
this source amounted to $667.85 for the year. Con-
trasted with this was the revenue from ‘‘Redemption
of Land,” amounting to $27,436.38, suggesting
something of the struggle of the man to retain pos-
session of his home before it becomes legally possi-
ble for another to take it from him beyond redemp-
tion.

According to the records about a million acres of
land are owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia
alone.

Percy decided to go to Washington to learn what
definite information he might obtain from the
United States Department of Agriculture. On the
train for Washington he found himself sitting be-
side a Virginia farmer.

‘These lands remind me of our Western prai-
ries,’ Percy remarked. ‘“‘You have some extensive
areas of level or gently undulating uplands.”

‘They don’t remind me of the Western prairies,
I can tell you,” was the reply. “I am a Westerner
myself, or I was until eight years ago. These lands
look alright from the train when the crops are all
off, but I find that every patch of the earth’s surface
doesn’t always make a good farm. Why you can
go from Danville, Illinois, to Omaha, Nebraska,
and stop anywhere in the darkest night and you’re
mighty near sure to light on a good farm where one
acre is worth ten of this land along here.”

‘‘About what is this land worth?” asked Percy.

‘Well, I thought six hundred acres of it was
worth $5,000 about eight years ago, especially as
the buildings on the place were in good repair and
couldn’t be built today for less than $6,000; but
right now I think I paid a plenty for my land. It’s
just back a few miles at the station where I got on.”’

‘How far is that from Washington?”

RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON © 145

“About fifteen miles, I reckon, as the crow flies.
My boy has a telescope his uncle sent him and we can
see the Monument on a clear day.”’

‘What monument?” asked Percy.

‘Why, Washington’s monument. Haven't you
ever been to Washington ?”’

“No, this is my first visit. I am really thinking
of buying a farm somewhere here in the East. [
have been in Richmond and learned a great deal
from the state reports, and I thought I might get
more information from the Department of Agricul-
ture in Washington.”

“Perhaps,” said the man, “but my advice is to
keep in mind that there is a difference between buy-
ing land and buying a farm. I’ve got land to sell,
by the way. I thought I’d need it all when I
bought, but I can see now that I'll not need more’n
half of it at the most; so, if you want two or three
hundred acres of this kind of land right close here
where you kind o’ neighbor with the senators and
other upper tens, and run back and forth from the
City in an hour or so, why I think I can accommo-
date you. My name is Sunderland, J. R. Sunder-
land, and you'll find me at home any day.”

“How much would you sell part of your land
for?” inquired Percy.

“Well, I’d kind o’ hate to take less than ten dol-
lars an acre for it; but I think we can make a deal
alright if you like the location.”

CHAPTER, XX:
A LESSON IN OPTIMISM

BOUT nine o’clock the day following
Percy’s arrival in Washington he sent
his card into the office of the Secretary
of Agriculture.

‘Just step this way,” said the boy on
his return. ‘“The Secretary will see you

at once.”

A gentleman who appeared to be sixty, but was
really several years older, arose from his desk and
greeted Percy very kindly.

‘‘T see you are from Illinois, Mr. Johnston. I am
an lowa man myself, and I am always glad to see
any one from the corn belt. Do you know we are
going to beat the records this year? It is wonderful
what crops we grow in this country, and they are get-
ting better every year. We are growing more than
two-thirds of the entire corn crop of the globe, right
here in these United States. Yes, Sir, and we are
just beginning to grow corn; and corn is only one of
our important agricultural products. Do you know
that eighty-six per cent. of all the raw materials used
in all the manufactured products of this country come
from the farms of the United State; yes, Sir, eighty-
six per cent.

‘Now, what can I do for you? I am very glad
you called, and I will be glad to serve you in any way
you desire. By the way, how is the corn turning out
in your part of Illinois? Bumper crop, I have no
doubt.”

“T think so,” said Percy, ‘“‘after seeing the crops
here in the East.”

146

A LESSON IN OPTIMISM 147

“That’s what I thought,” continued the Secretary.
“A bumper crop, the biggest we ever raised. Oh,
they don’t know how to raise corn here in the East.
They just grow corn, corn, corn, year after year; and
that will get any land out of fix. I found that out
years ago in lowa. I am a farmer myself, as I sup-
pose you know. I found you couldn’t grow corn on
the same land all the time. But just rotate the crops;
put clover in the rotation; and then your ground will
make corn again, as good as ever.”

“But I understand that clover refuses to grow on
most of this eastern land,” said Percy.

“Oh, nonsense. They don’t sow it. I tell you they
don’t sow it, and they don’t know how to raise it. It
takes a little manure sometimes to start it, but it will
grow all right if they would only give it half a chance.
Why, for years the Iowa farmers said blue grass
wouldn’t grow in Iowa. Yes, Sir, they just knew it
wouldn’t grow there; and then I showed them that
blue grass was actually growing in lowa,—actually
growing along the roadsides almost everywhere,—
blue grass that would pasture a steer to the acre—just
came in of itself without being seeded. No, I tell you
they don’t sow clover down here. They just say it
won’t grow and keep right on planting corn, corn,
corn, until the corn crop amounts to nothing, and then
they let the land grow up in brush.”

“Now, I do not wish to take up more of your
time,” said Percy, “for I know how busy a man you
must be, but I am thinking of buying a farm, or some
land, here in the East and have come to you for in-
formation. We have a small farm in Illinois and
land is rather too high-priced there to think of buy-
ing more; but I thought I could sell at a good price,
and buy a much larger farm here in the East with part
of the money and still have enough left to build it up
with; and, with the high price of all kinds of farm

148 TFHE STORY OF THE SOIL

produce here, we ought to make it pay.”

“You can do it,” said the Secretary. “‘No doubt
of it. Any land that ever was any good is all right
yet if you'll grow clover, and you can start that with
a little manure if you need it. I have done it in Lowa,
and I know what I am talking about.

‘Now my Bureau of Soils can give you just the in-
formation you want. We are making a soil survey of
the United States, and we have soil maps of several
counties right here in Maryland. You can take that
map and pick out any kind of land you want,—up-
land or bottom land,—sandy soil, clay soil, loam, silt
loam, or anything you want.”

CHAPTER XXI
IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF

HOW this gentleman to the Bureau of
Soils,” said the Secretary to the boy who
came as he pushed a button.

‘‘All the world loves an optimist,” said
Percy to himself as he followed the boy
to another office where he met the Chief

of the Bureau of Soils, who kindly furnished him
with copies of the soil maps of several counties, in-
cluding two in Maryland, Prince George, which ad-
joins the District of Columbia, and St. Mary county,
which almost adjoins Prince George on the South.

These maps were accompanied by extensive re-
ports describing in some detail the agricultural his-
tory of the counties and the general observations that
had been made by the soil surveyors.

“T desire to learn as much as I can regarding the
most common upland soils,’ Percy explained. “Not
the rough or broken land, but the level or undulating
lands which are best suited for cultivation. I am
sure these maps and reports will be a very great
help to me.”

“T think you will find just what you are looking
for,’ said the Chief. ‘‘You can spread the maps
out on the table there and let me know if I can be of
any assistance. You see the legend on the margin
gives you the name of every soil type, and the soils
are fully described in the reports. One of the most
common uplands soils in southern Prince George
county is the Leonardtown loam, and this type is
also the most extensive soil type in St. Mary county.
The same type is found in Virginia to some ‘extent.
} 149

150 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

While the soil has been run down by improper meth-
ods of culture, it has a very good mechanical compo-
sition and is really an excellent soil; but it needs crop
rotation and more thorough cultivation to bring it
back into a high state of fertility. The farmers are
slow to take up advanced methods here in the East.
We have told them what they ought to do, but
they keep right on in the same old rut.”

For two hours Percy buried himself with the
maps and reports. Finally the Chief came from his
inner office, and finding Percy still there asked if he
had found such information as he desired.

“T find much of interest and value, but I do not find
any complete invoice of the plant food contained in
these different kinds of soil.”

You mean an ultimate chemical analysis of the
soil ?”? asked the Chief.

‘Yes, a chemical analysis to ascertain the absolute
amount of plant food in the soil. I think of it as an
invoice; but I see that you do not report any such
analyses.”

‘“No, we do not,’ answered the Chief. ‘‘We
have been investigating the mechanical compo-
sition of soils, the chemistry of the soil solution, and
the adaptation of crop to soil. We find that farmers
are not growing the crops they should grow; namely,
the crops to which their soils are best adapted. For
example, they try to grow corn on land that is not
adapted to corn.”

“Tt seems to me,” said Percy, “that our farmers
are always trying to find a crop that is adapted to
their soil. Down in ‘Egypt’, which covers about
one-third of Illinois, the farmers once raised so
much corn that the people from the swampy prairie
went down there to buy corn, and hence the name
‘Egypt’ became applied to Southern Illionis. But
there came a time when the soil refused to grow

IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF 151

such crops of corn; the farmers then found that
wheat was adapted to the soil. Later the wheat
yields decreased until the crop became unprofitable;
and the farmers sought for another crop adapted to
a still more depleted soil. Timothy was selected,
and for many years it proved a profitable crop; but
of late years timothy likewise has decreased in yield
until there must be another change; and now whole
sections of Egypt are growing redtop as the only
profitable crop. After red top, then what? I don’t
know, but it looks as though it would be sprouts and
scrub brush, and final land abandonment, a repeti-
tion of the history of these old lands of Virginia
and Maryland.”

‘Well, can’t they grow corn after red top?” asked
the Chief.

“Many of them try it many times,” replied
Percy,” and the yield is about twenty bushels per
acre, whereas the virgin soil easily produced sixty to
eighty bushels.”

‘“And they can’t grow wheat as they once did?”

“No, wheat after timothy or red top now yields
from five to twelve bushels per acre, while they once
grew twenty to thirty bushels of wheat per acre
year after year.”

“Tf they rotate their crops, they would probably
yield as well as ever,” said the Chief.

“No; that, too, has been tried;” replied Percy.
“The Illinois Experiment Station has practiced a
four-year rotation of corn, cowpeas, wheat, and
clover on an experiment field on the common prairie
soil down in ‘Egypt,’ and the average yield of
wheat has been only twelve bushels per acre during
the last four years; but when the legume crops were
plowed under and limestone and phosphorus applied,
the average yield during the same four years was
twenty-seven bushels per acre.”

152 © THE STORY QF THE $0IL

‘Probably the increase was all produced by the
green manure,’’ suggested the Chief. ‘“‘Organic mat-
ter has a great influence on the control of the mois-
ture supply.”

‘That was tested,” said Percy. “The green
manure alone increased the average yield to only
fourteen bushels while the green manure and lime-
stone together raised the average wheat yield to
nineteen bushels, the further increase to twenty-seven
bushels having been produced by the addition of
phosphorus.”

“Well, Sir,’ said the Chief, ‘‘we have made both
extensive and intensive investigations concerning the
chemistry of the soil solution by very delicate and
sensitive methods of analysis we have developed, and
we have also conducted culture experiments for twen-
ty-day periods with wheat seedlings in the water ex-
tract of soils from all parts of the United States, and
the results we have obtained have changed the
thought of the world as to the cause of the infertility
of soils.”’

‘But you have not made analyses for total plant
food in the soils or conducted actual field experiments
with crops grown to maturity?” asked Percy.

‘‘No, we have not done that,’ answered the Chief.
‘Those are old methods of investigation which have
been tried for many years and yet no chemist can tell
in advance what will be the effect of a given fertilizer
upon a given crop on a given soil. i

‘That is true,”’ said Percy, ° ‘but neither can any
merchant tell in advance just what effect will be pro-
duced on the next day’s business by the addition of a
given number of a given kind of shoes to a given
stock on his shelves. There are many factors in-
volved in both cases.’

‘Yes, you are right in that,” said the Chief, ‘‘we
are just beginning to understand the chemistry of the

IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF = 153

soil, and we hope soon to have very complete proof
of the advanced ideas we already have concerning the
causes of the fertility and infertility of soils.”

‘Referring to the specific case of the Leonardtown
loam of Maryland,” said Percy, “I find the following
statement on page 33 of the Report of the Field
Operations of the Bureau of Soils for 1900. After
describing the Norfolk loam of St. Mary County,
the writer says:

‘©The Leonardtown loam is a very much heavier
type of soil. It covers about forty-one per cent. of
St. Mary County. The soil is a yellow silty soil, re-
sembling loess in texture, underlaid by a clay subsoil
with layers or pockets of sand. This soil has been
cultivated for upward of two hundred years, but it is
now little valued and is covered with oak and pine
over much of its area. It is worth from $1 to $3 per
acre. The cultivated areas produce small crops of
corn, wheat, and an inferior grade of tobacco.’ ”

“The generally low estimation in which this land
is held is probably wholly unjustified,” replied the
Chief. ‘“There are two or three farms in the area
which, under a high state of cultivation with intelli-
gent methods, will produce from twenty to thirty
bushels of wheat per acre and corresponding crops of
corn. Those farmers are a credit to the country.
They furnish the towns with good milk and butter
and vegetables, and they also help to keep the towns
clean and sanitary by hauling out the animal excre-
ments, and other waste and garbage that tend to pol-
lute the air and water of the village.”’

‘‘T can see how that might maintain the fertility of
those farms,” said Percy. ‘‘It seems that the general
condition of this kind of land is about the same in
Prince George County. On page 45 of the r1gor1
Report of the Field Operations of the Bureau of
Soils, I have noted the following statement:

154 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“The Leonardtown loam, covering 45,770 acres
of the area, is the nearest approach among the Mary-
land Coastal Plain Soils to the heavy clays of the
limestone regions of Western Maryland and Penn-
sylvania. The surface is generally level and the
drainage fair. ‘The soil is not adapted to tobacco,
and has consequently been allowed to grow up to
scrub forest, so that large portions of it are at present
uncleared. Such unimproved lands can be bought
for $1.50 to $5.00 an acre, even within a few miles
of the District line. The soil has been badly neglected,
and when cultivated the methods have not been such
as to promote fertility. When properly handled, as
it is in a few places, good yields of wheat, corn and
grass are obtained.’ ”’

“That's right,” said the’ Chief, *‘exactly right
Upon the whole it is one of the most promising soils
of the locality, although it is not considered so by the
resident farmers.”

‘You mean that it should be handled the same as
is done by the successful farmers of St. Mary Coun-
ty?” inquired Percy.

“Yes, it needs thorough cultivation and the rota-
tion of crops; and the physical condition of the soil
needs to be improved by the addition of lime and
manure, or green crops turned under.”

“T have been looking over some of the other Re-
ports of Field Operations,” said Percy. “I became
interested in the description of a Virginia soil called
Porters black loam. I find the following statements
on page 210 of the Report for 1902:

“The Porters black loam occurs in all the soil
survey sheets, extending along the top of the main
portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains in one con-
tinuous area. This type consists of the broad rolling
tops and the upper slopes of the main range of the
Blue Ridge Mountains. Locally the Porters black

IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF 155

loam is called “‘black land” and “pippin” land, the
latter term being applied because, of all the soils of
the area, it is pre-eminently adapted to the Newtown
and Albermarle Pippin. This black land has long
been recognized as the most fertile of the mountain
soils. It can be worked year after year without ap-
parent impairment of its fertility. Wheat winter kills,
the loose soils heaving badly under influence of frost.
The areas lie at too high elevations for corn. Oats
do well, making large yields. Irish potatoes, even un-
der ordinary culture, will yield from two hundred to
three hundred bushels per acre. It seeds in blue grass
naturally, which affords excellent pasturage. Clover
and other grasses will also grow luxuriantly upon it.
The areas occupied by this soil are mostly cleared’.”’

“Yes, Sir,’ said the Chief, “the Porters black loam
is a fine soil—loose and porous as stated in the Re-
port. You see it has a good physical condition.”

“There is one other description in this Report for
1903 that is of special interest to me,’’ said Percy.
‘This relates to a type of soil which the surveyors
found in the low level areas of prairie land in Mc-
Lean County, Illinois, and which they have called
Miami black clay loam. I think we have several
acres of the same kind of soil on our own little farm.
I found the following statements on page 787:

‘“ “When the first settlers came to McLean county
they found the areas occupied by the Miami black
clay loam wet and swampy, and before these areas
could be brought under cultivation it was necessary
to remove this excess of moisture. With the excep-
tion of a few large ditches for outlets, tile drains
have taken the place of open ditches. Drainage sys-
tems in some instances have cost as much as $25 an
acre, but the very productive character of the soil,
and the increase in the yields fully justify the ex-
pense. There are few soils more productive than

i56 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

the Miami black clay loam. Some areas have been
cropped almost continuously in corn for nearly fifty
years without much diminution in the yields.’ ”’

“Now there you are again,” said the Chief.
“Drainage, that’s all it needed. You see it’s a sim-
ple matter; and that’s what the Leonardtown loam
needs in places. Give it good drainage and good
cultivation with a rotation of crops, and you'll get
results alright.”

“Has the Bureau of Soils tried these methods on
any of this soil near Washington?” asked Percy.

“No use,” replied the Chief. ‘“We’ve got the
scientific facts and besides, as I told you, some few
farms are kept up in both Prince George and St.
Mary counties and they are as good demonstrations
as anyone could want. “Now I suggest that you
meet some of our scientists.”

CHAPTER XXII
THE CHEMIST’S LABORATORY

HE Chief showed Percy into the labora
tories of the Bureau and introduced him
to the soil physicist and the soil chemist.
Percy was greatly interested in the vari-
ous lines of work in progress and gladly
accepted an invitation to return after

lunch and become better acquainted with the methods
of investigation used.

In the afternoon the physicist showed him how
the soil water could be removed from an ordinary
moist soil by centrifugal force, and the chemist was
growing wheat seedlings in small quantities of this
water and in water extracts contained in bottles.
The seedlings were allowed to grow for twenty days
and then other seedlings were started in the same
solution and also in fresh solution, and it was very
apparent that in some cases the wheat grew better
in the fresh solutions.

The chemist explained that he also analyzed the
soil solutions and water extracts from different soils
and that there was no relation between the crop
yields and the chemical composition of the soils.

“But it seems to me,” said Percy, ‘“‘that your
analysis refers to the plant food dissolved in the
soil water only at the time when you extract it. How
long a time does it require to make the extraction?”

‘““As a rule we shake the soil with water for three
minutes and then it takes twenty minutes to separate
the water from the soil. This gives us the plant
food in solution and with the addition of more wa-
ter the nitrates, phosphoric acid, and potash in the

LS7

158 THE STORY OF THE SOm

soil immediately dissolve sufficiently to give us a
nutrient solution of the same concentration as we
had before. ‘Thus there is always sufficient plant
food in the soil so long as there is any of the origi-
nal stock.

‘That is surely quick work,” said Percy, ‘‘but I
wonder if the corn plant might not get somewhat
different results from the soil analysis which it
makes.”

“How do you mean?’

‘Did you ever plant a field of corn and then cul-
tivate it and watch it grow with increasing rapidity,
until along about the Fourth of July every leaf
seemed to nod its appreciation and thanks as you
stirred the soil; and to show its gratitude, too, by
growing about five inches every twenty-four hours
when the nights were warm?”

“No,” replied the Chemist, “ I have never had
any experience of that sort. I am devoting my life
to the more scientific investigations relating to the
fundamental laws which underlie these soil fertility
problems.”’

‘Well, I was only thinking,” Percy continued,
‘that you analyze a fraction of a pound of soil in a
few minutes, while the corn plant analyzes about a
ton of soil by a sort of continuous process, which
covers twenty-four hours every day for about one
hundred and twenty days, and it takes into account
every change in temperature and moisture, the aera-
tion with any variation produced by cultivation, and
also the changes brought about by the nitrifying bac-
teria and all other agencies that promote the decom-
position of the soil and the liberation of plant food,
including the action upon the insoluble phosphates
and other minerals of the carbonic acid exhaled by the
roots of the corn plants, the nitric acid produced by
the process of nitrification, and the various acids re-

THE CHEMIST’S LABORATORY 146

sulting from the decay of organic matter contained
in the soil.”

“T am very familiar with the literature of the
whole subject of soil fertility,” replied the Chemist,
‘and our theories are being accepted everywhere. |
have just returned from a lecture tour extending
from Florida to Michigan, and our ideas and meth-
ods are being very generally adopted, not only in
this country but also in Europe.”

“The Chief of the Bureau very kindly permitted
me to look over the maps and reports relating to the
soils of Maryland and Virginia,” said Percy, ‘but in
this literature I found no data as to the amount of
plant food contained in the various soil types that
have been found in the surveys. May I ask if the
Bureau has made any analyses to ascertain the total
amounts of the different essential plant food elements
contained in these different soils?”

“No,’’ the Chemist replied, ‘‘a chemical analysis
gives practically no information concerning the fer-
tility of the soil. We have made no ultimate analyses
of soils, although we have used the same methods of
analysis in a study of the partial composition of the
soil separates, or particles of different grades, such as
the sand, the silt, and the clay.”’

‘And have you also determined the percentages of
sand, silt, and clay in the soils themselves ?”’

“Oh, yes, the physical composition of the soil is a
matter of very great importance, and this is always
determined and reported for every soil. Did you not
see that in the Reports you examined this morning ?”’

“T think I did notice it,’’ Percy replied, ‘‘but it is so
easy for the farmer himself to tell a sandy soil from
a clay soil that I did not appreciate the value of those
physical analyses.

“In any case, I shall be very glad to know what
results were obtained from the chemical analysis of

i160 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

the soil separates to which you referred.”

‘Those results are all reported in Bulletin No. 54
of the Bureau of Soils,’ said the Chemist, ‘‘and I
have extra copies right here and will be glad to pre-
sent you with one. And let me give you our bulletin
22 also. This will enable you to get a clear idea of
the principles we are developing which are solving
the soil fertility problems that have completely baffled
the scientists heretofore.”

CHAPTER XXIII
MATHEMATICS APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE

ERCY left the Bureau of Soils with a feel-
ing of deep appreciation for the uniform
courtesy and kindness that had been ac-
corded him, but with a firm conviction that
the laboratory scientists were too far re-
moved from the actual conditions existing

in the cultivated field. He sought the quiet of his
room at the hotel in order to study the bulletins he
had received. |

Even with his college training he found it difficult
to form clear mental conceptions of the results of in-
vestigations reported in the bulletins. Sometimes the
data were reported in percentages and sometimes in
parts per million. No reports gave the amounts of
the element phosphorus; but PO4 was given in some
places and P2Os5 in others. In Bulletin No. 22, the
potassium and calcium were reported as the elements
and the nitrogen in terms of NO3, while potash
(K2O), quicklime (CaO), and magnesia (MgO)
were reported in Bulletin 54.

By a somewhat complicated mathematical process,
he finally succeeded in making computations from the
percentages of the various compounds reported in the
soil separates and from the percentages of these dif-
ferent separates contained in the soils themselves and
from the known weights of normal soils, until he re-
duced the data to amounts per acre of plowed soil.

He was especially pleased to find that the essential
data were at hand not only for both the Leonardtown
loam and the Porter’s black loam, but also for the
Norfolk loam, which he had learned from one of the

161 ,

i162 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

soil maps was the principal type of soil southwest of
Blairville on Mr. Thornton’s farm; and, furthermore,
the Miami black clay loam of Illinois was included.
Percy knew the black clay loam was a rich soil, for
the teacher in college had said that the more com-
mon prairie land and most timber lands were
much less durable and needed thorough investiga-
tion at once, while the flat recently drained heavy
black land could wait a few years if necessary.

Percy first worked out the data for the Miami
black clay loam. The chemist had analyzed the soil
separates for only four constituents, and they showed
the following amounts per acre of plowed soil to a
depth of six and two-third inches, averaging two
million pounds in weight:

2,970 pounds of phosphorus
38,500 pounds of potassium
18,440 pounds of magnesium
46,200 pounds of calcium

He then made the computations for the average of
the Leonardtown loam of St. Mary County, Mary-
land, with results as follows:

160 pounds of phosphorus
18,500 pounds of potassium
3,480 pounds of magnesium
1,000 pounds of calcium

Percy stared at these figures when he brought them
together for comparison. He then checked up his
computations to be sure they were right.

‘‘Almost twenty times as much phosphorus!” he
said to himself. ‘‘Is it posible? And more than
forty times as much calcium! Let me see! It takes
one hundred and seventeen pounds of calcium for

MATHEMATICS APPLIED 163

four tons of clover hay. The total amount in the
plowed soil of the Leonardtown loam would not be
sufficient for eight such crops; and six crops of corn
such as we raised one year on our sixteen acres would
take more phosphorus from the land than is now left
in the plowed soil of this Leonardtown loam. The
magnesium is not quite so bad—about one-fifth as
much as in our black soil, and the potassium is almost
one-half as much as we have.”

Percy next turned to the Porters black loam, which
he had noticed was to be found not many miles from
Montplain. He thought he might induce Mr. West
to drive with him to the upper mountain slope in
order that they might see that land. His computa-
tions for the Porters black loam gave the following
results:

4,630 pounds of phosphorus
48,300 pounds of potassium

12,360 pounds of magnesium
23,700 pounds of calcium.

He viewed these figures a moment with evident
satisfaction.

‘Plenty of everything in this wonderful ‘pippin
land’,” he thought. “Big yields reported for every-
thing suited to that altitude. ‘Can be worked year
after year without apparent impairment of its fer-
tility,’ so the Report stated. I should think it might,
especially since clover is one of the crops grown.
Both phosphorus and potassium are way above our
best black land. Magnesium two-thirds and calcium
one-half of our flat land, but still greater than our
common prairie, according to the average they gave
us at college. And no doubt there is plenty o
magnesian limestone in these mountains which could
be had if ever needed. The soil surveyor certainly

164 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

did not say too much in praise of the Porters black
loam, considering that its physical composition is
also alright.’’

He worked out the Norfolk loam to see what he
would get if he accepted Miss Russell’s dare. The
following are the figures:

610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium

‘Rather low in everything,” said Percy, ‘“com-
pared with any soil I know that has a good reputa-
tion. More uniformly poor but not so extremely
poor as the Leonardtown loam.”’

He wished that the nitrogen had been determined
by the chemist, even though he knew the organic
matter and the nitrogen must be very low in the
poor soils, but nowhere was any such record to be
found in the bulletin. He found the statement, how-
ever, that all data were reported on the basis of
ignited soil.

“That will reduce some of these amounts about
one-tenth,” he said to himself. ‘In our physics
work in college good soils generally lost about ten
per cent. in weight by ignition, even after all hy-
groscopic moisture had been expelled; but these very
poor soils haven’t much to lose, I guess. They sure-
ly contain no carbonates and very little organic mat-
ter, although they may contain some combined wa-
ter.”

CHAPTER XXIV
THE NATION’s CAPITOL

ERCY spent three days in Washington.

“Tf I lived here long,’”’ he wrote his

mother, “I think I should become as

optimistic as the Secretary of Agriculture,

even though the total produce of the

original thirteen states should supply a

still smaller fraction of the necessities of life re-

quired by their population. The Congressional Li-

brary is by far the finest structure | nave ever seen.

I cannot help feeling proud that | am an American

when I walk through its halls and look upon the

portraits of the great men who helped to make our
country truly great.

“As I shook hands with the President of the
United States at one of his public receptions held in
the ‘East Room’ of the White House, I wondered if
there was another country on the earth where the
humblest subject could thus come tace to fave with
the head of a mighty nation. In the Treasury Build-
ing I was permitted to join a small party of some
distinction and shared with each of them the privi-
lege of holding in my hands for a moment eight mil-
lion dollars in government bonds.

“T have visited many of the great buildings, the
Capitol, of course, and Washington’s monument,
which rises to a height of 555 feet above the sur-
rounding land, or practically 600 feet above low-
water level in the Potomac. There are many smaller
monuments erected in honor of American heroes in
various squares, circles, and parks throughout the
City.
165

166 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘The zoological garden took a full half-day, and
1 could have spent a much longer time there. They
told me of a frightful occurrence that happened only
last week. Ina pool of water a very large alligator
is kept confined by a low stout iron fence. A negro
woman was leaning over the fence holding her baby
in her arms and looking at the monster who seemed
to be asleep; when, without a moment’s warning, he
thrust himself half out of the water and snapped the
baby from her arms, swallowing it at one gulp as
he settled back into the water. I fear the report is
true enough, for they have made the fence higher
in a very temporary manner, and I heard it men-
tioned by a dozen or more.

“T leave Washington by boat at five o’clock this
afternoon, and I expect to land at Leonardtown, St.
Mary county, Maryland, about six o’clock in the
morning, when the boat will be ready to leave that
port. It is a freight boat and stops for hours at
large towns.

“T am planning for a trip into New England next
week. I did not realize how easy it is to go there
until I looked up the train service. In less than
twelve hours’ time, one can make the trip from the
Virginia line, through the District of Columbia,
Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and into Mas-
sachusetts,—ten different States, including the Dis-
trict. The trip from Galena to Cairo can hardly be
made in so short a time, not even on the limited Illi-
nois Central trains.”’

An hour before leaving the Washington hotel
Percy chanced to meet a Congressman whom he had
seen on several occasions at the University and who
had spoken at the alumni banquet at the time of
Percy’s graduation.

‘“T’m very glad you introduced yourself, Mr.

THE NATION’S CAPITOL 167

Johnston,” said he. ‘‘Want to get a place down
here, do you? Very likely I can help you some.
I’ve helped several friends of mine to get good
places. What are you after?”

“T am thinking of getting a place of about three
hundred acres,’ said Percy, ‘‘and I shall certainly
appreciate any assistance or information you can
give me.”

‘“Whe-e-ew! What are you up to? Want to sell
us a cite for the new Government insane hospital, or
going to lay out another addition to the city?”’

“Neither,” replied Percy. ‘I am looking for a
piece of cheap land that I can build up and make into
a good farm.”

“Oh, ho!” said the Congressman. ‘That’s it, is
it? Well, now let me tell you that you’ve struck the
wrong neck of the woods to find land that you can
make a good farm out of. The land about here is
cheap enough all right—cheaper than the votes of
some politicians, but it can’t be built up into good
farms. Don’t attempt the impossible, my friend. If
you want cheap land for town sites or insane hos-
pitals, right here’s the country to land in; but if you
want a good farm, you stay right in Illinois, or else
follow Horace Greeley’s advice and ‘go West’.
That’s a good suggestion for you, too. Just go West
and get three hundred and twenty acres of the richest
soil lying out of doors.”’

‘There is not much land left in the West where
the rainfall is sufficient for good crops,’’ said Percy.

‘Then take irrigated land. The Government is
getting under way some big irrigation projects, and
you ought to get in on the ground floor on one of
those tracts. It is a fact that the apples from some
of those irrigated farms sometimes bring more than
$500 an acre.”

“T don't doubt that,’ said Percy. ‘An illustration

168 THE STORY OF, THE SOIL

or example can usually be found to prove almost any-
thing. I know that the Perrine Brothers, who con-
duct a fruit farm down in Egypt, actually received
$800 per acre for the apples grown on thirteen acres
one year; and there is plenty of such land in Egypt
that can be bought for less than $40 an acre, and near
to the great markets. I am told, however, that there
are from a dozen to a hundred applicants for every
farm opened to settlement in the West in these years,
and it is estimated that all of the arid lands that can
ever be put under irrigation in the United States will
provide homes for no more than our regular increase
in population in five years, and that the only other
remaining rich lands—the swamp areas—will be oc-
cupied by the increase of ten years in our population.
It has seemed to me that it is high time we come back
to these partially worn-out Eastern lands and begin
to build them up. Here the rainfall is abundant, the
climate is fine, and the markets are the best, and there
are millions of acres of these Eastern lands that lie as
nicely for farming as the Western prairies. Why
should they not be built up into good farms?”

‘Now, let me give you a little fatherly advice,”
said the Congressman, laying his hand on Percy’s
shoulder. ‘‘I tell you this land never was any good.
If the East and South hadn’t been settled first, they
never would have been settled. Poor land remains
poor land, and good land remains good land; and if
you want to farm good land, you better stay right in
the corn belt. You can’t grow anything on these
Eastern lands without fertilizer and the more you
fertilize the more you must, and still the land remains
as poor as ever. Just leave off the fertilizer one year
and your crop is not worth harvesting. These lands
never were any good and they never will be.”

‘But that is hardly in accord with what the people
now living on these old Eastern farms report for the

THE NATION’S CAPITOL 169

conditions of agriculture in the times of their ances-

“Oh, yes, I know people are always talking about
their ancestors, and especially Virginians; but, Cesar!
I wonder what their ancestors would think of them!
You can’t afford to take any stock in the ancestry of
these old Virginians.”

“T call to mind that the historical records give
much information along this line,’ said Percy. “It
is recorded that mills for grinding corn and wheat
were common, that the flour of Mount Vernon was
packed under the eye of Washington, and we are told
that barrels of flour bearing his brand passed in the
export markets without inspection. History records
that the plantations of Virginia usually passed from
father to son, according to the law of entail, and that
the heads of families lived like lords, keeping their
stables of blooded horses and rolling to church or
town in their coach and SIX, with outriders on horse-
back. ‘Their spacious mansions were sometimes built
of imported brick; and, within, the grand staircases,
the mantles, and the wainscot reaching from floor to
ceiling, were of solid mahogany, elaborately carved
and paneled. ‘The sideboards shone with gold and
silver plate, and the tables were loaded with the lux-
uries from both the New and the Old World, and
plenty of these old mansions still exist in dilapidated
condition.”

‘“That all sounds good for history,’’ said the Con-
gressman, “‘but the historian probably got his infor-
mation from some of these old Virginians whose only
religion is ancestral worship. If the lands were ever
any good they’d be good now. Good lands stay good.
As an Illinois man, you ought to know that. My
father settled in Illinois and I tell you his land is
better today than it was the day he took it from the
Government.”

170 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“My grandfather also took land from the Govern-
ment,’ said Percy, “‘but the land that he first put
under cultivation is not producing as good crops now
as it used to, even though—”’

“Then it must be you don’t farm it right. Of
course you don’t want to corn your land to death. I
lived on the farm long enough to learn that; but if
you'll only grow two or three crops of corn and then
change to a crop of oats, you'll find your land ready
for corn again; and, if you’ll sow clover with the oats
and plow the clover under the next spring, you'll find
the land will grow more corn than ever your grand-
father grew on it.”

“But how can we maintain the supply of plant food
in the soil by merely substituting oats for corn once in
three or four years and turning under perhaps a ton
of clover as green manure. That amount of clover
would contain no more nitrogen than 40 bushels of
corn would remove from the soil, and of course the
clover has no power to add any phosphorus or other
mineral elements.”

“Oh, yes. I’ve heard all about that sort of talk.
You know I’m a U. of I. man myself. I studied
chemistry in the University under a man who knew
more in a minute than all the ‘tommy rot’ you’ve
been filled up with. I also lived on an Illinois farm,
and I speak from practical experience. [ know what
I am talking about, and I don’t care a rap for all
the theories that can be stacked up by your modern
college professor, who wouldn’t know a pumpkin if
he met one rolling down hill. I tell you God Al-
mighty never made the black corn belt land to be
worn out, and he doesn’t create people on this earth
to let ’em starve to death. Don’t you understand
that?”

“T am afraid that I do not,” replied Percy. "1
have received no such direct communication; but |

THE NATION’S CAPITOL 171

saw a letter written from China by a missionary de-
scribing the famine-stricken districts in which he
was located. He wrote the letter in February and
said that at that time the only practical thing to do in
that district was to let four hundred thousand peo-
ple starve and try to get seed grain for the re-
mainder to plant the spring crops. I have a “Hand-
book of Indian Agriculture” written by a professor
of agriculture and agricultural chemistry at one of
the colleges in India. I got it from one of the
Hindu students who attended the University when I
was there. This book states that famine, local or
general, has been the order of the day in India, and
particularly within recent years. It also states that
in one of the worst famines in India ten million peo-
ple died of starvation within nine months. ‘The
average wage of the laboring man in India, accord-
ing to the Governmental statistics, is fifty cents a
month, and in famine years the price of wheat has
risen to as high at $3.60 a bushel. ‘This writer
states that the most recent of all famines; namely,
that prevailing in most parts of India from 1897 to
1900, was severer than the famine of 1874 to 1878.
No, Sir, I am not sure that I understand just what
God’s intentions are concerning the corn belt, but it
is recorded that the Lord helps him who helps him-
self, and that man should earn his bread by the
sweat of his brow. If God made the common soil
in America with a limited amount of phosphorus in
it, He also stored great deposits of natural rock
phosphate in the mines of several States, and per-
haps intended that man should earn his bread by
grinding that rock and applying it to the soil. Pos-
sibly the Almighty intended—”’

“Now, I’m very sorry Mr. Johnston, but I have
an engagement which I must keep, and you'll have to
excuse me just now. I’m mighty glad to have met

172 THE. STORY OF THE SOIL

you and I’d like to talk with you for an hour more
along this line; but you take my advise and stick
to the corn belt land. Above all, don’t begin to
use phosphates or any sort of commercial fertilizer;
they'll ruin any land in a few years; that’s my opin-
ion. But then, every man has a right to his own
opinion, and perhaps you have a different notion.
Eh?”

‘“T think no man has a right to an opinion which
is contrary to fact,” Percy replied. ‘This whole
question is one of facts and not of opinions. One
fact is worth more than a wagonload of incorrect
opinions. But I must not detain you longer. I am
very glad to have met you here. In large measure
the statesmen of America must bear the responsibil-
ity for the future condition of agriculture and the
other great industries of the United States, all of
which depend upon agriculture for their support and
prosperity. Good bye.”

“T’ll agree with you there alright; the farmer
feeds them all. Good bye.”

CHAPTER XXV
A Lesson ON TOBACCO

ERCY found Leonardtown almost in the
center of St. Mary county, situated on
Breton bay, an arm of the lower Po-
tomac.

From the data recorded on the back
of his map of Maryland, Percy noted that
a population of four hundred and fifty-four found
support in this old county seat, according to the cen-
sus of 1900. After spending the day in the coun-
try, he found himself wondering how even that num-
ber of people could be supported, and then remem-
bered that there is one industry of some importance
in the United States which exists independent of ag-
riculture, an industry which preceded agriculture,
and which evidently has also succeeded agriculture
to a very considerable extent in some places; namely,

fishing. |

“Clams, oysters and fish, and in this order,’”’ he
said to himself, ‘“‘apparently constitute the means of
support for some of these people.”

And yet the country was not depopulated, al-
though very much of the arable land was abandoned
for agricultural purposes. A farm of a hundred
acres might have ten acres under cultivation, this
being as much as the farmer could “keep up’’, as
was commonly stated. This meant that all of the
farm manure and other refuse that could be secured
from the entire farm or hauled from the village, to-
gether with what commercial fertilizer the farmer
was able to buy, would not enable him to keep more
thar ten acres of land in a state of productiveness

173

174 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

that justified its cultivation. ‘Tobacco, corn, wheat,
and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the
principal article of food, with wheat bread more or
less common. ‘The cowpeas and corn fodder usually
kept one or more cows through the winter when
they could not secure a living in the brush. To-
bacco, the principal “‘money crop’’, was depended on
to buy clothing, and “groceries”, which included
more or less fish and pork, although some farmers
“raised their own meat,” in part by fattening hogs
on the acorns that fell in the autumn from the scrub
oak trees.

One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned
by an old lady who lived in the nearby country vil-
lage was rented for $100 a year, which amounted to
about fifty-two and one-half cents an acre as the
gross income to the landowner. After the taxes
were paid, about thirty cents an acre remained for
repairs on buildings and fences and interest on the
investment.

Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre
farm belonging to an old gentleman who still gave
his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man whose father
had been prominent in the community. According
to the county soil map which had been presented to
Percy by the Bureau of Soils, the soil of this farm
was all Leonardtown loam, except about forty acres
which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend
of which cut the farm on the south side.

“My father had this whole farm under cultiva-
tion,” said Mr. Jones, ‘‘except the hillsides. But
what’s the use. We get along with a good deal less
work, and I’ve found it better to cultivate less
ground during the forty odd years I’ve had to meet
the bills. But I’ve kept up more of my land than
most of my neighbors. I reckon I’ve got about
eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm,

A LESSON ON TOBACCO i75

and the leaves and pine needles we rake up where
the trees grow on the old fields make a good fertil-
izer for the land we aim to cultivate, and I get a
good many loads of manure from friends who live
in the village and keep a cow or a horse.

“The last crop I raised on that east field, where
you see those scrub pines, was in 1881. I finished
cultivating corn there the day I heard about President
Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot July day
too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about
ten years ago, came along from the village and waited
for me to come to the end of the row down by the
road and he told me that Garfield was shot. We
both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop
and when I gathered the fodder that fall there was a
right smart of acorncrop. Yes, Sir, its pretty good
land, but we don’t need much corn, no how, and we
can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it
takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good
patch of tobacco, but good tobacco always brings
good money.”

‘‘About how much money do you get for an acre of
tobacco’’’ asked Percy.

‘That varies a lot with the quality and price—
sometimes $100,—sometimes $300, when the trust
don’t hold the price down on us. We can raise good
tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money. We
can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get
our groceries and some clothes now and then, and
that’s about all anybody gets in this world I reckon.
But taxes are mighty high, I tell you. About $75 to
$80 I have to pay. Are taxes high out West ?”’

‘We pay about forty to fifty cents an acre in the
corn belt,”’ Percy replied; ‘‘but, in a course I took in
economics, I learned that the taxes do not vary in
proportion to land values. Poor lands, if inhabited,
must always pay heavy taxes; whereas, large areas of

i76 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

good land carry lighter taxes compared with their
earning capacity. You must provide your regular ex-
penses for county officers, county courthouse, jail, and
poorhouse, about the same as we do. Your roads
and bridges cost as much as ours; and the schools in
the South must cost more than ours, for a complete
double system of schools is usually provided.”

“But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre
in taxes?’ asked Mr. Jones.

‘Yes, about that, in the corn belt,” replied Percy,
‘but not so much in Southern [Illinois where the land
is poor. I think the farmers in that section pay taxes
as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an acre.”’

‘Do you mean to say that you have poor land in
Illinois ?”’

“Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illi-
nois must be called poor as compared with the corn
belt land. There is a good deal of land in Southern
Illinois that was put under cultivation before 1820,
and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon
the store of plant food originally contained in those
soils.”’

“Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil
right here, Young Man, in St. Mary County, in
1634; and don’t you know, Sir, that we had a rebel-
lion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one
hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So
you've raised only eighty crops and the land is al-
ready getting poor, and we’ve raised two hundred
and fifty crops—well, maybe, not quite so many, for
we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for
the last fifty or sixty years; but my grandfather used
to raise twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre with
the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster, and
I’ve no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to
raise wheat, but one acre of tobacco is worth ten of
wheat, so why should I bother with wheat?”

A LESSON ON TOBACCO 177

“Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre,” repeated
Percy, half to himself. ‘The total supply of phos-
phorus still remaining in the plowed soil would be
sufficient for only twenty more crops like that. Two
hundred years of such crops would require 1600
pounds of phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds
at the beginning, if it all came from the plowed soil.
That is one and a half times as much as is now con-
tained in our common corn belt prairie land.”

‘More stuff in our land than in yours, did you
say?’’ questioned the old man. “I told you we had
pretty good soil here, but I’ve always allowed your
soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure
lasts on this land. You can see where you put it for
nigh twenty years. Then we rest our land some and
that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make
good money on tobacco. I’m sorry your land is get-
ting so poor out West, especially if you can’t raise
tobacco. Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?—gosh, but
you remind me of one of them Government fellows
who came driving along here once when Bob and his
brothers were plowing corn right here about three
years ago. Bob’s my tenant’s nigger, and he ain't
no fool either, even if he is colored; but then, to
tell the truth, he ain’t much colored. Well, I was
sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping
an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one
of them Government fellows stopped his horse as
Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob:

‘‘ Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow ?’

“Yes, suh,’ says Bob. ‘Yes, suh, we done planted
yellow corn.’

‘Well, I mean it looks as though you won’t get
more than half a crop,’ says he.

‘“““T reckon not,’ says Bob. “The landlord, he done
gets the other half.’

“With that the fellow says to Bob:

178 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘““Tt seems to me you’re mighty near a fool.’

‘Yes, suh,’ says Bob, ‘and I’m mighty feared Ill
cateh it if I don't get'a goin’.

‘The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on,
but I liked to died. He’d been here two or three
times pestering me with questions about raising to-
bacco. Say, you ain’t one of them Government fel-
lows, are you? They were travelling all around over
this county three years ago, learning how we raised
tobacco and all kinds of crops. They had augers
and said they were investigating soils, but I never
heard nothing of ’em since. Have you got an auger
to investigate soils with?”

Percy was compelled to admit that he had an
auger and that he was trying to learn all he could
about the soil.

He had driven to Mr. Jones’ farm because his
land happened to be situated in a large area of
Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and
talk with him because he had found him leaning
against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently
trying to decide what to do with some small shocks
of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.

Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil
auger, then returned to the corn field and began to
bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing.

“That’s the thing,” said he, ‘‘the same kind of
an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still
boring holes are you? Want to bore around over
my farm again do you?”

Percy replied that he would be glad to make bor-
ings in several places in order that he might see
about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind
of land.

‘“’That’s all right, Young Man. Just bore as many
holes as you please. I suppose you’d rather do
that than work; but you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve

A LESSON ON TOBACCO 179

got a lot to do today, and it’s already getting late.
I can’t take time again to tell you fellows how to
raise tobacco. Good day.”

CHAPTER 'XXVI
ANOTHER LEssON ON TOBACCO

HE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a
pocket and filled his mouth with a chew
of tobacco.

He walked by Percy’s buggy with the
tobacco juice drizzling from the cor-
ners of his mouth, and turned down the

road toward the house.

Percy finished boring the hole and then returned
to the buggy.

“Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast!”
exclaimed the driver as Percy approached.

‘‘Are you speaking to me ?”’ asked Percy.

‘Why certainly.”

“That is not my name, please,” admonished
Percy, “but I can tell you that I know Him well
and that He is my best friend.”

“What, old Al Jones?”

‘“‘No,—Christ,” replied Percy, with a grieved ex-
pression plainly discernable.

‘“‘Oh,”’ said the driver.

They drove past the Jones residence and out into
the field beyond. The house one might have
thought deserted except for the well beaten paths
and the presence of chickens in the yard. It was a
large structure with two and a half stories. The
cornice and window trimmings revealed the beauty
and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs still grew
in the spacious front yard, and gnarled remnants
of orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A
dozen other buildings, large and small, occupied the
background, some with the roofs partly fallen,

180

ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO 181

others evidently still in use.

‘How old do you suppose these buildings are ?”’
asked Percy of the driver.

‘About a hundred years,” he replied, “and I
reckon they’ve had no paint nor fixin’ since they was
built, ’cept they have to give some of ’em new
shingles now and then or they’d all fall to pieces
like the old barns back yonder.”

Percy examined the soil in several places on the
Jones farm and on other farms in the neighbor-
hood. They lunched on crackers and canned beans
at a country store and made a more extended drive
in the afternoon.

“Tt is a fine soil,” Percy said to the driver, as
they started for Leonardtown. “It contains enough
sand for easy tillage and quick drainage, and enough
clay to hold anything that might be applied to it.’

“That’s right,” said the driver. “Where they put
plenty of manure and fertilizer they raise tobacco
three foot high and fifteen hundred pounds to
the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows
beyond the manured land so’s to be sure and
not lose any manure, why the stuff won’t grow
six inches high and it just turns yellow and seems to
dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mis-
ter, would you mind telling me if you're a
preacher ?”

“Oh, no,” replied Percy, “I am not a preacher,
any more than every Christian must be loyal to the
name.’

“Well, anyway, I’ve learned a lesson I'll try to
remember. I never thought before about how it
might hurt other people when I swear. I don't
mean nothing by it. It’s just a habit; but your
saying Christ is your friend makes me feel that I
have no business talking about anybody’s friend,
any more than I’d like to hear anybody else use

189 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

my mother’s name as a by-word. I reckon nobody
has any right to use Christ’s name ’cept Chris-
tians or them as wants to be Christians. I reckon
we'd never heard the name if it hadn’t a been for
the Christians.

‘But I don’t have so many bad habits. I don’t
drink, nor smoke, nor chew; and I don’t want to.
My father smoked some and chewed a lot, and I
know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother
about as sick as she could be; but she had to stand
it, or at least she did stand it till father died; and
now she lives with me, and I’m mighty glad she
don’t have to smell no more tobacco.

‘She often speaks of it—mother does; and she says
she’s so thankful she’s got a boy that don’t use to-
bacco. She says men that use tobacco don’t know
how bad it is for other folks to smell ’em. Why,
sometimes I come home when I’ve just been driving
a man some place in the country, riding along like you
and I are now, and he a smoking or chewing, or at
least his clothes soaked full of the vile odor; and
when I get home mother says, ‘My! but you must
have had an old stink pot along with you to-day.’
She can smell it on my clothes, and I just hang my
coat out in the shed till the scent gets off from it.

“No, Sir, I don’t want any tobacco for me, and I
don’t know as I'd care to raise the stuff for other
folks to saturate themselves with either; and every
kid is allowed to use it now days, or at least most of
them get it. It’s easy enough to get it. Why, a kid
can’t keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he
tries. They’re everywhere. Every kid has his
pockets full; and I know blamed well that some
smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren’t more
than half bright. It’s a fact, Sir,—plenty of ’em too;
and some old men, like Al Jones, are just so soaked
in tobacco they seem about half dead. Course it

ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO 183

ain’t like whiskey, but I think it’s worse than beer if
beer didn’t make one want whiskey later.

“But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business
saying things about,—about anybody you call your
friend, and I think I’ll just swear off swearing, if I
can.’

“You can if you will just let Him be your friend.”

“Well, I don’t know much about that,’ was the
slow reply. “That takes faith, and I don’t have
much faith in some of the church members I| know.”

‘“That used to trouble me also,” said Percy, “until
one time the thought impressed itself upon me that
even Christ himself did all His great work with one
of the twelve a traitor; and this thought always comes
to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting
with organized Christianity because of those who
may be regarded as traitors or hypocrites, but not of
such flagrant character as to insure expulsion from the
Church.”

“Do you believe in miracles?” asked the driver.

“Oh, yes,” said Percy, “‘in such miracles as the
growth of the corn plant.”

‘Why, that isn’t any miracle. Everybody under-
stands all about that.”’

‘Not everybody,” replied Percy. ‘“There is only
One who understands it. There is only one great
miracle, and that is the miracle of life. It is said that
men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making
the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it
requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you
think an imitation seed would grow?”

‘No, it wouldn’t grow,” said the driver.

“Not only that,” said Percy, “but we may have a
natural and perfect grain of corn and it can never be
made to grow by any or all of the knowledge and
skill of men, if for a single instant the life principle
has left the kernel, which may easily result by chang-

184 THESTORY OF THE SOL

ing its temperature a few degrees above or below the
usual range. The spark of life returns to God who
gave it, and man is as helpless to restore it as when
he first walked the earth.

‘‘What miracle do you find hard to accept?” asked
Percy.

‘How could Jesus know that Lazarus had died
when he was on the other side of the mountain ?”’

‘“T don’t know,” Percy replied; “perhaps by some
sort of wireless message which his soul could receive.
I don’t know how, but it was no greater miracle than
it would have been then to have done what I did last
week.”

‘The driver turned to look squarely at Percy as
though in doubt of his sanity, but a kindly smile re-
assured him.

“Our train coming into Cincinnati ran in two sec-
tions,’ Percy continued, “‘and the section behind us
was wrecked, three travellers being killed and about
fifteen others wounded. I was sure my mother would
hear of the wreck before I could reach her with a let-
ter, and so I talked with her from Cincinnati over the
long distance ’phone, with which we have always had
connection since I first went away to college. Yes, I
talked with her, and, though separated by a distance
three times the entire length of Palestine, I distinctly
heard and recognized my mother’s voice. Oh, yes, I
believe in miracles; but that is a matter of small con-
sequence. The important thing is that we have faith
in God and faith in Jesus Christ, his Son.”’

“Well, that’s what troubles me,”’ said the driver.
‘“How’s one to get faith?”

“There are two methods of receiving faith,” re-
plied Percy. ‘Faith cometh by prayer.”

“Yes, Sir, I believe that.”

‘And ‘faith cometh by hearing.’ ”’

“Hearing what?”

ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO 185
“Hearing by the Word of God;’ hearing those
who have studied His Word and who testify of Him;

and hearing with an ear ready to receive the truth.”

CHAPTER XXVII
EIGHTEEN TO ONE

WO days later Percy was in Rhode Island
visiting a farm owned by Samuel Rob-
bins, one of the most progressive and
successful farmers of that State.

Mr. Robbins’ farm lay in what ap-

peared to be an ancient valley, several

miles in width, although only a small stream now
winds through it to the sea seven miles away.

‘So you are from [Illinois,” said Mr. Robbins,
after Percy had introduced himself and explained the
nature of his visit. ‘“Ihe papers have a good deal to
say about the corn you grow in Illinois; but have you
noticed that the Government reports show our aver-
age yield of corn in New England is higher than
yours in Illinois?”

“Yes, Sir,’ Percy replied, ‘“‘I have noticed that and
I have come to Rhode Island to learn how to raise
more corn per acre. I have noticed, however, that
New England corn does not occupy a large acreage.”

‘Well, now, we count corn as one of our big crops,
next to hay. You'll see plenty of corn fields right
here in Rhode Island.”

‘Would you believe that we actually raise more
corn on one farm in Illinois than the total corn crop
of Rhode Island ?”’

‘You don’t tell!”

“Yes,” said Percy, “the Isaac Funk farm in Mc-
Lean County grows more corn on seven thousand
acres a year, with an average yield certainly above
fifty bushels per acre, and surely making a total above
350,000 bushels; while the State of Rhode Island

186

EIGHTEEN TO ONE 187

grows corn on nearly ten thousand acres with an
average yield of thirty-two bushels, making a total
yield of about 320,000 bushels.”

“Well, Pll give it up; but I’d like to know how
much corn you raise in the whole State of Illinois.”

“Our average production,”’ said Percy, “is about
equal to the total production of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Is-
land, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi.”

“Eighteen of us!’ exclaimed Mr. Robbins, who
had counted on his fingers from New York to Mis-
sissipp1; ‘“And you come to Rhode Island to learn
how to raise corn?”

‘Yes, I came to learn how you raise more than
thirty-five bushels of corn per acre as an average
for New England, while we raise less than thirty-
five bushels as an average in Illinois, and while
Georgia, a larger State than Illinois, raises only
eleven bushels per acre as a ten year average. II-
linois is a new State, but I call to mind that Roger
Williams settled in Rhode Island in 1636 and that
he was joined by many others coming not only
from Massachusetts but also from other sections.
I assume that much of the land in Rhode Island
has been farmed for 250 years, and the fact that
you are still producing more than thirty bushels of
corn per acre, as an average, is, it seems to me, a
fact of great significance. I suppose you use all
the manure you can make from the crops you raise
and perhaps use some commercial fertilizer also. I[
should like to know what yield of corn you produce
without any manure or fertilizer.”

“We don’t produce any,” said Mr. Robbins; “at
least we know we wouldn’t produce any corn with-

188 THE STORY OF THE SOrm

out fertilizing the land in one way or another. If
you will walk over here a little ways you can see for
yourself. I didn’t have quite enough manure to fin-
ish this field and I had no more time to haul sea-
weed so I planted without getting any manure on
a few rods in one corner, and the corn there
wouldn’t make three bushels from an acre. I didn’t
bother to try to cut it, but the cows will get what
little fodder there is as soon as I can get the
shocks out of the field and turn ’em in for a few
days to pick up what they can.”

Percy examined the corn plants still standing in
the corner of the field. They had grown to a
height of about two feet. Most of them had tas-
sels and many of them appeared to have little ears,
but really had only husks containing no ear. Ina
few places where the hill contained only one plant
a little nubbin of corn could be found.

“T don’t mean to let any of my land get as poor
as this field was,’’ continued Mr. Robbins, “but I
just couldn’t get to it, and I left it in hay about two
years longer than I should have done. Last year
was first class for hay but this field had been down
so long it was hardly worth cutting.”

‘About what yield do you get from the manured
land?” inquired Percy.

“In a fair year I get about forty bushels, and
that’s about what I am getting this year from my
best fields. You see there’s lots of corn in these
shocks. ‘There’s about an average ear, and we get
five or six ears to the hill.”

‘“‘Eight-row flint,’ said Percy, as he took the ear
in his hand and drew a celluloid paper knife from
his vest pocket with a six inch scale marked on one
side.

“Yes, Sir, our regular Rhode Island White Cap.”

“Just five inches long. Weight about three

EIGHTEEN TO ONE 189

ounces ?””’

‘Perhaps. We count on about four hundred ears
to the bushel. If we get four thousand hills to the
acre one ear to the hill would give us ten bushels
per acre, so you see we only have to have four ears
to the hill to make our forty bushels. A good many
hills have five to six ears, but then of course, some
hills dont’ have much of any, so I suppose my corn
makes an average of four ears about like that.”

‘“T suppose you feed all of the corn you raise in
order to produce as much manure as possible.”’

‘Feed that corn! Not much we don’t. Why
corn like that brings us close on to a dollar a bushel.
No, Sir, we don’t feed this corn. It’s all used for
meal. It makes the best kind of corn meal. No,
we buy corn for feed; western corn. Oh, we feed
lots of corn; three times as much as we raise; but we
don’t feed dollar corn, when we can buy western
corn for seventy-five or eighty cents.

“T sell corn and I sell potatoes; that’s all except
the milk. I keep most of my land in meadow and
pasture and feed everything I raise except the corn
and potatoes. And milk is a good product with us.
We average about sixty cents a pound for butter
fat, and it’s ready money every month; and, of
course, we need it every month to pay for feed.”’

‘Then you produce on the farm all the manure
you use,” suggested Percy, “‘but I think you men-
tioned hauling seaweed.”’

“Yes, and I haul some manure, too, when I can
get it; but usually there are three or four farmers
ready to take every load of town manure.”

“You get it from town for the hauling?”

‘Well, I guess not,” said Mr. Robbins emphatical-
ly and with apparent astonishment at such a ques-
tion. “I don’t think I would haul seaweed seven
miles if I could get manure in town for nothing.

190 THE STORY OF ‘THE SOIL

Manure is worth $1.50 a ton lying in the livery
stable, and there are plenty to take it at that right
along. I’d a little rather pay that than haul sea-
weed; but the manure won’t begin to go around,
and so there’s nothing left for us but seaweed; and,
if we couldn’t get that, the Lord only knows what
we could do.”’

‘“Ffow much seaweed can you haul to a load, and
about how many loads do you apply to the acre?”

“When the roads are good we haul a cord and a
quarter, and we put ten or twelve loads to the acre
for corn and then use some commercial fertilizer.”

“Do you know how much a cord of the seaweed
would weigh?”

“Yes, a cord weighs about a ton and a half.”

“Then you apply about twenty tons of seaweed to
the acre for corn.”

‘Yes, but some use less and some more; probably
that’s about an average. Hauling seaweed’s a big
job and a bad job. We have to start from home long
before daylight so as to get there and get the weed
while the tide is out, and then we get back with our
load about two o’clock in the afternoon; and, by the
time we eat and feed the team and get the load to
the field and spread, there isn’t much time left that
day, especially when you’ve got to pile out of bed
about two o’clock the next morning and hike off for
another load.”’

“Then you use some fertilizer in additioa to the
seaweed? May I ask how much fertilizer you apply
to the acre and about how much it costs per ton?”

‘Where we spread seaweed for corn, we add
about four hundred and fifty pounds per acre of fer-
tilizer that costs me $26 a ton, but I have the agency
and get it some cheaper than most have to pay. Then
for potatoes we apply about 1500 pounds of a spec-
ial potato fertilizer that costs me $34 a ton.”

EIGHTEEN TO ONE igi

“The fertilizer costs you about $6 an acre for the
corn crop and $25 for potatoes,” said Percy; “and
then you have the cost of the seaweed. I should think
you would need to count about $25 or $30 an acre for
the expense of hauling seaweed.”

“Yes, all of that if we had to pay for the work, but
of course we can haul seaweed more or less when the
farm work isn’t crowding, and we don’t count so
much on the expense. It doesn’t take the cash, ex-
cept may be a little for a boy to drive one team when
we haul two loads at a time; and we don’t use sea-
weed for potatoes. The corn crop will generally
more’n pay for it and the fertilizer too; and the sea-
weed helps for three or four years, especially for
grass. There’s good profit in potatoes, too, when we
get a crop, but they’re risky, considering the money
we have to pay for fertilizer.”’

CHAPTER XXVIII
FARMER OR PROFESSOR

FTER leaving Rhode Island, Percy spent
two days in and about Boston, and then
returned to Connecticut for a day. The
weather had turned cold; the ground
had frozen and the falling snow re-
minded him that it was the day before

Thanksgiving.

From New London he took a night boat to New
York, and then took passage on a Coast Line vessel
from New York to Norfolk.

The weather had cleared and the wind decreased
until it was scarcely greater than the speed of the ship.

Whether or not the dining room service was extra-
ordinary because of the day, Percy was soon convinced
that the only way to travel was by boat. He re-
gretted only that his mother was not with him to en-
joy that day. For hours they coasted southward
within easy view of the New Jersey shore, dotted here
and there with cities, towns, and villages. Light
houses marked the rocky points where danger once
lurked for the men of the sea.

The sea itself was of constant interest; and hun-
dreds of crafts were passed or met. Here a full-
rigged sailing vessel lazily drifting with the wind;
there a giant little tug puffing in the opposite direc-
tion with a string of barges in tow loaded almost to
the water’s edge.

Norfolk was reached early the next morning, and
before noon Percy passed through Petersburg on his
way to Montplain. He changed cars at Lynchburg
and arrived at Montplain before dark. In accord-

192

FARMER OR PROFESSOR i94

ance with a promise to Mr. West he had notified him
of his plans.

Would Adelaide meet him, and if so would she
have the family carriage and again insist upon his
riding in the rear seat? He had found these ques-
tions in his mind repeatedly since he left New Lon-
don, with no very definite purpose before him except
to arrive at Montplain at the appointed time.

Yes, it was the family carriage. He saw the farm
team tied across the street from the depot. As he left
the train he caught a glimpse of Adelaide standing
with the group of people who were waiting to board
the train. She extended her hand as he reached her
side.

“Mr. Johnston, meet my cousin, Professor Bar-
stow.”’

‘“T am glad to meet you, Professor,” said Percy,
as he shook hands with a tall young man about his
own age. Percy noted his handsome face and gentle-
manly bearing.

‘‘Miss Adelaide calls me cousin,’
“because my aunt married her uncle.”’

“Well, Sir, if we’re not cousins, then I’m Miss
West and not Miss Adelaide. Is that too much for
an absent-minded professor to remember ?”’

“T am afraid it is,’ said Barstow, ‘‘and [ am sure I
would rather be cousins.”’

‘‘Professor Barstow leaves on this train,’’ Adelaide
explained to Percy; ‘‘excuse me, please.”’

Percy raised his hat as he stepped back from the
crowd and waited for the parting of the two. He
was sure that Barstow held her hand longer than was
necessary, and he also noticed that her face flushed
as she rejoined him after the train started.

“Will you take the rear seat?’ she asked, as they
reached the carriage.

“Tf you so prefer.”

+]

’ said Barstow,

194 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘That seat is for our guests, so I don’t prefer,”
came her reply, which left Percy wholly in the dark
as to her wishes.

“Then let me be your coachman rather than your
guest.”’

‘If you so prefer,” she repeated, and without wait-
ing for assistance quickly mounted to the front seat,
leaving him to occupy the driver’s seat beside her.

“Captain and Mrs. Stone of Montplain were
with us for Thanksgiving and I came with the
carriage to take them home. Professor Barstow
has also been spending his Thanksgiving vacation
visiting with Papa.”

‘Thank you,” said Percy, as he took the lines
and turned the horses toward Westover.

‘You are certainly welcome to drive this team if
you enjoy it.”

“IT thank you for that also,” said Percy. Ade-
laide noted the word also, but she only remarked
that she hoped he had enjoyed his travels, though
she could not understand what pleasure he could
find in visiting old worn-out farms.

“Of all things,” she continued, ‘it seems to me
that farming is the last that anyone would want to
undertake.”

‘Tt is both the first and the last,” said Percy. As
you know, when our ancestors came to America,
agriculture was the first great industry they were
able to develop. Other industries and professions
follow agriculture and must be supported in large
measure by the agricultural industry. Merchants,
lawyers, doctors and teachers are in a sense agri-
cultural parasites.”

An hour before he would not have included
teachers in this class; for, next to the mother in the
home, he felt that the teacher in the school is the
greatest necessity for the highest development of

FARMER OR PROFESSOR 195

the agricultural classes.

“Without agriculture,” he continued, ‘America
could never have been developed, and, unless the
prosperity of American agriculture can be main-
tained, poverty is the only future for this great na-
tion. The soil is the greatest source of wealth, and
it is the most permanent form of wealth. The Sec-
retary of Agriculture at Washington told me a few
days ago that eighty six per cent. of the raw ma-
terials used in all our manufacturing industry are
produced from the soil.

“Yes, agriculture is certainly the first industry in
this country; and I am fully convinced that to re-
store the fertility of the depleted soils of the East
and South, and even to maintain the productive
power of the great agricultural regions of the West,
deserves and will require the best thought of the
most influential people of America.

‘Throughout the length and breadth of this land,
the almost universal purpose of the farmers is to
work the land for all they can get with practically
no thought of permanency. The most common re-
mark of the corn belt farmer is that his land doesn’t
show much wear yet; and it 1s holding up pretty
well, or as well as could be expected; or that he
thinks it will last as long as he does. All recognize
that the land cannot hold up under the systems of
farming that are being practiced, and these systems
are essentially the same as have been followed in
America since 1607. What the Southern farmer
did with slave labor, the Western farmer is now
doing with the gang plow, the two-row cultivator,
and the four-horse disks and harrows. In addition
he tile-drains his land which helps to insure larger
crops and more rapid soil depletion. He even uses
clover as a soil stimulant, and spreads the farm
fertilizer as thinly as possible with a machine made

196 FHE STORY OF THE SOIL

for the purpose in order to secure both its plant
food value and its stimulating effect. Positive soil
enrichment is practically unknown in the great corn
belt.

‘Robbery is a harsh word; and yet the farm-
ers and landowners of America are and always
have been soil robbers; and they not only rob the
nation of the possibility of permanent prosperity,
but they even rob themselves of the very comforts
of life in their old age and their children and grand-
children of a rightful inheritance.

‘Worse than all this, or at least more lament-
able, is the fact that it need not be. The soils of
Virginia need not have become worn out and aban-
doned; because the earth and the air are filled with
the elements of plant food that are essential to the
restoration and permanent maintenance of the
high productive capacity of these soils. Moreover
there is more profit and greater prosperity for the
present landowner in a possible practicable system
of positive soil improvement than under any system
which leads to ultimate depletion and abandonment
of the land.

“The profit in farming lies first of all in securing
large crop yields. It costs forty bushels of corn
per acre in Illinois to raise the crop and pay the
rent for the land or interest and taxes on the invest-
ment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will re-
quire $8 to pay the interest and taxes. Another $8
will be required to raise the crop and harvest and
market it, even with very inadequate provision
made for maintaining the productive power of the
soil, such as a catch crop of clover, or a very light
dressing of farm fertilizer. A forty-bushel crop of
corn at forty cents a bushel, which is about the ten-
year average price for Illinois, would bring only
$16 an acre, and this would leave no profit what-

FARMER OR PROFESSOR 197

ever.

“A crop of fifty bushels would leave only ten
bushels as profit; but, if we could double the yield
and thus produce a hundred bushels per acre, the
profit would not be doubled only, but it would be six
times as great as from the fifty bushel crop. In
other words, 100 bushels of corn from one acre
would yield practically the same profit as fifty
bushels per acre from six acres, simply because it
requires the first forty bushels from each acre to pay
for the fixed charges or regular expense.

‘Tt is not the amount of crop the farmer handles,
but the amount of actual profit that determines his
prosperity. It requires profit to build the new
home or repair the old one, to provide the home
with the comforts and conveniences that are now to
be had in the country as well as in the city; to send
the boys and girls to college; to provide for the
expense of travel and the luxuries of the home.”’

Percy stopped himself with an apology.

“T hope you will pardon me, Miss West. I for-
get that this subject may be of no interest to you,
and I have completely monopolized the conversa-
tion.

“T am glad you have told me so much,” she re-
plied. ‘I am deeply interested in what you have
been saying. I never realized that agriculture could
involve such very important questions in regard to
our national prosperity. I only know that our farm
has funished us with a living but there has been
very little of what you call proft. We children
could never have gone away to school except that
we were enabled to take advantage of some unsual
opportunities. My brother almost earned his ex-
penses as commissary in a boarding club at college.
He felt that he could not come home for Thanks-
giving because he had a chance to earn something

198 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

and I have missed him so much. Most farmers
get barely enough from their farms in these parts
to furnish them a modest living and pay their taxes.”

‘That reminds me of your statement that farm-
ing is the last thing that you would expect anyone
to undertake. In a large sense that is in accord-
ance with the history of all great agricultural coun-
tries. After the great wave of easy spoilation of
the land has passed, and the farmers reach a con-
dition under which they need most of what they
produce for their own consumption, the parasites
are themselves forced to produce their own food.
The lands become divided into smaller holdings
and the agricultural inhabitants increase rapidly in
proportion to the urban population which must de-
pend upon the profits from secondary pursuits for a
living. ‘Thus ninety-five per cent. of the three hun-
dred million people of India belong principally to
the agricultural classes, and the farms of India
average about two to three acres in size. Farming
there is in no sense a profit-yielding business, but
it is only a means of existence. The people live
upon what they raise, so far as they can, although,
as you must know, India is almost never free from
famine. In Russia the situation is but little better,
for famine follows if the yield of wheat falls two
bushels below the average. Special agents of the
Bureau of Statistics of the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture report that at least one famine
year occurs in each five year period, and sometimes
even two; that the famine years are so frequent
they are recognized as a permanent feature of Rus-
sian Agriculture.”

“But couldn’t those poor starving people do some
other kind of work and thus earn a better living?”
asked Adelaide.

“No. Agriculture is the only hope,’

’

said Percy.

FARMER OR PROFESSOR 199
The soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which

her children must always draw their nourishment or
perish. It is the ‘last thing,’ as you truly said. Aside
from hunting and fishing, there is no source of food
except the soil, and, when this is insufficient for the
people who produce it in the country, God pity the
poor people who live in the cities. But let us not
talk of this more. I ought not to have taken up the
time of our ride through this beautiful scenery with
a subject which tends always toward the serious.
The leaves are all gone in New England, but here
they have only taken on their most beautiful colors.
‘What is so rare as a day in June?’ could now well
be answered, ‘a day in November in Piedmont Vir-
ginia.’””

“Do you know if your father received a letter
for me from the chemist to whom I sent the soil
samples ?”

‘Yes, it came in Wednesday’s mail, and there is
a letter from the University of Illinois and two
others that Grandma says must be from a lady.
Papa says he is anxious to know what results would
be found in the chemist’s report. May I listen
while you tell papa about it? Indeed, I am ex-
tremely interested to know if anything can be done
to make our farm produce such crops as it used
to when grandmother was a little girl.”

“Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome sub-
fect, said Percy. “It is, as a rule, not jan’ easy
matter to adopt a system of permanent improve-
ment on land that has been depleted by a century
or more of exhaustive husbandry, but you will be
very welcome not only to listen but to counsel also.
My mother can measure difficulties in advance bet-
ter than most men; and I believe it is true that
women will deliberately plan and follow a course
involving greater hardship and privation than men

200 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

would undertake. I cannot conceive of any man
doing what my mother has done for me.”

Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his
mother. Something in his words or voice seemed
to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a wealth of af-
fection akin to reverence, such as she had never
recognized before.

CHAPTER XXIX
THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON

ILKES was at the side gate to meet
Adelaide and Percy, and the grand-
mother stood at the door as they
reached the veranda.
‘Lucky for us you got back before
the Thanksgiving scraps are all
gone,”’ she said to Percy, “but I suppose even our
Thanksgiving fare will be poor picking after you’ve
been living in Washington and Boston.”

‘Even the Thanksgiving dinner on the boat was
not equal to this,” said Percy, as they sat down to
the table loaded with such an abundance of good
things as is rarely seen except on the farmer’s table.
The ‘‘scraps,” if such there were, had no appearance
of being left-overs, and there was a monster turkey,
browned to perfection and sizzling hot, placed before
Mr. West ready for the carving knife.

Percy had opened the letter from the chemist, but
said to Mr. West that it would take him an hour or
more to compute the results to the form of the actual
elements and reduce them to pounds per acre in order
to make possible a direct comparison between the re-
quirements of crops, on the one hand, and the invoice
of the soil and application of plant food in manure
and fertilizers, on the other hand.

‘Please let me help you make the computations,”
said Adelaide, much to the surprise of her parents,
who knew that she took no interest in affairs pertain-
ing to farming. “‘I like mathematics and will promise
not to make any mistakes if you will tell me how to
do some of the figuring.”

201

202 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘Thank you,”’ said Percy. ‘With your help it will
take only half the time that I should require alone.”

This proved to be correct, for in half an hour after
supper they had the results in simplified form. Even
the mother and grandmother joined the circle as
Percy began to discuss the results with Mr. West.

“Now here is the invoice,” said Percy, ‘‘of the sur-
face soil from an acre of land where we collected the
first composite sample,—the land which you said had
not been cropped since you could remember. ‘This
soil contains plant food as follows:

1,440 pounds of nitrogen
380 pounds of phosphorus
15,760 pounds of potassium
3,340 pounds of magnesium
10,420 pounds of calcium

“T’d like to know how these amounts compare with
what your IIlinois soil contains,’ said Mr. West.

‘We have several different kinds of soil in IIli-
nois,’’ replied Percy. ‘“The common corn belt prairie
soil is called brown silt loam. It contains, as an
average, 5000 pounds of nitrogen and 1200 pounds
of phosphorus, or nearly four times as much of each
of those elements as this Virginia soil which you say
is too poor to cultivate.

“T wrote to the Illinois Experiment Station before
I left Washington to see if I could get the average
composition of the heavier prairie soil, which occupies
the very flat areas that were originally swampy, and
one of the letters you had received for me gives 8000
pounds of nitrogen and 2000 pounds of phosphorus
as the general average for that soil. That is our most
productive land, and it contains about five times as
much of these two very important elements as your
poorest land.

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 203

“Our more common Illinois prairie contains about
35,000 pounds of potassium, 9,000 pounds of mag-
nesium, and 11,000 pounds of calcium. ‘This is more
than twice as much potassium and nearly three times
as much magnesium as in your poorest land, but the
calcium content is about the same in your soil as in
ours. However, as you will remember, your soil is
distinctly acid and consequently markedly in need of
lime, the magnesium and calcium evidently being con-
tained in part in the form of acid silicates with no
carbonates; whereas, our brown silt loam is a neutral
soil and our black clay loam contains much calcium
carbonate, the same compound as pure limestone.”

‘‘T am anxious to know about our best land,” said
Mr. West. ‘‘What did the chemist find in the soil
from the slope where we get the best corn after break-
ing up the old pastures ?”’

‘He found the following amounts in the surface
soil,” said Percy.

800 pounds of nitrogen
1,660 pounds of phosphorus
34,100 pounds of potassium
8,500 pounds of magnesium
13,100 pounds of calcium
“Rich i in everything but nitrogen,” Percy contin-
ued, “richer than our common prairies in phosphorus
and calcium, and nearly as rich in potassium and mag-
nesium; but very, very poor in nitrogen. Legume
plants ought to grow well on that land, because the
minerals are present in abundance, and, while lack of
nitrogen in the soil will limit the yield of all grains
and grasses, there is no nitrogen limit for the legume
plants if infected with the proper nitrogen-fixing
bacteria, provided, of course, that the soil is not acid.
You will remember, however, that even this sloping

204 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

land is more or less acid, although here and there we
found pieces of undecomposed limestone. With a
liberal use of ground limestone, any legumes suited to
this soil and climate ought to grow luxuriantly on
those slopes.”

‘That reminds me that we are greatly troubled
with Japan clover on those slopes,”’ said Mr. West.
‘‘Of course it makes good pasture for a few months,
but it doesn’t come so early in the spring as blue grass
and it is killed with the first heavy frost in the fall.
We like blue grass much better for that reason, but
when we seed down for meadow and pasture, the
Japan clover always crowds out the timothy and blue
grass on those slopes.”

‘‘And when you plow under the Japan clover, you
get one or two good crops of grain,” said Percy, “‘be-
cause this clover has stored up some much needed ni-
trogen and the soil is rich in all other necessary ele-
ments. Have you ever tried alfalfa on that kind of
land? ‘That is a crop that ought to do well there,
especially if limestone were applied.”

“Yes, I have tried alfalfa,” replied Mr. West,
‘‘and I tried it on a strip that ran across one of those
steep slopes; but it failed completely, and, as I re-
member it, it was poorer on that hillside than on the
more level land.”

‘Did you inoculate it?” Percy asked.

‘‘Inoculate it? No. I didn’t do anything to it, but
just sow it the same as I sow red clover.”’

What does it mean to inoculate it?” asked Ade-
laide.

‘It means to put some bugs on it,” said the grand-
mother; ‘‘some germs or microbes, or whatever they
are called. Don’t you remember, Adelaide, that I
told you about that when I read it in the magazine a
while ago? Don’t you remember that somebody was
making it and a man could carry enough in his vest

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON ~ 205

pocket to fertilize an acre and he wanted $2 a
package. Charles said that $1.50 a hundred was
more than he could afford to pay for fertilizer, and
he didn’t care to pay $2 for a vest pocket package.
Isn’t that the stuff, Mr. Johnston ?”’

“Tt listens like it, as the Swedes say,” said Percy,
“but the advertisements of these germ cultures put
out by commercial interests are usually very mislead-
ing. The safest and best and least expensive method
of inoculating a field for alfalfa is to use infected soil
taken from some old alfalfa field or from a patch of
ground where the common sweet clover, or mellilo-
tus, has been growing for several years. I saw the
sweet clover growing along the railroad near Mont-
plain, and there is one patch on the roadside right
where—when you enter the valley on the way to the
station.”

“Right where Adelaide smashed that nigger’s
eye with her heel and helped Mr. Johnson capture
them both,” broke in the grandmother. ‘That’s
a only good thing I can say for her peg heeled
shoes.”

Adelaide colored and Percy now understood
what had been a puzzle to him.

‘The same bacteria,’’ he went on quickly, ‘“‘live
upon both the sweet clover and the alfalfa, or at
least they are interchangeable. These bacteria are
not a fertilizer in any ordinary sense, but they are
more in the nature of a disease, a kind of tubercu-
losis, as it were; except that they do much more
good than harm. They attack the very tender
young roots of the alfalfa and feed upon the nutri-
tious sap, taking from it the phosphorus and other
minerals and also the sugar or other carbohydrates
needed for their own nourishment, since they have
no power to secure carbon and oxygen from the air,
as is done by all plants with green leaves. On the

’

206 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

other hand, these bacteria have power to take the
free nitrogen of the air, which enters the pores of
the soil to some extent, and cause it to combine with
food materials which are secured from the alfalfa
sap, and thus the bacteria secure for themselves
both nitrogen and the other essential plant foods.
The alfalfa root or rootlet becomes enlarged at the
point attacked by the bacteria, and a sort of wart
or tubercle is formed which resembles a tiny potato,
as large as clover seed on clover or alfalfa, and,
singularly, about as large as peas on cowpeas or soy
beans. On plants that are sparsely infected, these
tubercles devolp to a large size and often in clus-
ters. While the bacteria themselves are extremely
small and can be seen only by the aid of a power-
ful microscope, the tubercles in which they live are
easily seen, and they are sufficient to enable us to
know whether the plants are infected.”’

“T wish you would tell me the difference between
the words inoculated and infected,” said Adelaide.

“Tnoculated is used in the active sense and infect-
ed in the passive,” said Percy. “Thus the red
clover growing in the field is infected if there are
tubercles on its roots, although it may never have
been inoculated; and we inoculate alfalfa because
it would not be likely to become infected withou
direct inoculation.” |

“Under favorable conditions,” continued Percy,
“these bacteria multiply with tremendous rapidity,
somewhat as the germs of small pox or yellow fever
multiply if allowed to do so. A single tubercle
may contain a million germs which if distributed
uniformly over an acre would furnish more than
twenty bacteria for every square foot.”

“There, Charles,’ said the grandmother,
“‘wouldn’t a vest pocketful of those bugs or germs
be a big enough dose for one acre?”

Tubercles about as large as peas on the roots of the cowpea. One
tubercle may contain a million germs.

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON _ 20%

“Well, but they’re not a fertilizer, Mother,” said
Mr. West, “‘and besides Mr. Johnston says it is bet-
ter to use the infected sweet clover soil and there
is no need of paying $2 an acre for something we
knew nothing about, and especially on land that is
not worth more than $2 an acre.”

“I don’t care what it’s worth,’’ she replied,
“some of it cost your grandfather $68 an acre, and
it will never be sold for any $2 while I have any
say so about it.”

They waited for Percy to proceed.

‘The individual bacteria are very short-lived,”
he continued, ‘‘and products of decay soon begin to
accumulate in the tubercles. These products con-
tain, in combined form, nitrogen which the bacteria
have taken from the air, and in this form it is taken
from the tubercles and absorbed through the roots
into the host plant and thus serves as a source of
nitrogen for all of the agricultural legumes.

“It should be kept in mind, of course, that the
red clover has one kind of nitrogen-fixing bacteria,
that the cowpea has a different kind, and that the
soy bean bacteria are still different, while a fourth
kind lives on the roots of alfalfa and sweet clover.”’

‘How much infected sweet clover soil would I
need to inoculate an acre of land for alfalfa?”
asked Mr. West.

“Tf the soil is thoroughly infected, a hundred
pounds to the acre will do very well if applied at
the same time the alfalfa seed is sown and immedi-
ately harrowed in with the seed. If allowed to lie
for several hours or days exposed to the sunshine
after being spread over the land the bacteria will
be destroyed, for like most bacteria, such as those
which lurk in milk pails to sour the milk, they are
killed by the sunshine.”’

‘‘That’s right,’ said the grandmother. ‘That’s

208 THE STORY OF THHisOiL

the way to sterilize milk pails and pans and crocks.
I like crocks better than pans. They don’t have
any sort of joints to dig out.”

‘Of course,’’ continued Percy, ‘‘a wagon load of
infected soil will make a more perfect inoculation
than a hundred pounds, and where it costs nothing
but the hauling it is well to use a liberal amount.”’

‘How deep should it be taken?’’ asked Mr.
West.

‘‘About the same depth as you would plow. The
tubercles are mostly within six or eight inches of
the surface. The bacteria depend upon the
nitrogen of the air and this must enter the
surface soil. Sometimes in wet weather the
tubercles can be found almost at the surface of the
ground, and when the ground cracks one can often
find tubercles sticking out in the cracks an inch or
two beneath the surface but protected from direct
sunshine.

‘These bacteria have power to furnish very
large amounts of nitrogen to such a crop as alfalfa.
The Illinois Station reports having grown eight and
one-half tons of alfalfa per acre in one season. It
was harvested in four cuttings. The hay itself was
worth at least $6 a ton above all expenses, which
would bring $51 an acre net profit for one year. Of
course this was above the average, which is only
about four and one-half tons over a series of sev-
eral years. But suppose you can save only three
tons and get $6 a ton net for it, as you could easily
do by feeding it to your cattle and sheep. That
would bring $18 an acre or six per cent. interest
on $300 land. I am altogether confident that this
could be done on your sloping hillsides with their
rich supplies of phosphorus and other mineral
foods, provided, of course, that you use plenty of
ground limestone and thoroughly inoculate the

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 209
soil.”

“Well, I shall certainly try alfalfa again,” said
Mr. West, “‘and if I can grow such crops of alfalfa
as you think on the hillsides, I can have much more
farm manure produced for the improvement of the
rest of the land. By the way what did that chem-
ist find in that sample you took of the other land
where it does not wash so much as on the steeper
slopes.”

‘He found the following:

b]

1,030 pounds of nitrogen
1,270 pounds of phosphorus
16,500 pounds of potassium
7,460 pounds of magnesium
16,100 pounds of calcium

‘Well, the phosphorus is not so low,” said Mr.
West.

“Fully equal to that in our $150 Illinois prairie,”
replied Percy, ‘‘and again the calcium is more than
ours, with magnesium not far below, and potassium
half our supply. Nitrogen is plainly the most seri-
ous problem on most of this farm, and limestone
and legumes must solve that problem if properly
used.”’

“Do you think this land could be made as valu-
able as the Illinois land just by a liberal use of lime-
stone and legumes?” asked Adelaide.

‘“T should have some doubt about that,’”’ Percy
replied. ‘‘Your very level uplands that neither lose
nor receive material from surface washing are very
deficient in phosphorus and much poorer than ours
in potassium and magnesium; and your undulating
and steeply sloping lands are more or less broken,
with many rock outcrops on the points and some
impassable gullies, which as a rule compel the cul-

210 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

tivation of the land in small irregular fields. A
three-cornered field of from two to fifteen acres can
never have quite the same value per acre as the
land where forty or eighty acres of corn can be
grown in a body with no necessity of omitting a sin-
gle hill. Then there is some unavoidable loss from
surface washing, so that to maintain the supply of
organic matter and nitrogen will require a larger
use of legumes than on level land of equal richness.
In addition to this is the initial difference in humus
content. This is well measured by the nitrogen con-
tent. While your soil contains eight hundred
pounds of nitrogen on the steeper slopes and one
thousand pounds on the more gently undulating
areas, ours contains five thousand pounds in the
brown silt loam and eight thousand pounds in the
heavier black clay loam. This means that our II-
linois prairie soil contains from five to ten times
as much humus, or organic matter as your best up-
land soil. To supply this difference in humus would
require the addition of from four hundred to eight
hundred tons per acre of average farm manure, or
the plowing under of one hundred to two hundred
tons of air-dry clover. This represents the great
reserve of the Illinois prairie soils above the total
supplies remaining in your soils.

‘Our farmers are still producing crops very largely
by drawing on this reserve. Of course most of this
great supply of humus is very old. It represents the
organic residues most resistant todecomposition;and,
where corn and oats are grown exclusively, the soil
has reached a condition on many farms under which
the decomposition of the reserve organic matter is so
slow that the nitrogen liberated from its own decay
and the minerals liberated from the soil by the action
of the decomposition products are not sufficient to
meet the requirements of large crops, and for this

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON arr

reason alone some of our lands that are still rich are
said to be run down; but they only require a moderate
use of clover or farm manure or other fresh and ac-
tive organic matter to at once restore their productive-
ness to a point almost equal to the yields from the
virgin soil. Some Illinois farmers who have discovy-
ered this apparent restoration have jumped to the
conclusion that they have solved the problem of per-
manently maintaining the fertility of the soil; and I
judge from a remark made by the Secretary of Agri-
culture that some Iowa farmers have the same mis-
taken notions.

“These fresh supplies of active organic matter
serve primarily as soil stimulants, hastening the liber-
ation of nitrogen from the organic reserve and of
minerals from the inorganic soil materials.

‘Where one of these Eastern farmers has managed
a farm under the rotation system with the occasional
use of clover or light applications of farm manure,—
where this has been continued until the great reserve
is largely gone, and the phosphorus supply greatly
depleted, then the land is truly run down, but not un-
til then.

‘Finally, land-plaster and quick-lime, still more
powerful soil stimulants, are often brought into the
system to bring about a more complete exhaustion of
the soil reserves, and lastly the use of small amounts
of high-priced commercial fertilizers serves to put the
land in suitable condition for ultimate abandonment.”

“Do you mean that commercial fertilizers injure
the soil?” asked Mr. West.

“Well, to. some extent they injure the soil
because they tend to destroy the limestone
and. increase the acidity of ‘the soil, and
also because they contain more or less man-
ufactured land-plaster and thus serve as soil stim-
ulants; but the chief point to keep in mind concerning

212 THE STORY OF THE S09.

the use of the common so-called complete commercial
fertilizer is that they are too expensive to permit their
use in sufficient quantities to positively enrich the soil.
Thus the farmer may apply two hundred pounds of
such a fertilizer at a cost of $3.00 an acre, and then
harvest a crop of wheat, two crops of hay, pasture for
another year or two, plow up the ground for corn,
apply another two hundred pounds for the corn crop,
follow with a crop of oats, and then repeat. He
thus harvests five crops and pastures a year or two
and applies perhaps four hundred pounds of fertilizer
at a cost of $6.00.

‘As an average of the most common commercial
fertilizers sold to the farmers in the Eastern and
Southern States, the four hundred pounds would add
to the soil seven pounds of nitrogen, fourteen pounds
of phosphorus and seven pounds of potassium, while
a single fifty-bushel crop of corn will remove from
the soil ten times as much nitrogen, five times as
much potassium and nearly as much phosphorus as
the total amounts applied in this six-year or seven-
year rotation.

“In this manner the farmer extends the time during
which he can take from the soil crops whose value
exceed their cost. He applies only one-fourth or
possibly one-half as much of the most deficient ele-
ment as the crops harvested require, and thus he con-
tinues for a longer time to ‘work the land for all that’s
mre)

“Well, isn’t that the limit?’ said Adelaide, with
emphasis on the ‘“‘isn’t,’’ for which she received a dis-
approving look from her mother, so far as her almost
angel-face could give such a look.

‘So far as human ingenuity has yet devised,” re-
plied Percy, ‘‘this system appears to be the limit; but
this limit has not yet been reached on any Westover
soil. If anyone can devise a method for extending

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 213

this limit he should apply it on a type of soil covering
more than two-fifths of the total area of St. Mary
County and more than 45,000 acres of Prince George
County, Maryland, some of which almost adjoins
the District of Columbia. This soil has been reduced
in fertility until it contains only one-third as much
phosphorus as your poorest land. I found a Western
man who had come down to Maryland a few years
ago. He saw that beautiful almost level upland soil,
and it looked so good to him that he bought and kept
buying until he had ‘squared out’ a tract of eleven
hundred acres. He still had left money enough to
fence the farm and to put the buildings in good re-
pair. He wasa live-stock farmer from the West who
just knew from his own experience and from that of
the Secretary of Agriculture, in the use of a little
clover or farm manure in unlocking the great reserves
of an almost virgin soil, that all his Maryland farm
needed was clover seed and live stock. Sheep es-
pecially he knew to be great producers of fertility.

‘‘He sowed the clover and grass seed and they
germinated well. He even secured a fine catch, but
it failed to hold, as we say out West. He tried again
and again, and failed as often as he tried. He showed
me his best clover on a field that had received some
manure made from feed part of which was pur-
chased, and that had also received five hundred
pounds per acre of hydrated lime, which he was fin-
ally persuaded to use, after becoming convinced that
clover-growing on old abandoned land was not ex-
actly as easy as clover-growing on a ‘run-down’ farm
of almost virgin soil in the West.”

‘‘And was the clover good after that treatment ?”
asked Mr. West.

“No, not good,” said Percy, “but in some places
where the manure had been applied to the high points,
as is the custom of the Western farmer, the yield of

214 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

clover, weeds, and foul grass together must have been
nearly a half ton to the acre. Fortunately he waited
to fully stock his farm with cattle and sheep until he
should have some assurance of producing sufficient
feed to keep them for a time at least, instead of mak-
ing the common mistake of the less experienced farm-
er who goes to the country from the city, and who
imagines that, if he has plenty of stock on the farm,
they must of necessity produce abundance of manure
with which to enrich his land for the production of
abundant crops.”’

‘Well, now you’ll have to show me,”’ said the
grandmother. “To my way of thinking that’s a
pretty good kind of a notion for a farmer to have,
and I’d like to know what’s wrong with it.”

Again a shadow seemed to cross the sweet face
as the mother’s glance turned from grandma to
Adelaide.

“The system has some merit,” replied Percy,
“but it starts at the wrong point in the circle. Cat-
tle and sheep must first have feed before they can
produce the fertilizer with which to enrich the soil;
and people who would raise stock on poor land
should always produce a good supply of food be-
fore they procure the stock requiring to be fed.
There is probably no more direct route to financial
disaster than for one to insist upon over-stocking
a farm that is essentially worn out.”

‘But doesn’t pasturing enrich the soil?” asked
the grandmother.

‘Pasturing may enrich the soil only in a single
element of plant food,” said Percy. “In all other
elements simple pasturing must always contribute to-
ward soil depletion. If the pasture herbage con-
tains a sufficient proportion of legume plants so that
the fixation of free nitrogen exceeds the utilization
of nitrogen in animal growth, then the soil will

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 215

be enriched in that element, although with the same
growth of plants it would be enriched more rapidly
without pasturing; for animals are not made out
of nothing. Meat, milk, and wool are all highly
nitrogenous products.

“On the other hand no amount of pasturing can
add to the soil a single pound of any one of the
six mineral elements, and phosphorus, which is nor-
mally the most limited of all these elements, is ab-
stracted from the soil and retained by the animals
in very considerable amounts. As an average one-
fourth of the phosphorus contained in the food con-
sumed is retained in the animal products, especially
in bone, flesh, and milk.”’

“Well, I didn’t know that milk contained phos-
phorus,” said Mr. West, ‘“‘although I did know, of
course, that phosphorus must be contained in bone.”

“But, as you know,” said Percy,” milk is the only
food of young animals, and they must secure their
bone food from the milk. Furthermore, the com-
plete analysis of milk shows that it contains very
considerable quantities. “There are also records of
digestion experiments in which less than one-half
ot the phosphorus in the food consumed was recov-
ered in the total manurial excrements. As a mat-
ter of fact there is a time in the life of the young
mother, as with the two-year old cow, for example,
when she must abstract from the food she consumes
sufficient phosphorus for the nourishment of three
growing animals,—her own immature body, a suck-
ling calf, and another calf as yet unborn.

“Of course the organic matter of the soil should
increase under pasturing, especially under condi-
tions that make possible an accumulation of nitro-
gen; but here too the animals make no contribution
toward any such accumulation. With the same
growth of plants the accumulation of organic mat-

216 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

ter would be much more rapid without live stock.”

‘It is known absolutely but not generally that
live stock destroy about two-thirds of the organic
matter contained in the food they consume. With
grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse for-
age it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds
of the dry matter in tender young grass or clover
or in a mixed, well-balanced ration of grain and hay
is digested and thus practically destroyed so far as
the production of organic matter is concerned.

‘“This you could easily verify yourself, Mr. West,
by feeding two thousand pounds of any suitable ra-
tion, such as corn and clover hay, collecting and dry-
ing the total excrement, which will be found to
weigh about seven hundred pounds, if it contains no
higher percentage of moisture than was contained
in the two thousand pounds of food consumed.

“Of course one should not forget that the liquid
excrement contains more nitrogen and more potas-
sium than the solid, and that much of this can be
saved and returned to the land by use of plenty of
absorbent bedding, and in pasturing there is no
danger of any loss from this source.”

“That is one great trouble with us,’’ said Mr.
West. ‘‘We never have as much bedding as we
could use to advantage, and it is altogether too ex-
pensive to permit us to think of buying straw.”

“Probably it would be much less expensive for
you to buy ground limestone and then use good al-
falfa hay for bedding,” said Percy. “I mean ex-
actly what I say,’ he continued. “Of course I do
not advise you to use good alfalfa hay in that way,
but it would be*a cheap source of very valuable
bedding, and it would make an extremely valuable
manure. However, I should not hesitate to make
liberal use of partially spoiled alfalfa hay for bed-
ding, and you are quite likely to have more or less

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 217

such hay; for under favorable conditions, such as
you can easily have with your soil and climate, al-
falfa comes on with a rush in the spring, and often
the first crop should be cut before the weather is
suitable for making hay. There should be very lit-
tle or no delay at this time, because the first cut-
ting should be removed in order that it may be out
of the way for the second crop, which comes for-
ward still more rapidly under normal conditions.

‘Some of our Illinois farmers make strenuous
objection to taking care of an alfalfa field that pro-
duces $50 worth of the richest and most valuable
hay, because it interferes too much with the proper
care of a $25 corn crop, which they somehow feel
requires and deserves all their time and attention.

“Some of our Virginia farmers have sent to [I-

linois for their seed corn,’ said Mr. West; ‘‘and
they report very good results as a rule, especially
on land that has been kept up. On our poor land I
think the native corn does better than the western
seed.”
_ “Perhaps that is because it is used to it,” sug-
gested Percy, “used to making the struggle for it-
self on poor land. Fighting for all it gets, so to
speak. You know the high-bred animals cannot hold
their own with the scrubs when it comes to pawing
the snow off the dead wild grass for a living in the
winter, as cattle must do sometimes on the plains
of the Northwest.

“Well, there may be something in that,’ respond-
ed Mr. West, ‘“‘but the western seed corn certainly
looks fine.”’

“Yes, that is true,” said Percy,” “Our farmers
have made marked improvement in seed corn; they
also understand very well how to grow corn. They
know how and when to prepare the ground, how
and when to plant; and how and when to cultivate.

F

218 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

When Illinois farmers go to Iowa to buy land, the
Iowa real estate men usually take them to see a
farm that is owned and operated by a former II-
linoisan, and they insist that there are no other
farmers who know how to raise corn quite so well
as the Illinois farmer. Perhaps the Illinois real es-
tate man would tell a similar story to the Lowa
farmer if he ever came there to buy land, but
‘Westward the Course of Empire takes it Way’ and
the man once gone west knows the east no more,
except as a market for his surplus products or a
good place in which to spend his surplus cash.

“But, here. We must finish our study of the
data that Miss Adelaide so kindly helped me to
compute.”

It was the first time that he had spoken her
name in her presence; and she met his glance as she
raised her eyes.

What’s in a name?
What’s in a glance?

Percy proceeded without delay; and Adelaide lis-
tened as before, her drooping lashes protecting her
eyes almost entirely from the view of others. The
father and mother heard no name spoken and saw no
eyes meet, and yet as Percy continued speaking a sec-
ond self seemed to be thinking different thoughts and
he was conscious of a strong desire to look longer
than an instant into those captivating eyes.

A side glance, as she let her lashes droop, revealed
to Adelaide that grandma alone had heard and seen.
But Percy was a very common place man. Certainly
he had no such face as had held her glance for more
than an instant as the afternoon train began to move
from the depot platform. Percy was slightly above
the average height and solidly built, but he was not

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 219

tall. His face had often been described as a “‘perfect
blank.”’ No one saw anything of what lay within by
merely looking into his eyes, and yet there was a cer-
tain indescribable something that appealed to one
from those eyes. An elderly German lady once re-
marked to his mother: ‘“‘Ihr Sohn hat so etwas gutes
im Auge.”

Percy was not polished in manner, Adelaide ad-
mitted. Professor Barstow had said that he deliber-
ated for half an hour as to whether he should bring
his ‘‘cawds,”’ for use on Thanksgiving day, because
he feared that the custom in “Vi’ginia’”’ might not be
the same as in ““No’th Cahlina;”’ while she doubted
very much if Percy had any cards whatever. She had
never heard it said that he was “strong as an ox and
quick as lightning,’ but perhaps she knew it as well
as his schoolmates ever had. She had not heard that
one of the college professors, noted for his short-cut
expressions, had once told his class that he wished
they would all “keep their thinking apparatus in as
good repair as Johnston’s.’”’ One thing she did know
was that Percy’s voice had been trained to talk to a
woman, and that no other voice had ever spoken
her name as he did. Reserve force? depth of man-
hood? confidence in his own words? absolute deci-
sion? wealth of tenderness? persistent endurance?
unfailing loyalty? boundless affection? Deep in
her heart Adelaide felt that these were among the
attributes revealed in Percy’s voice. When he
spoke all listened. His voice was low-pitched but
rich in tone and volume and sincerity, —that was the
word.—The whole man seemed to feel and speak
when he spoke. He surely can have no secrets.
His mother must know all that he knows of his
own self; but were those letters from his mother?
The handwriting was very modern. Even her
father made an old-fashioned C and W in signing

220 THE STORY OF THE SOM,

his own name. Had he not looked at the writing
on both those letters before he noticed the others?
and why did he remain so long in his room before
coming down to dinner? WHad he not been in col-
lege—in a great University where there were hun-
dreds of the brightest girls of his own State? But
why should any girl be interested in farming?
Teaching is such a cultured profession.

Only a moment—just while he was sorting the
papers upon which they had made the computa-
tions, but a hundred thoughts had passed through
her mind. Now he was speaking.

“You remember we took a sample of the subsoil
on the sloping land. This soil is evidently residual,
formed in place from the disintegration of the un-
derlying rock. ‘The soil may represent only a small
part of the original rock, because of the loss by
leaching. Here are the amounts of plant food
found in two million pounds of the subsoil:

590 pounds of nitrogen
1,980 pounds of phosphorus
37,940 pounds of potassium
24,880 pounds of magnesium
31,320 pounds of calcium

‘A splendid subsoil,’ Percy continued. ‘I know
of none better in [Jlinois, except that we sometimes
have more calcium in the form of carbonate, and
even somewhat more potassium in places; but this
must be a fine subsoil for alfalfa, where the bed
rock is not too near the surface. Of course there
is but little nitrogen in the subsoil, but that is true
of all normal soils, because the nitrogen is contained
only in the organic matter, and that decreases rapid-
ly with depth and usually becomes insufficient to
color the soil below 18 inches.”’

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 221

“Now,” began Mr. West, ‘‘from these different
analyses or invoices, and from your discussion of
these results, I take it that you would not advise me
to purchase any commercial fertilizer for use on the
land we are still using in my rotation; but you think
we should make large use of limestone and legume
crops.”

“Yes, Sir. Phosphorus is markedly dificient only
in the very level upland which has been allowed
to remain uncleared for fifty years or more, and
nitrogen is certainly the limiting element on the land
you are trying to keep in your rotation. While you
cannot hope to put into your soil any such reserve
of slow-acting organic matter as we still have in
our comparatively new soils of the West, we may
keep in mind that a small amount of quick-acting
fresh organic matter is more effective than a large
supply of what we might call embalmed material
that decomposes very, very slowy unless assisted by
the addition of more active organic matter. It fre-
quently happens that one soil containing a large re-
serve of old humus, and hence showing more or-
ganic carbon and more nitrogen, by the ultimate in-
voice, than another soil, is, nevertheless, less pro-
ductive, because the other soil contains a larger
amount of fresh organic matter which decays quick-
ly and thus furnishes more nitrogen and liberates
more of the other elements from the insoluble min-
erals of the soil because of the greater abundance
of the active products of organic decay.

“T think you should keep in mind, however, that,
for every twenty-five bushels of corn you wish to
produce, you should return to the soil one ton of
clover or four tons of average farm manure, and
that for one ton of produce hauled to the barns and
fed, you will probably not return to the land more
than one ton of manure.”’

CHAPTER XXX
“STONE SOUP”

HE next forenoon Percy and Mr. West
spent some time making some further
tests with hydrochloric acid and litmus
paper in different places on the farm;
but the result only confirmed the previ-
Ous examinations.

‘“T never before saw any such light as now ap-
pears,” said Mr. West. ‘‘It seems to me that for
the first time in the history of Westover, covering
about two centuries, a real plan can be intelligently
made based upon definite information looking to-
ward the positive improvement of the soil. While
you have been away, I have been looking up the
lime matter. I find that a lime is being advertized,
and sold in small amounts, that is called hydrated
lime, and it is especially prepared as an agricultural
lime. It is recommended by some dealers as being
fully equal to the ordinary commercial fertilizer
which sells at about $25 a ton, while this hydrated
agricultural lime can be bought for $8 a ton, and I
think for a little less in larger amounts. You men-
tioned also that you had seen some one who had
used hydrated lime, but it didn’t seem to make much
of a clover crop. Of course, I understand from
what you said that his soil contained only one hun-
dred and sixty pounds of phosphorus, and [I take it
that lime alone could not markedly improve his
soil; but still I would like to know why, if he has
one hundred and sixty pounds of phosphorus in his
plowed soil, he could not produce a few good crops
of clover. How much phosphorus does it require

222

“STONE SOUP” 22%

for a ton of clover?

“One ton of clover contains only five pounds of
phosphorus,”’ Percy replied, ‘‘and of course the
roots must also require some phosphorus, although
after the crop is produced and removed, the phos-
phorus contained in the roots remains for the bene-
fit of subsequent crops. Thus we might suppose the
land which contains one hundred and _ sixty
pounds of phosphorus ought to furnish the
phosphorus needed for a _ three ton crop
of clover every year for ten years; but in
actual practice no such results are secured.
The invoice of the plant food in the soil is a matter
of very great importance, for it reveals the mathe-
matical possibilities, but another matter of almost
equal importance is the problem of liberating plant
food from this supply sufficient for the crops to be
produced year by year.

“Decaying or active organic matter is one of
the great factors in the liberation of plant food, and
undoubtedly the extension or distribution of the
root system of the growing plant is another very po-
tent factor. If the root surfaces come in contact
with one per cent. of the total surface of the soil
particles in the plowed soil, then we might conceive
of a relationship whereby one per cent. of the phos-
phorus in that soil would be dissolved or liberated
from the insoluble minerals and thus become avail-
able as food for the growing crop. We know that
the rate of liberation varies greatly, with different
soils and seasons, and crops also differ in their
power to assist themselves in the extraction of min-
eral plant food from the soil. The presence of
limestone encourages the development of certain
soil organisms which tend to hasten some decompo-
sition process. But, all things considered, it may be
said, speaking very generally, that the equivalent of

224 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

about one per cent. of the total phosphorus contain-
ed in the plowed soil does become available for the
crops under average conditions. On this basis one
hundred and sixty pounds of phosphorus would
furnish about one and one-half pounds for the crops
during one season. But in such a soil the phosphorus
still remaining may be the most difficultly soluble,
and the supply of decaying organic matter may be
extremely low, so that possibly less than one pound
per acre would become available, and this would
meet the needs of less than four hundred pounds
per acre of clover hay. Futhermore, the supply
grows less and less with every crop removed.

“With your ordinary soil, carrying twelve hun-
dred and seventy pounds of phosphorus, perhaps
you may be able by a liberal use of decaying
organic matter to liberate ten or fifteen pounds
of phosphorus, or sufficient for a crop of forty to
sixty bushels of corn; and, with a subsoil richer in
phosphorus than the surface, and with more or less
of the partially depleted surface removed by ero-
sion year by year, the supply of phosphorus is thus
permanently provided for, unless the bed rock is
brought too near the surface. It is doubtful if the
direct addition of phosphorus to your sloping lands
will ever be necessary or profitable. Certainly such
addition is not advisable until you have brought the
land to as high a state of fertility as is practicable
by means of limestone, legumes, and manure.”

‘“That seems clearly to be the case with most of
the land now under cultivation on this farm,”’ said
Mr. West. ‘‘Can you tell me anything about this
hydrated lime ?”’

“T can tell you it is correctly named,” Percy re-
plied. “Hydrated means watered, and an invest-
ment in hydrated lime is properly classed with other
watered investments. If you prefer to use hydrated

“STONE SOUP” 225

lime I would suggest that you buy fresh burned
lump lime and do the hydrating yourself, which
only requires that you add eighteen pounds of wa-
ter to each fifty-six pounds of quick lime; in other
words, that you slack the lime by adding water in
the proper proportion. Both quick lime and hy-
drated lime are known as caustic lime. Webster
says that the word caustic means ‘capable of de-
stroying the texture of anything or eating away its
substance by chemical action.’

“This definition is correct for caustic lime, as
you can easily determine by keeping your hand in
a bucket of slacked lime a few minutes. Caustic
lime eats away the organic matter of the soil. In
an experiment conducted by the Pennsylvania Ex-
periment Station, during a period of sixteen years,
eight tons of hydrated lime destroyed organic mat-
ter equivalent to thirty-seven tons of farm manure,
as compared with the use of equivalent applications
of ground limestone; and, as an average of the
sixteen years, every ton of caustic lime applied lib-
erated seven dollar’s worth of organic nitrogen, as
compared with ground limestone. That this much
liberated nitrogen was essentially wasted and lost is
evidenced by the fact that larger crops were pro-
duced where ground limestone was used than where
burned lime was applied.

“The limestone must be quarried whether used
for grinding or for burning, and the grinding can
be done for twenty-five cents a ton where a large
equipment with powerful machinery is used and
where cheap fuel is provided, as near the coal min-
ing districts. It need not be very finely ground. If
ground to pass a sieve with sixteen meshes to the
linear inch, it is very satisfactory, provided that all
of the fine dust produced in the grinding is included
in the product. You see the soil acids are slightly

226 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

soluble and they attack the limestone particles and
are thus themselves destroyed or neutralized. If,
however, you ever wish to use raw rock phosphate,
insist upon its being sufficiently fine-ground that at
least ninety per cent. of it will pass through a sieve
with ten thousand meshes to the square inch, this
being no finer than is required for the basic slag
phosphate, of which several million tons are now
being used each year in the European countries.
Like the raw rock phosphate, the slag gives the
best results only when used in connection with plenty
of decaying organic matter.”’

“That reminds me,” said Mr. West, ‘of what
one of the fertilizer agents said about raw phos-
phate. He said the use of raw phosphate with
farm manure reminded him of ‘stone soup’, which
was made by putting a clean round stone in the ket-
tle with some water. Pepper and salt were added,
then some potatoes and other vegetables, a piece of
butter and a few scraps of meat. ‘Stone soup,’ thus
made, was a very satisfactory soup. He said that
in practically all of the tests of raw phosphate con-
ducted by the various State Experiment Stations,
manure has been used as a means of supplying or-
ganic matter to liberate the phosphorus from the
raw rock, but in such large quantity as to be entire-
ly impracticable for the average farmer to use on
his own fields; and his opinion was that the entire
benefit was due to the manure. He had a little
booklet entitled ‘Available or Unavailable Plant
Food—Which?? published by the National Fertil-
izer Association, and said I could get a copy by
addressing the Secretary at Nashville, Tennessee.”

Fortunately,” said Percy, ‘‘this is not a question
of opinion but one of fact; and it has been discov-
ered that the fertilizer agents who are long on
opinions and short on facts prefer to sell four tons

“STONE SOUP” 227

of complete fertilizer for $80, or even two tons of
acid phosphate for $30, rather than to sell one ton
of raw phosphate, containing the same amount of
phosphorus, for $7.50. In the manufacture of
acidulated fertilizers, one ton of raw phosphate,
containing about two hundred and fifty pounds of
the element phosphorus, is mixed with one ton of
sulfuric acid to make two tons of acid phosphate;
and, as a rule, these two tons of acid phosphate are
mixed with two tons of filler to make four tons of
complete fertilizer. A favorite filler is dried peat,
which is taken from some of the peat bogs, as at
Manito, Illinois, and shipped in train loads to the
fertilizer factories. “The peat is not considered
worth hauling onto the land in Illinois, even where
the farmers can get it for nothing; but it contains
some organic nitrogen, and, by the addition of a
little potassium salt, the agent is enabled to call
the product a “‘complete’’ fertilizer.

“Experiments with the use of raw rock phos-
phate have been conducted by the State Agricultural
Experiment Stations over periods of twelve years
in Maryland, eleven years in Rhode Island, twen-
ty-one years (in two series) in Massachusetts, four-
teen years (in two series) in Maine, twelve years
in Pennsylvania, thirteen years in Ohio, four years
in Indiana, and from four to six years on a dozen
different experiment fields in different parts of II-
linois.

“T have here some quotations taken from the di-
rectors of several of these experiment stations
which fairly represent the opinions which they
have expressed concerning their own inyestigations.
Thus the Maryland director says:

“The results obtained with the insoluble phos-
phates has cost usually less than one-half as much
as that with the soluble phosphates. Insoluble

228 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

South Carolina phosphate rock produced a higher
total average yield than dissolved South Carolina
rock.’

“The Rhode Island director comments as fol-
lows:

‘With the pea, oat, summer squash, crimson
clover, Japanese millet, golden millet, white podded
Adzuka bean, soy bean, and potato, raw phosphate
gave very good results; but with the flat turnip,
table beet, and cabbage it was relatively very in-
efficient.’

“The following statement is from the Massachu-
setts director:

“Tt is possible to produce profitable crops of
most kinds by liberal use of natural phosphates, and
in a long series of years there might be a consider-
able money saving in depending at least in part
upon these rather than upon the higher priced dis-
solved phosphates.’

“The director of the Maine State Experiment
Station gives us the following:

‘For the first year the largest increase of crop
was produced by soluble phosphate. For the sec-
ond and third years without further addition of
fertilizers, better results were obtained from the
plots where stable manure and insoluble phosphates
had been used.’

“The stable manure and insoluble phosphates
here referred to were not applied together, but on
separate plots. Indeed, the raw phosphate was not
used in connection with manure either in Maryland,
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsyl-
vania, or Indiana; and in the extensive experiments
in progress in Illinois the raw phosphate has been
used, as a rule, not with farm manure, but with
green manures; and wherever manure has been
used in connection with the raw phosphate, as in

“STONE SOUP” 229

Ohio, the comparison is made with the same
amounts of manure applied without phosphate.

“The Pennsylvania Report for 1895, page 210,
contains the following statement:

‘““*The yearly average for the twelve years gives
us a gain per acre of $2.83 from insoluble ground
bone, $2.45 from insoluble South Carolina rock,
$1.61 from reverted phosphate, and 48 cents from
soluble phosphate, thus giving us considerably bet-
ter results from the two forms of insoluble phos-
phate than from the reverted or soluble forms.’

“The Indiana director reports as follows:

“Tt will be seen that during the first and sec-
ond years the rock phosphate produced little ef-
fect, while the acid phosphate very materially in-
creased the yields. During the third and fourth
seasons, however, the rock produced very striking
results, even forging ahead of the acid. This and
very similar investigations in progress lead us to be-
lieve that rock phosphate is a cheap and effective
source of phosphorus where immediate returns are
not required.’

“Tn the Ohio experiments eight tons of manure
per acre were applied once every three years in a
three-year rotation of corn, wheat, and clover, three
different fields being used, so that every crop might
be grown every year. ‘The average yields for the
thirteen years where manure alone was used were:

53.1. bushels of corn
20.6 bushels of wheat
1.63 tons of hay

‘“The average yields on the unfertilized land were:

34.2 bushels of corn
11.4 bushels of wheat
1.16 tons of hay

230 THE STORY OF VTi) sor

“Tf the corn is worth 35 cents a bushel, the wheat
70 cents, and the hay $6 a ton, in addition to the ex-
pense of harvesting and marketing, then the total
value of the manure spread on the land is $1.99 cents
a ton.

“Where $1.20 worth of raw phosphate (320
pounds) were added in connection with the man-
ure the average yields were as follows:

61.4 bushels of corn
26.3 bushels of wheat
2.23 tons of hay

‘And where $2.40 worth of acid phosphate (320
pounds) were used with the same amount and kind
of manure the following average yields were se-
cured :

60.2 bushels of corn
26.5 bushels of wheat
2.16 tons of hay

‘These are the actual yields, and by any method
of computation yet proposed, each dollar invested
in raw phosphate has paid back much more than has
a dollar invested in acid phosphate.”

‘And was the use of the raw phosphate really
profitable?” asked Mr. West.

“Well, you might figure that out for yourself,”
Percy replied, “preferably using the average prices
for your own locality for corn, wheat and clover.
As I figure it at prices below the ten-year average
for Illinois, the raw phosphate paid about eight
hundred per cent. net on the investment.”

‘Eight hundred per cent.! You must mean eight
pet cent. inet.’

“No, Sir, I mean eight hundred per cent. net,
but you had better take the data and make your

“STONE SOUP” 231

own computations. But does it not seem strange
that, with such positive knowledge as this available,
many of the Illinois landowners who have managed
to sell off enough of their original stock of fertility
in grain or stock at good prices to enable them to
more than pay for their land, should continue to in-
vest their surplus in more land with hope that it will
pay them eight per cent. interest, when they could
secure many times that much interest from invest-
ing in the permanent improvement of the land they
already own?”

‘Perhaps it is not so strange,’’ replied Mr. West.
“T fear that some of their ancestors did the same
thing in Virginia and other Eastern States until the
land became poor, and then of course they were
‘land poor’. But, say, that ‘stone soup’ wouldn't
be so bad for those Ohio landowners, would it? I
should think they would avail themselves of the
positive information from their experiment station.
Speaking of soup, I wonder if it isn’t time for
lunch! But tell me; are the Illinois farmers doing
anything with raw phosphate ?”

“Yes, they are doing something, but by no means
as much as they ought. About two months ago a
group of the leading farmers from our section of
the State went up to Urbana to look over the ex-
periment fields, some of which have been carried
on since 1879. ‘The land is the typical corn belt
prairie, and consequently the results should be of
very wide application. Well, as a result of that
day’s inspection of the actual field results, an even
twelve carloads of raw phosphate were ordered by
those farmers upon their return home; and I
learned of another community where ten carloads
were ordered at once after a similar visit. As an
average of the last three years the yield of corn on
those old fields has been 23 bushels per acre where

232 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

corn has been grown every year without fertilizing,
58 bushels where a three-year rotation of corn, oats
and clover is followed, and in the same rotation
where organic matter, limestone, and phosphorus
have been applied the average yield has been 87
bushels in grain farming and go bushels in live-stock
farming.

‘‘T attended the State Farmers’ Institute last Feb-
ruary, and there I met many men who have had
several years’ experience with the raw rock. Usually
they put on one ton per acre as an initial applica-
tion and plow it under with a good growth of
clover; and, afterward, about one thousand pounds
per acre every four years will be ample to gradually
increase the absolute total supply of phosphorus in
the soil, even though large crops are removed.

‘A good many of our thinking farmers are now
using one or two cars of raw phosphate every year,
and they are figuring hard to keep up the organic
matter and nitrogen. ‘The most encouraging thing
is the very marked benefit of the phosphate to the
clover crop, and of course more clover means more
corn in grain farming, and more corn and clover
means more manure in live-stock farming.

“On the Illinois fields advantage is taken of these
relations in the developing of systems of perman-
ent agriculture. You see, if the phosphate pro-
duces more clover, then more clover can be plowed
under on that land; or, if the crops are fed, then
more manure can be returned to the phosphated
land than to the land not treated with phosphate
and not producing so large crops. Really the phos-
phate is not given full credit for what it has ac-
complished in the Ohio experiments; because, while
the land receiving phosphated manure has produced
about one-fourth larger crops than the land receiv-
ing the untreated manure, the actual amounts of

“STONE SOUP” 233

manure applied have been the same, whereas one-
fourth more manure can be produced from the
phosphated land and if this increased supply of
manure were returned to the land it would increase
the supply of nitrogen and thus make stil] larger
crop yields possible.”

“That is surely the way it would work out in
practical farming,” said Mr. West. I think I did
not tell you that $4.80 a ton is the lowest quotation
I have been able to get as yet for ground limestone
delivered at Blue Mound Station.”

“That would make its use prohibitive,’ said
Percy. “You ought to get it for just one-fourth
of that, or for $1.20 a ton. In Illinois we can get
it delivered a hundred miles from the quarry for
$1.20 a ton. It costs no more for a thirty-ton car
of ground limestone than the farmer receives for a
cow; and the cost of a car of fine-ground natural
phosphate is about equal to the price of one horse.”’

CHAPTER XXxXI

THEORIES VERSUS FACTS

ERCY planned to walk to Blue Mound to
take the three thirty train that Satur-
day afternoon; but Adelaide’s parents
both insisted that she would willingly
drive to the station, and the grandmother
discovered that she needed a certain kind

of thread which Adelaide could then also get at the
store.

“Certainly,” said Adelaide, with some merri-
ment, “I always enjoy taking our departing guests
to the traia,’

“Very well,” replied Percy. “If you must go to
get the thread and will permit me to be the coach-
man, I shall be satisfied, for you will be home
early.”

“Then we will take the colts and buckboard, and
I shall be home in less than twenty minutes after
your train leaves the station.”

‘T think I have missed several days of your beau-
tiful ‘Indian Summer,’ because of my trip to the
North,” Percy remarked to Mr. West as they sat on
the broad veranda waiting for the hour of two thirty
when the colts were to be ready for the drive.

“T wish you might have been with us while Pro-
fessor Barstow was here,” replied Mr. West, “not
only because of the mild autumn weather we have
had, but also because Professor Barstow has some
ideas about questions of soil fertility that are very
different from those you hold. He says a young
man from Washington gave a lecture at his college
down in North Carolina, in which he informed

234

THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 235

them that the cause of infertility of soils is a poison-
ous substance excreted by the plant itself, and that
this can be overcome by changing from one crop to
another because the excreta of one plant, while
poisonous to that plant, will not be poisonous to
other plants of a different kind. Thus, by rotation
of crops, good crops could be grown indefinitely on
the same land without the addition of plant food.
He said that the soil water alone dissolved plenty
of plant food from all soils for the production of
good crops, and that the supply of plant food will
be permanently maintained, because the plant food
contained in the subsoil far below where the roots
go is being brought to the surface by the rise of the
capillary moisture, and that there is in fact a steady
tendency toward an accumulation of plant food in
the surface soil. He said that it is never necessary
to apply fertilizing material to any soil for the pur-
pose of increasing the supply of plant food in that
soil. He admitted that applications of fertilizers
sometimes produce increased crop yields, but that
the effect was due to the power of the fertilizer to
destroy the toxic substances excreted by the plants,
and this is really the principal effect of potash, phos-
phates, and nitrates, and also of farm manure and
green manures. Humus, he said, is one of the
very best substances for destroying these toxic ex-
creta, although they had some other things which
were as good or better than any sort of fertilizing
materials. He mentioned especially a substance
called pyrogallol, which cost $2.00 a pound, and
of course it could not be applied on a large scale;
but it was as good a fertilizer as anything, although
it contains nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydro-
gen, which, as you explained to me when you were
here before, the plants secure in abundance from
air and water. ‘This information had been secured

236 THE SDORY OF THE SOT.

in the laboratories at Washington by growing wheat
seedlings in water culture for twenty-day periods.”

‘I have already heard something of those theo-
ries,’’ said Percy, ‘“‘but I shall be glad to have you
tell me more about them. As I understand them,
we need only to rotate and cultivate and our lands
should always continue to produce bountiful crops.
Is that correct?”

‘T understand that is the theory,” replied Mr.
West, “but I know it is not correct, for my grand-
father used to grow two or three times as much
wheat per acre as [ can grow, and I rotate much
more than he did. In fact I can grow only ten to
fifteen bushels of wheat per acre once in ten years,
whereas he grew from twenty-five to forty bushels
per acre in a five-year rotation; and I don’t see
that there is any particular connection between the
growing of wheat seedlings in small pots or bottles
for a few twenty-day periods and the growing of
crops in soils during successive seasons. No, I don’t
take any stock in their theories. I think they are
watered, or perhaps I should say hydrated, in de-
ference to science. But I would like to know about
this question of plant food coming up from below.
That would be a happy solution of the fertilizer
problem.”

‘It is true,’ said Percy, “that soluble salts are
brought to the surface in the rise of moisture by
capillarity in times of partial drouth; and in the
arid regions where the small amount of water that
falls in rain or snow leaves the soil only by evapor-
ation, because there is never enough to produce un-
derdrainage, the salts tend to accumulate at the
surface. The alkali conditions in the arid or semi-
arid regions of the West are thus produced. But
in humid sections where more or less of the rain-
fall leaves the soil as underdrainage the regular

b]

THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 237

loss by leaching is so much in excess of the rise
by capillarity that soils which are not effected by
erosion or overflow steadily decrease in fertility
even under natural conditions, with no cultivation
and no removal of crops. Of course this applies
at first only to the mineral plant foods, as phos-
phorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. While
mineral supplies are abundant in the surface soil,
there may be a large accumulation of organic mat-
ter and nitrogen, especially because of the growth
of wild legumes, which are very numerous and in
places very abundant, especially on some of the vir-
gin prairies of the West. However, as the pro-
cess of leaching proceeds there comes a time when
the growth of the native vegetation is limited be-
cause of a deficiency in some essential mineral plant
tood, such as phosphorus, or the limestone com-
pletely disappears and soil acidity develops which
greatly lessens the growth of the legumes.

“Decomposition of organic matter begins almost
as soon as any part of the plant ceases to live, and
there is certain to come a time when the rate of de-
composition and loss exceeds the rate of fixation
and accumulation; and from that time on the or-
ganic matter and nitrogen as well as the mineral
plant foods continue to decrease in the surface, un-
til finally the natural barrens are developed, such
as are found in different sections of the World and
in some places even where the rainfall is sufficient
for abundant crops.”’

“Yes, Sir,” said Mr. West. “I know that is true.
I have visited Tennessee and I know there are
some extensive areas there of practically level up-
land which have always been considered too poor
to justify putting under cultivation, and they are
called the ‘Barrens’.

“T know about those barren lands, too,’ said

238 THE STORY OF TRE scl

Percy. ‘Our teacher of soil fertility in college told
us that a farm is more than a piece of the earth’s
surface. He said if we only wanted to get a large
level tract of upland where the climate is mild and
the rainfall abundant and where all sorts of crops
do well on good soil, including the wonderful cot-
ton crop which brings a hundred dollars for a
thousand pounds, while corn brings forty dollars
for a hundred bushels,—well, he said we could go
to the Highland Rim of Tennessee where, accord-
ing to analyses reported in 1897 by the Tennessee
Experiment Station the surface soil of the ‘Bar-
rens’ contains eighty-seven pounds of phosphorus
and the subsoil sixty-one pounds of phosphorus per
acre, counting two million pounds of soil in each
case. He said, if we didn’t like that we might go
into the Great Central Basin of Tennessee or the
famous Blue Grass Region of Kentucky and find land
that is still extremely productive and more valuable
than ever, even after a hundred years of cultiva-
tion, and buy land containing from three thousand
to fifteen thousand pounds of phosphorus per acre.”

‘TI know both of those sections very well,” said
Mr. West. “But doesn’t it seem strange that the
scientists at Washington would teach as they do?
Why doesn’t the plant food accumulate in the sur-
face soil of those barrens? surely they have been
lying there long enough, with no crops whatever re-
moved, so that they ought to have become very
rich. I wish I had known about their phosphorus
content so I could have told Professor Barstow. He
was quite carried away with the Washington
theory.”

“You ought not for a moment call it the ‘Wash-
ington’ theory,” said Percy; ‘‘and neither is it pro-
mulgated by scientists, but rather by two or three
theorists who are upheld by our greatest living op-

THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 239

timist. Science, Sir, is a word to be spoken of al-
ways with the greatest respect. Of course you know
its meaning?”

“Yes, I know it comes from the Latin scire, to
know.”

“Then science means knowledge; it does not
mean theory or hypothesis, but absolute and posi-
tive knowledge. Is there any uncertainty as to the
instant when the next eclipse will appear? No,
none whatever. Science means knowledge, and
men are scientists only so far as they have absolute
knowledge, and to that extent every farmer is a
scientist.

“Nevertheless the erroneous teaching so widely
promulgated by the federal Bureau of Soils is un-
doubtedly a most potent influence against the adop-
tion of systems of positive soil improvement in the
United States, because it is disseminated from the
position of highest authority. Other peoples have
ruined other lands, but in no other country has the
powerful factor of government influence ever been
used to encourage the farmers to ruin their lands.”

CHAPTER XXXII

GUESSING AND GASSING
iy S we were riding to Montplain yester-
day,” said Adelaide to Percy, soon
after they started for Blue Mound,
‘Professor Barstow told me that in
his opinion all that was needed to re-
deem these old lands of Virginia and
the Carolinas is plenty of efficient labor, such as he
thinks we had before the war. I know papa does
not agree with him in that, but Professor said that
soils do not wear out if well cultivated, that in New
England they grow as large crops as ever, and that
in Europe, on the oldest lands the crop yields are
very much larger than in the United States; and
in fact that the European countries are producing
about twice as large crops as they did a hundred
years ago. He thinks it is because they do their
work more thoroughly than we do. He says that
‘a little farm well tilled’ is the key to the solution
of our difficulties.”

‘That might seem to be a good guess as to the
probable relation of cause and effect,” replied
Percy, “but we ought not to overlook some well
known facts that have an important bearing. It is
exactly a hundred years since DeSaussure of France,
first gave to the world a clear and correct and al-
most complete statement concerning the require-
ments of plants for plant food and the natural
sources of supply. Sir Humphrey Davy, Baron
von Liebig, Lawes and Gilbert, and Hellriegel fol-
lowed DeSaussure and completely filled the nine-
teenth century with accumulated scientific facts re-
lating to soils and plant growth.

240

GUESSING AND GASSING 241

“Sir John Bennett Lawes, the founder of the
Rothamsted Experiment Station, the oldest in the
world, on his own private estate at Harpenden,
England, began his investigations in the interest of
practical agricultural science soon after coming into
possession of Rothamsted in 1834. In 1843 he as-
sociated with him in the work Doctor Joseph Hen-
ry Gilbert, and for fifty-seven years those two great
men labored together gathering agricultural facts.
Sir John died in 1900, and Sir Henry the following
year.

“That the people of Europe have made some:
use of the science thus evolved is evident from the
simple fact that they are taking out of the United
States every year about a million tons of our best
phosphate rock for which they pay us at the point
of shipment about five million dollars; whereas, if
this same phosphate were applied to our own soils
that already suffer for want of phosphorus, it would
make possible the production of nearly a billion
dollars’ worth of corn above what these soils can
ever produce without the addition of phosphorus.
And our phosphate is only a part of the phosphate
imported into Europe. They also produce rock
phosphate from European mines, and great quan-
tities of slag phosphate from their phosphatic iron
ores.

“They feed their own crops and large amounts
of imported food stuffs, and utilize all fertilizing
material thus provided for the improvement of
their own lands. Legume crops are grown in great
abundance and are often plowed under to help the
land.

“Do you wonder why the wheat yield in Eng-
land is more than thirty bushels per acre while that
of the United States is less than fourteen bushels?
Because England produces only fifty million bushels

542 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

of wheat, while she imports two hundred million
bushels of wheat, one hundred million bushels of
corn, nearly a billion pounds of oil cake, and other
food stuffs, from which large quantities of manure
are made; and, in addition to this, England imports
and uses much phosphate and other commercial
plant food materials.

‘Germany imports great quantities of wheat,
corn, oil cake, and phosphates, and thus enriches
her cultivated soil, and Germany’s principal export
is two billion pounds of sugar, which contains no
plant food of value, but only carbon, oxygen, and
hydrogen, secured from air and water by the sugar
beet.

“Denmark produces four million bushels of
wheat, imports five million bushels of wheat, fifteen
million bushels of corn, fifteen million bushels of
barley, eight hundred million pounds of oil cake,
eight hundred million pounds of mill feed, and
other food stuffs, phosphate, etc., and exports
one hundred and seventy-five million pounds of
butter, which contains no plant food of value,
but sells for much more than these imports cost.

“Italy applies to her soils every year about a
million tons of phosphates, which contain nearly
twice as much phosphorus as is removed from the
land in all the crops harvested and sold from the
farms of Italy.

‘The very good yields of the crops of New Eng-
land are attributable to large use of fertilizing ma-
terials, in part made from food stuffs shipped in
from the West; and the high development of the
certain lands of Europe and New England has been
possible under the system followed only because the
areas concerned are small. ‘Thus, the average
acreage of corn in Rhode Island and Connecticut is
less than three townships, or less than one-tenth as

GUESSING AND GASSING 243

much corn land in the two States as the area of
single counties in the Illinois corn belt.

“Did you ever hear of the ‘Egypt’ we have out
West, Miss West?”

“Out West, Miss West,” she repeated. “That
is too much repetition of the same word to make a
good sentence. I like ‘Miss Adelaide’ better; I do
get tired of hearing West and Westover over and
over. Yes, I have heard of the ‘Egypt’ you have
out West. Is it near Illinois?”

“Near Illinois? Why, Miss Adelaide, I am sur-
prised that you should even know about the crop
yields of Rhode Island and not know where ‘Egypt’
is. Let me inform you that ‘Egypt’ is in Illinois,
and our ‘Egypt’ is a country as large as thirteen
states the size of Rhode Island. Cairo is the Capi-
tol, and Alexandria, Thebes, and Joppa are all near
by. Tamm and Buncombe, and Goreville and
Omega are also among our promising cities of
‘Egypt,’ although you may not so easily associate
them with the ancient world.”

‘Well I know where Cairo is,’ Adelaide replied,
“but if your ‘Egypt’ is on the map you will have to
show me. I know now that ‘Egypt! is in Southern
Illinois, but how do you separate ‘Egypt’ from the
rest of the State?”

“We make no such separation,” said Percy.
“But to find ‘Egypt’ on the map, you need only take
the State of Illinois and substract therefrom all
that part of the corn belt situated between the Mis-
sissippi River and the west line of Indiana. The
southern point of ‘Egypt’ is at Cairo, the Capitol,
and it is bounded on the east, south, and west, by
the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi; but the
north line is not only imaginary, but it is movable.
In- fact it is always just a few miles farther south,
but I think all ‘Egyptians’ will agree that a sand

i444 »+THE STORY OF THE SOIL

bar which is being formed below Cairo between the
Ohio and the Mississippi is truly ‘Egyptian’ terri-
tory. If you ever visit in the West do not fail to
see Egypt.’

“L really ‘hope I may, sometime,” she, replreq:
‘We have relatives who claim to live in Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Missouri, but I think possibly they
may all be ‘Egyptians,’ from what you have told
me about the vast area of that great fairy empire.
I know I would dearly love to go there.”

‘““‘Koypt’ is the wheat belt and the fruit belt of
Illinois,” Percy continued. “One of the grand old
men of I[llinois, Colonel N. B. Morrison, who was
for years a trustee of the State University, used to
be called upon for an address whenever he was
present at Convocation. He always stated proud-
ly that he lived in the ‘Heart of Egypt.’ He said
the soil there was not so rich perhaps as in the
corn belt, but that with plenty of hard work they
were able to live and to produce the finest fruit and
the greatest men in America. He said they had
to work both the top and bottom of their soil, and
he explained that they harvested wheat and apples
from the top, and then went down about 600 feet
and harvested ten thousand tons of coal to the acre,
and still left enough to support the earth. I have
heard him say that when he was born there was not
a mile of railroad in the United States, and that he
had, during his own lifetime, witnessed the prac-
tical agricultural ruin of almost whole States. He
used to plead for the University to send some of
her scientific men to help them to solve the prob-
lem of restoring the fertility of their soils down in
‘Egypt;’ and I am glad to say that finally the State
appropriated sufficient funds so that the [Illinois
Experiment Station is rapidly securing the exact in-
formation needed to make those Southern Illinois

GUESSING AND GASSING 245

lands richer than they ever were.

“T spent several days in ‘Egypt’ last month and
I am planning to make another trip down there
next week before deciding definitely about purchas-
ing our poor land farm. I am not sure but the
land of ‘Egypt’ is as poor as we ought to try to
build up considering our limited means.”

Oh, do you think so? But Papa’s land is not so
poor is it?”

“No, it is not so poor in mineral plant food on
the sloping areas, but even there it is extremely
poor in humus and nitrogen. However, I fear I
could not enjoy farming in irregular patches of
five or ten acres, and the level lands of Virginia
and Maryland are so exceedingly poor, that much
time and money and work will be required to put
them on a paying basis. There would be no pleas-
ure or satisfaction in merely robbing other farms
to build up mine, as some of the properous truck
farmers and dairymen are doing. I should want
to practice a system of soil improvement of unlim-
ited application so that it would not be a curse to
the agricultural people, as is the case with the man
who builds up his farm only at the expense of other
farms.

“We have been speaking of the development of
agriculture on the small tracts of cultivable land
in the great manufacturing States of New Eng-
land. But, if we would make a fair comparison
with a State like Illinois, we should consider some
great agricultural State, as Georgia, for example,
which is also one of the original thirteen. Georgia is
a larger State than Illinois, and Georgia cultivates
as many acres of corn and cotton as we cultivate in
corn. But Georgia land cannot be covered with fer-
tilizer made from Illinois corn, nor even with sea-
weed and fish-scrap from the ocean. Her agricul-

246 THE STORY OF ‘THE SOIL

ture must be an independent agriculture, just as
the agriculture of Russia, India, and China must
be, just as the agriculture of Illinois must be, and
as the agriculture of all the great agricultural
States must be. What is the result to date? The
average yield of corn in Georgia is down to II
bushels per acre. ‘This is not for half of one town-
ship, but the average of four million acres for the
last ten years; and this in spite of the fact that
Georgia pays out more for the common acidulated
manufactured so-called complete commercial fertil-
izer than any other State.”

“That is appalling,’ said Adelaide, ‘‘but still
some larger countries are building up their lands,
such as those of Europe.”’

“In large part by the same methods as the New
England truckers and dairymen are following,” he
replied, ‘‘and in comparison with the area and re-
sources of their colonies and of the other great new
countries upon which they draw for food and fer-
tilizer. They are fairly comparable with the
New England States in this country. Even
the Empire of Germany is only four-fifths
as large as Texas. The only country of) Ea
rope at all comparable with the United States is
Russia, and in that great country the average yield
of wheat for the last twenty years is eight and one-
fourth bushels per acre, even though, as a general
practice, the land is allowed to lie fallow every
third year. ‘The average yield for the five famine
years that have occurred during the twenty-year
period was six and one-quarter bushels of wheat
per acre.”’ |

‘That is wretched,” said Adelaide, “I know
about the Russian famines for we have made con-
tributions through our church for their relief, but
that condition can surely never core to this great

GUESSING AND GASSING 247

rich new country, can it?”

“It will come just as certainly as we allow our
soil fertility to decrease and our population to in-
crease. As a nation we have scarcely lifted a hand
yet to stop the waste of fertility or to restore ex-
hausted lands; practically every effort put forth by
the Federal government along agricultural lines
having been directed toward better seeds, control
of injurious insects and fungous diseases, exploita-
tion of new lands by drainage and irrigation, popu-
larly called ‘reclamation’, although applied only to
rich virgin soils which can certainly be brought under
cultivation at any future time either by the Govern-
ment or by private enterprise. But why should not
the Federal government make all necessary provi-
sions to furnish ground limestone and phosphate
rock at the actual cost of quarrying, grinding, and
transporting, in order that farmers on these old
depleted soils may be encouraged to adopt systems
of soil improvement; or even compelled to adopt
such systems, just as they are compelled to build
school houses, bridges, and battleships ?”

“Perhaps the Government would do this,” said
Adelaide, ‘if the Secretary of Agriculture would
recommend it.”

joumave heard of ‘the big ).37),") Percy \\nephed
slowly, “but I am afraid this if will beat the rec-
ord for bigness. His soil theorists continue to as-
sure him that soils do not wear out, no matter how
heavily cropped, if they are only rotated and culti-
vated; and to support their theories they have for-
saken the data from the most carefully conducted
and long continued scientific investigations, and in-
dulged in a game of guessing that the increasing
productiveness of a few small countries of Europe
is not due to any necessary addition of plant food.

‘But here is the depot, and I have taken almost

’

248 THE STORY (OF THE SOL:

an hour to drive three miles. If I had hurried, you
might have been back home by this time. I am
afraid I have been selfish in allowing the team to
walk nearly all of the way, but they will at least be
fresh for the home trip which you promised to
make in less than twenty minutes, I remember.
Now if you will hold the lines, I will run into the
store to get the thread. I remember the kind; I
often do such errands for mother.”

“T will wait while you get your ticket and find
out if the train is on time,” said Adelaide, as Percy
returned with the thread.

‘At least fifty minutes late,’ he reported, “‘and
the agent said he was glad of it for he would need
about that time to make out such a long-jointed
ticket as I want. I am rather glad too, for I can
watch you to the turn in the road on the hill, which
must be a mile or more, and I will time you. You
can have six minutes to make that corner.”

‘You mean I can have six minutes to get out of
sight,’ she suggested.

‘“T think you are out of sight,’’ he ventured.

Adelaide reddened. “I shall have to tell mother
what slang you use,” she said.

‘L hope’ you will,” ‘he’ retorted, “for 1) Mage
watched her watch you and I am sure she will agree
with me. But I do feel that I owe you a sincere
apology for taking up the time we have had to-
gether with this long discussion of the things that
are of such special interest to me. I have been
alone with my mother so much and she is always
so ready and so able, I may add, to discuss any sort
of business matter that I fear I have been forget-
ful of your forbearance.”’

‘But you really have not,” Adelaide replied. ‘I
keep books for papa, and I am very much interest-
ed-in these social and economic questions which are

GUESSING AND GASSING 249

so fundamental to the perpetuity of our State and
National prosperity. I have been both entertained
and instructed by these dicussions; and I might say,
honored too, that you do not consider me too young
and foolish to talk of serious subjects.”

“T am sure it is kind of you to make good excuses
for me. You have at any rate relieved my mind of
some burden, but I am sure you are the only wo-
man I have every known, except my mother, who
could endure discussions of this sort. I have so
greatly enjoyed the few short visits I have had
with you. I wish I might write to you and I shall
be so much interested to learn what success your
father has if he begins a system of soil improve-
ment. Would it be presuming to hope that I might
hear from you also?”

“IT am papa’s stenographer,”’ she replied, “and
perhaps he will dictate and I will write. We will
be glad to hear of your safe return,—and you,—
ceed might ask papa. Now, I shall soon be out of
sight.”

‘Please don’t,” begged Percy. ‘“‘It is still forty-
five minutes ‘at least’, before the train comes. Let
me go a piece with you. I will leave my suit case
here and with nothing to carry I shall easily walk
a mile in twenty minutes. May I drive, please?”

“No, I will drive. I want to ask you another
question, and I am afraid you would drive too
fast.

“You mentioned some long-continued scientific
investigations which I assumed referred to the yield
of crops. What were they?”

“T meant such investigations as those at Rotham-
sted and also those conducted at Pennsylvania State
College. I have some of the exact data here in my
note book.

“Tn 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert

250 THE STORY ‘OF THE SOIL

began at Rothamsted, England, two four-year ro-
tations. One was turnips, barley, fallow, and
wheat; and the other was turnips, barley, clover,
and wheat. Whenever the clover failed, which has
been frequent, beans were substituted, in order that
a legume crop should be grown every fourth year.

‘The average of the last twenty years represents
the average yields about fifty years from the be-
ginning of this rotation.

‘‘In the legume system, as an average of the last
twenty years, the use of mineral plant food has
increased the yield of turnips from less than one-
half ton to more than twelve tons; increased the
yield of barley from thirteen and seven-tenths bushels
to twenty-two and two-tenths bushels; increased the
yield of clover (when grown) from less than one-
half ton to almost two tons; increased the yield of
beans (when grown) from sixteen bushels to twenty-
eight and three-tenths bushels; and increased the
yield of wheat from twenty-four and three-tenths
bushels to thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels per
aCe.

‘In the legume system the minerals applied have
more than doubled the value of the crops produced,
have paid their cost, and made a net profit of one
hundred and forty per cent. on the investment, in
direct comparison with the unfertilized land.

“If we compare the average yield of turnips
barley, clover, and wheat of the last twenty years
with the yield of turnips in 1848, barley in 1849,
clover in 1850, and wheat in 1851, we find that on
the unfertilized land in this rotation of crops in
fifty years the yield of turnips has decreased from
ten tons to one-half ton, and the yield of barley has
decreased from forty-six to fourteen bushels, the
yield of clover has decreased from two and eight-
tenths toms per acre to less than one-half ton, while

GUESSING AND GASSING 251

the yield of wheat has decreased only from thirty
bushels to twenty-four bushels. As a general aver-
age the late yields are only one-third as large as
they were fifty years before on the same land.
Wheat grown once in four years has been the only
crop worth raising on the unfertilized land during
the last twenty years, and even the wheat crop has
distinctly decreased in yield; although where min-
eral plant food was applied the yield has increased
from thirty bushels, in 1851, to thirty-eight bushels
as an average of the last twenty years. In the fallow
rotation on the unfertilized land the yield of wheat
averaged thirty-four and five-tenths bushels during
the first twenty years (1848 to 1867) and twenty-
three and five-tenths bushels during the last twenty
years.

“On another Rothamsted field the phosphorus
actually removed in fifty-five crops from well-fertil-
ized land is two-thirds as much as the total phos-
phorus now contained in the plowed soil of ad-
joining untreated land.

‘In the early 80’s the Pennsylvania Agricultural
Experiment Station began a four-year crop rotation,
including corn, oats, wheat, and mixed clover and
timothy.

“There are five plots in each of four different
fields that have received no applications of plant
food from the beginning. Thus, every year the
crops are carefully harvested and weighed from
twenty measured plots of ground that receive no
treatment except the rotation of crops. The dif-
ference between the average of the first twelve
“years and the average of the second twelve years
should represent the actual change in productive
power during a period of twelve years. These
averages show that the yield of corn has decreased
from forty-one and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-

262 THE STORY OF THE Soil

seven and seven-tenths bushels; that the yield of
oats has decreased from thirty-six and seven-tenths
bushels to twenty-five bushels; that the yield of
wheat has decreased only from thirteen and three-
tenths bushels to twelve and eight-tenths bushels;
and that the yield of hay has decreased from three
thousand seventy pounds to two thousand one hun-
dred and eighty pounds.

‘‘As a general average of these four crops the
annual value of produce from one acre has de-
creased from $11.05 to $8.18. Here we have in-
formation which is almost if not quite equal in
value to that from the Agdell rotation field at
Rothamsted. While the Rothamsted experiments
cover a period of sixty years, each crop was grown
but once in four years; whereas, in the Pennsy]l-
vania experiments, there have been four different
series of plots, so that in twenty-four years there
have been twenty-four crops of corn, twenty-four
crops of oats, twenty-four crops of wheat, and
twenty-four crops of hay.

‘Under this four-year rotation the value of the
_ crops produced has decreased twenty-six per cent.
in twelve years. What influence will impress that
fact upon the minds of American landowners? A
loss amounting to more than one-fourth of the pro-
ductive power of the land in a rotation with clover
seeded every fourth year! ‘This one fact is the
mathematical result of four hundred and eighty
other facts obtained from twenty different pieces
of measured land during a period of twenty-four
years.

‘As an average of these twenty-four years, the
addition of mineral plant food produced increases
in crop yields above the unfertilized land as fol-
lows:

GUESSING AND GASSING 253

Corn increased forty-five per cent.
Oats increased thirty-two per cent.
Wheat increased forty-two per cent.
Hay increased seventy-seven per cent.

‘As a general average of the four crops for the
twenty-four years, the produce where mineral plant
food is applied, was forty-nine per cent. above the
yields of the unfertilized land, although the same
rotation of crops was practiced in both cases.”

‘Those are some of the absolute facts of science
secured for practical application in the adoption
and development of definite systems of permanent
prosperous agriculture, and they should be made to
serve this greatest and most important industry just
as the established facts of mathematical and physi-
cal science are made to serve in engineering.”’

“T am glad to know about those long-continued
experiments,’’ said Adelaide. ‘They are of fascin-
ating interest. I have been so sorry for grandma,
and for papa and mamma, because of their increas-
ing discouragement over our farm. I do hope we
may profit from this fund of accumulated informa-
tion which has already been secured from long
years of investigation. Surely we must endeavor
to avoid in America the awful conditions that al-
ready exist in the older agricultural countries, where
the lands are depleted and the people are brought
to greater poverty than even here in Virginia.

“But we have already reached the turn, and you
have a mile to walk. How much time have you?”

“Thirty minutes yet,” said Percy. “Wait just a
moment. Have you read Lincoln’s stories?”

“Many of them, yes,”

‘“Hfere is the best one he ever told, I have copied
itonacard. He told it to a meeting of farmers at
the close of an address in which he urged them to

254 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

study the science of agriculture and to adopt bet-
ter methods of farming:

‘‘An Eastern monarch once charged his wise men
to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and
which should be true and appropriate in all times
and situations. ‘They presented him the words,
‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it ex-
presses! How chastening in the hour of pride!
How consoling in the depths of affliction! ‘And
this, too, shall pass away.’ And yet, let us hope, it
is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the
best cultivation of the physical world beneath and
around us, and the best intellectual and moral world
within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and
political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall
be onward and upward, and which, while the earth
endures, shall not pass away.”

“TI agree with you that it is his best story,” said
Adelaide, as Percy finished reading and placed the
card in her hand. ‘Now you must go or [ shall
insist upon taking you back to the station.”

‘“T shall stand here and time you till you reach
the next turn,” he replied. ‘Then you will be in
sight of Westover. One! Two! Three! Go!”

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION
WINTERBINE, ILLINOIS,

December 4, 1903.
Mr TI. O.. Thornton,
Blairville, Va.

Y Dear Sir:—I beg to report that I
returned home a few days ago and
found my mother well and busy as
usual. We have definitely decided
that we will not accept your kind of-
fer to sell us a part of your farm,

but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least
from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs.
Thornton and Miss Russell were willing to make,
in order to permit us to secure such a farm as we
might want in a splendid situation.

As a matter of fact we are thinking very seri-
ously of purchasing a farm in Southern Illinois.
My mother much prefers to remain in Illinois, and
for some reasons | have the same preference on her
account.

While in Washington I was fortunate enough to
find that a soil survey had been completed for your
county and also that a partial ultimate analysis had
been made of the common loam soil of your farm,
such as we sampled. Following are the number of
pounds per acre for the surface soil to a depth of six
and two-third inches, —that is, for two million pounds
of soil.

610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium

255

256 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium

As compared with a normal fertile soil your
land is very deficient in phosphorus and magnesium,
and, as you know, the soil is acid. It is better sup-
plied with potassium than with any other important
element.

I would suggest that you make liberal use of
magnesian limestone,—at least two tons per acre
every four or five years,—and the initial applica-
tion might better be five or even ten tons per acre if
you are ready to make such an investment.

I am sorry that the nitrogen content of the soil
was not determined, or at least not published in the
bulletin. There can be no doubt, however, that
your soil is extremely deficient in organic matter
and nitrogen, and you will understand that liberal
use should be made of legume crops. ‘The known
nitrogen content of legumes and other crops will
be a help to you in planning your crop rotation and
the disposition of the crops grown.

As to phosphorus, it is safe to say that in the
long run fine-ground rock phosphate will prove the
best investment; but for a few years it might be
best to make some use of acid phosphate in addi-
tion to the raw rock, at least until you are ready to
begin turning under more organic matter with the
phosphate.

There is only one other suggestion: If you wish
to make a start toward better crops as soon as pos-
sible, you may well use some kainit,—say six hun-
dred pounds per acre every four or five years, pre-
ferably applied with the phosphate. In the absence
of decaying organic matter, the potassium of the
soil becomes available very slowly. The kainit fur-
nishes both potassium and magnesium in soluble

DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION 257

form and it also contains sulfur and chlorin. As
soon as you can provide plenty of decaying organic
matter you will probably discontinue the use of
both kainit and acid phosphate. If you sell only
grains and animal products, the amount of potas-
sium sold from the farm is very small compared
with your supply of that element, which would be
suficient for one hundred bushels of corn per acre
for seven hundred years.

I have some doubt if it will be worth the expense
involved to have the samples of subsurface and sub-
soil analyzed at this time; but you might save them
for future use if desired.

I shall always appreciate the kindness shown me
by being permitted to enjoy your hospitality and to
profit from the information you were so able to
give me concerning the history and general char-
acter of your lands.

My mother asks to have her kind regards ex-
tended to you and yours.

Very sincerely yours,
PERcY JOHNSTON.

WESTOVER, January 2, 1904.
Percy Johnston, Fsq.,
Winterbine, Ill.

My Dear FRIEND:—We were all pleased to re-
ceive your letter informing us of your safe journey
back’ to Illinois. I had hoped that you might find
a piece of land here in the East which would suit you;
but I am not surprised that you and your mother
should prefer to remain in Illinois, because of your
former associations and your better knowledge of
the Western conditions. Northern men who come
South often have serious difficulty to manage our
negro labor.

I am surprised, however, that you were able to

258 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

purchase, even in Southern Illinois, such prairie land
as you describe for the price of $18 an acre. I sup-
pose $190 an acre for your corn belt farm was a
good price, although it is commonly reported to us
that Illinois land is selling for $150 to $200 an
acre. i
Now, in regard to correspondence with Ade-
laide, let me say that we could have no objection
whatever, except that it might be misunderstood,
more especially, of course, by Professor Barstow.
I do not think I mentioned it to you, but the fact is
that the Professor and Adelaide are essentially be-
trothed. I do not know that the final details are
perfected, but doubtless they are, for they have
been much together during the Christmas weeks.
The Barstows, as you probably know, are still among
the most prominent people of North Carolina. Ade-
laide is young yet and we respect her reticence, but
her mother and I have both given our consent and
Professor Barstow has every reason to be satis-
fied with the reception he invariably receives from
Adelaide.

I only mention this matter to you that you may
understand why misunderstanding might arise in
case of such correspondence as you suggest, even
though, as Adelaide has explained, she has very
naturally become interested temporarily in some of
the economic and social questions relating to agri-
culture, and would unquestionably read your let-
ters concerning these state and national problems
with continued interest. I shall hope, however, that
she may still have that satisfaction, for I am very
deeply interested in all such questions, and I am
particularly interested to know more of the details
of your southern I[Ilinois farm, including the invoice
of the soil, which you say has been taken by your ~
Experiment Station, and especially your definite

DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION 259

plans for the improvement of the land. I hope the
name you have chosen for your farm is not so ap-
propriate as it would be for some of our old Vir-
ginia farms.

I shall also be under renewed obligation to you
if I may occasionally submit questions concerning
the best plans for the restoration of Westover to
its former productiveness. I have decided at least
to make another trial with alfalfa next summer,
following the valuable suggestions you gave me.

In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep
gratitude for the special service you so nobly ren-
dered when fiendish danger threatened my daugh-
ter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of
the highest type.

Very respectfully yours,
CHARLES WEST.

Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and
then slowly reread it. His mother noticed that he
absent-mindedly replaced the letter in the envelope
instead of reading it to her as was his custom.
However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked
with her about the corn-shelling which was to be-
gin as soon as the corn sheller could be brought
from the neighbor’s where Percy had been helping
to haul the corn from the sheller to the elevator at
Winterbine. Dinner finished, he hurried out to
complete the preparations for the afternoon’s work.
We have no right to follow him. His mother only
saw that he went to the little granary where a few
loads of corn were to be stored for future use. Yes,
she saw that he closed the door as he entered. Not
even his mother could see her son again a child.
Women and children weep, not men. The heart
strings draw tight and tighter until they tear or
snap. The body is racked with the anguish of the

260 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The
head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.—No,
that cannot be. Men do not shed tears. If they
are mental cowards and physical brutes they pass
from hence by a short and easy route and leave the
burdens of life to their wives and mothers and dis-
graced families. If they are Christian men they
seek the only source of help.

Mrs. Johnston watched and waited—it seemed
an hour, but was only a quarter of that time till
the granary door opened and she saw Percy pass to
the barn with a step which satisfied her mother’s
eye.

She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of
making sure, pressed the envelope to see that it
contained nothing more. She noted a slip of crum-
pled paper and drew it out. Upon it was written
in a penciled scrawl:

“Her grandma has not consented.”

She read the letter, stood for a moment as in
meditation, then replaced the slip and letter in the
envelope, and laid it on Percy’s desk. The letter:
was plainly a man’s handwriting. The envelope

* was addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not
Mr. West’s writing.

CHAPTER XXXIV
PLANNING FOR LIFE

HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS,
June 16, 1904.
Mr. Charles West,
Blue Mound, Va.

Y Dear Str:—I have delayed writing to
you in regard to the plans for Poor-
land Farm, until I could feel that we
are able at least to make an outline of
tentative nature. The labor problem
of a farm of three hundred and

twenty acres is of course very different from that on
forty acres, and we are not yet fully decided re-
garding our crop rotation and the disposition of
the crops produced (or hoped for). I realize that
to rebuild in my life what another has torn down
during his life is a task the end of which can hardly
be even dimly foreshadowed. Some friends are al-
ready beginning to ask me what results I am get-
ting, and they apparently feel that we must succeed
or fail with a trial of a full season. I have said to
them that I have no objection whatever to dis-
cussing our plans at any time, so far as we are yet
able to make plans, but that I shall not be ready to
discuss results with anyone until we begin to secure
crop yields in the third rotation. This means that
I am not expecting the benefits of a six-year rota-
tion of crops before the rotation has been actually
practiced. You will understand of course that, if
all your land had been cropped with little or no
change, for all its history, you would require six or
eight years’ time before you would be able to grow
261

262 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

a crop of corn on land that had been pastured for
six or eight years; but some people seem to take it
for granted that one can adopt a six-year rotation
and enjoy the full benefits of it the first season.

I remember that you were surprised that I could
buy a level upland farm even in this part of Illinois
for $18 an acre; but you will probably be more sur-
prised to learn that this farm had not paid the
previous owners two per cent. interest on $18 an
acre aS an average of the last five years. In) fat,
sixty acres of it had grown no crops for the last
five years. It was largely managed by tenants on
the basis of share rent, and because of this I have
been able to secure the records for several years.

I at least had some satisfaction in purchasing
this farm, for the real estate men were left without
a single “talking point.” I insisted that I wanted
the poorest prairie farm in ‘‘Egypt,”’ and whenever
they began to tell me that the soil on a certain farm
was really above the average, or that the land had
been well cared for until recently, or that it had
been fertilized a good deal, etc., I at once informed
them that any advantage of that sort completely
disqualified any farm for me; and that they need
not talk to me about any farms except those that
represented the poorest and most abused in South-
ern Illinois.

I may say, however, that $20 an acre is about the
average price of the average land. I had an op-
tion on a three hundred and sixty acre farm cor-
nering the corporation limits of the County Seat
for $30 an acre, and all agreed that the farm was
above the average in quality.

Heart-of-Egypt is a small station on the double
track of the Chicago-New Orelans line of the II-
linois Central, and there are three other railroads
passing through our County Seat. Poorland Farm

PLANNING FOR LIFE 263

is less than two miles from Heart-of-Egypt and
only five miles from the County Seat, with level
roads to both.

As to the soil, I may say that in some respects
it is poorer than yours, but in others not so poor.
The amounts of plant food contained in six and
two-thirds inches of the surface soil of an acre,
representing two million pounds of soil, are as fol-
lows:

2,880 pounds of nitrogen
840 pounds of phosphorus
24,940 pounds of potassium
6,740 pounds of magnesium
14,660 pounds of calcium

By referring to the invoice of your most com-
mon land, you will see that Westover is richer in
phosphorus, in magnesium, and in calcium, than
Poorland Farm. But, while your soil contains a
half more of that rare element phosphorus, ours
contains a half more of the abundant element po-
tassium. [In the supply of nitrogen we have a dis-
tinct advantage, because our soil contains nearly
three times as much as your most common culti-
vated land, and even twice as much as your level
upland soil, which you consider too poor for farm-
ing, but in which phosphorus and not nitrogen must
be the first limiting element, the same as with ours.

The fact is that the nitrogen problem in the East
was one of the reasons why we have chosen to lo-
cate in Southern Illinois. I am confident that the
level lands I saw about Blairville and over in Mary-
land are more deficient in organic matter and ni-
trogen than your uncultivated level upland, and
probably even more deficient than your common
gently sloping cultivated lands, because of your

264 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

long rotation with much opportunity for nitrogen
fixation by such legumes as will grow in your
meadows and pastures, including the red clover
which you regularly sow, the white clover, which
is very persistent, and the Japan clover, which it
seems to me has really benefited you more than the
others.

To me a difference in nitrogen content of two
thousand pounds per acre signifies a good deal. It
plainly signifies a hundred years’ of ‘working the
soil for all that’s in it,” beyond what has yet been
done to our “Egypt.” The cost of two thousand
pounds of nitrogen in sodium nitrate would be at
least $300 and even that would not include the or-
ganic matter which has value for its own sake be-
cause of the power of its decomposition products
to liberate the mineral elements from the soil, as
witness the most common upland soils of St. Mary
county, Maryland, with a phosphorus content re-
duced to one hundred and sixty pounds per acre in
two million pounds of the ignited soil. The ten-
inch plows of Maryland, the twelve-inch of South-
ern Illinois, the fourteen-inch of the corn belt, and
the sixteen-inch of the newer regions of the North-
west, signify something as to the influence of or-
ganic matter upon the horse power required in till-
age; and the organic matter also has a value be-
cause it increases the power of the soil to absorb
and retain moisture and to resist surface washing
and “running together” to form the hard surface
crust.

To think of applying two thousand pounds of ni-
trogen by plowing under two hundred tons of man-
ure or forty tons of clover per acre at least requires

a “big think,” as my Swede man would say.

Of course, with our western life and cosmopoli-
tan population, where ‘‘a man’s a man for a’ that,”

PLANNING FOR LIFE 265

mother feels that it would not be easy for us to fit
into your somewhat distinctly stratified society. We
would not be “colored” if we could, and perhaps
we could not be aristocratic if we would; and the
opportunity to become, or, perhaps I should say,
to remain, “poor white trash,” though wide open, is
not very alluring. I realize, of course, that there
are some whole-souled people like the West’s and
Thornton’s, but I also found some of the tribe of
Jones, and I have much doubt as to the social stand-
ing of one who would feel obliged to demonstrate
that he could spread more manure in a day than his
hired nigger.

My Swede and I are like brothers; we clean
stables together and talk politics, science, and ag-
riculture. In fact he is as much interested as I am
in the building up of Poorland Farm, and has al-
ready contributed some very practical suggestions.
I pay him moderate wages and a small percentage
of the farm receipts after deducting certain expenses
which he can help to keep as low as possible, such
as for labor, repairs, and purchase of feed and new
tools, but without deducting the taxes or interest on
investment or the cost of any permanent improve-
ments, such as the expense for limestone, phos-
phate, new fences and buildings, and breeding
stock.

Referring again to the invoice of the soil, I may
say that the percentage of the mineral plant foods
increases with depth, the same as in your soil, but
not to such an extent, and with one exception. The
phosphorus content of our surface soil is greater
than that of the subsurface, but below the subsur-
face the phosphorus again increases. ‘This is prob-
ably due to the fact that the prairie grasses that
grew here for centuries extracted some phosphorus
from the subsurface in which their roots fed to

266 THE STORY'OF THE Stil

some extent, and left it in the organic residues
which accumulated in the surface soil.

Aside from the difference in organic matter, the
physical character of our soil is distinctly inferior
to the loam soils about Blairville and Leonardtown.
We have a very satisfactory silt loam surface, but
the structure of our subsoil is quite objectionable.
It is a tight clay through which water passes very
slowly, so slowly that the practicability of using tile-
drainage is still questioned by the State University,
although the experiments which the University soil
investigators have already started in several coun-
ties here in “Egypt” will ultimately furnish us posi-
tive knowledge along this line.

As for me, I purpose making no experiments,
whatever. I do not see how I or any other farmer
can afford to put our limited funds into experi-
ments, especially when we often lack the facilities
for taking the exact and complete data that are
needed. It takes time and labor and some equip-
ment to make accurate measurements, to weigh every
pound of fertilizer applied and every crop care-
fully harvested from measured and carefully seed-
ed areas, especially selected because of their uni-
form and representative character. I think this is
public business and it is best done by the State for
the benefit of all.

I have heard narrow politicians call it class legis-
lation to appropriate funds for such agricultural in-
vestigations, but the fact is that to investigate the
soil and to insure an abundant use of limestone, phos-
phate, or other necessary materials required for
the improvement and permanent maintenance of the
fertility of the soil is legislation for all the people,
both now and hereafter. Would that our States-
man would think as much of maintaining this most
important national resource, as they do of main-

PLANNING FOR LIFE = 267

taining our national honor by means of battleships
and an army and navy supported at an expense of
three hundred million dollars a year, sufficient to
furnish ten tons of limestone to every acre of Vir-
gina land, an amount twenty times the Nation’s
appropriation for agriculture; and even this is
largely used in getting new lands ready for the
bleeding process, instead of reviving those that
have been practically bled to death.

As for me, I shall simply take the results which
prove profitable on the accurately conducted ex-
periment fields of the University of Illinois, one of
which is located only seven miles from Poorland
Farm, and on the same type of soil. I shall try to
profit by that positive information, and await the ac-
cumulation of conclusive data relating to tile-drain-
age and other possible improvements of uncertain
practicability for ‘‘Egypt.”

Say, but our soil is acid! The University soil
survey men say that the acidity is positive in the
surface, comparative in the subsurface, and super-
lative in the subsoil. Two of them insisted that
the subsoil has an acid taste. The analysis of a
set of soil samples collected near Heart-of-Egypt
shows that to neutralize the acidity of the surface
soil will require seven hundred and eighty pounds
of limestone per acre, while three tons are required
for the first twenty inches, and sixteen tons for the
next twenty inches. The tight clay stratum reaches
from about twenty to thirty-six inches. Above this
is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness from
an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the
subsoil seems to be more porous, and I am hoping
that we may lay tile just below the tight clay and
then puncture that clay stratum with red clover
roots and thus improve the physical condition of
the soil. I asked Mr. Secor, a friend who oper-

268 THE SFORY: OF TH Scat,

ates a coal mine,—and farms for recreation,—if he
thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of soil.
He replied: ‘‘That depends on what kind of a
gimlet it has on its tap root.”

Some of the farmers down here tell me conf-
dentially that ‘“hardpan’’ has been found on their
neighbors’ farms, but I have not talked with any
one who has any on his own farm. I am very glad
the University has settled the matter very much to
the comfort of us “Egyptians,” by reporting that
no true “hardpan” exists in I[Ilinois, although there
are extensive areas underlain with tight clay, “‘of
whom, as it were, we are which.”

I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying
bacteria do business chiefly in the surface soil, be-
cause we are not prepared to correct the acidity to
any very great depth.

The present plan is to practice a six-year rota-
tion on six forty-acre fields, as follows:

First year—Corn (and legume catch crop).

Second year—Part oats or barley, part cowpeas
or soy beans.

Third year—Wheat.

Fourth year—Clover, or clover and timothy.

Fifth year—Wheat, or clover and timothy.

Sixth year—Clover, or clover and timothy.

This plan may be a grain system where wheat is
grown the fifth year, only clover seed being har-
vested the fourth and sixth years, or it may be
changed to a live-stock system by having clover and
timothy for pasture and meadow the last three
years, which may be best for a time, perhaps, if we
find it too hard to care for eighty acres of wheat
on poorly drained land.

In somewhat greater detail the system may be

PLANNING FOR LIFE 269

developed we hope about as follows:

First year: Corn, with mixed legumes, seeded
at the time of the last cultivation, on perhaps one-
half of the field. These legumes may include some
cowpeas and soy beans and some sweet clover, but
that is not yet fully decided upon.

Second year: Oats (part barley, perhaps) on
twenty acres, cowpeas on ten acres, and soy beans
on ten acres. ‘The peas and beans are to be seeded
on the twenty acres where the catch crop of legumes
is to be plowed under as late in the spring as
practicable.

Third year: Wheat with alsike on twenty acres
and red clover on the other twenty, seeded in the
early spring. If necessary to prevent the clover or
weeds from seeding, the field will be clipped about
the last of August.

Fourth year: Harvest the red clover for hay and
the alsike for seed, and apply limestone after plow-
ing early for wheat.

Fifth year: Wheat, with alsike and red clover
seeded and clipped as before.

Sixth year: Pasture in early summer, then clip
if necessary to secure uniformity, and later harvest
the red clover for seed. Manure may be applied
to-any part of this field from the time of wheat
harvest the previous year until the close of the pas-
ture period. Then it may be applied to the alsike
only until the red clover seed crop is removed, and
then again to any part of the field, which may also
be used for fall pasture. To this field the threshed
clover straw and all other straw not needed for
feed and bedding will be applied. The application
of raw phosphate will be made to this field, and
all of this material plowed under for corn.

The second six years is to be a repetition of the
first, except that the alsike and red clover will be in-

270)\°\) DHE STORY OF DEE Som,

terchanged, so as to avoid the development of
clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil uni-
form we may interchange the oats with the peas
and beans.

This system provides for the falliaspane crops
each year:

40 acres of corn

20 acres of oats

10 acres of cowpeas for hay

10 acres of soy beans for seed

80 acres of wheat

20 acres of red clover for hay

20 acres of alsike for seed

20 acres of red clover for seed

20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June
to August

We also have some permanent pasture which we
may use at any time that may seem best. If neces-
sary we may cut all the clover for hay the fourth
year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth
year. We can pasture the corn stalks during the
fall and winter when the ground is in suitable con-
dition.

We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps
some to sell. In addition we may raise a few dairy
cows for market, but will do little dairying our-
selves.

We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if
successful we shall sell some soy beans, alsike seed,
and red clover seed.

How soon we shall be able to get this system
fully under way I shall not try to predict; but we
shall work toward this end unless we think we have
good reason to modify the plan.

I hope to make the initial application of lime-

PLANNING FOR LIFE ant

stone five tons per acre, but after the first six years
this will be reduced to two or three tons. I also
plan to apply at least one ton per acre of fine-
ground raw phosphate every six years until the
phosphorus content of the plowed soil approaches
two thousand pounds per acre, after which the ap-
plications will probably be reduced to about one-
half ton per acre each rotation.

There are three things that mother and I are
fully decided upon:

First, that we shall use ground limestone in suf-
ficient amounts to make the soil a suitable home
for clover.

Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock
phosphate in such amounts as to positively enrich
our soil in that very deficient element.

Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip
across every forty-acre field as an untreated check
strip to which neither limestone nor phosphate shall
ever be applied, and that we shall reserve another
three-rod strip to which limestone is applied with-
out phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven
acres are to receive both limestone and phosphate.

Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of
seeing whatever clearly apparent effects are pro-
duced by this fundamental treatment, even though
we may not be able to bother with harvesting these
check strips separate from the rest of the field.

We have based our decision regarding the use
of ground limestone very largely upon the long-
continued work of the Pennsylvania Agricultural
Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of
ground limestone and burned lime, which is sup-
ported, to be sure, by all comparative tests so far
as our Illinois soil investigators have been able to
learn.

The practicability and economy of using the fine-

Se]

272 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

ground natural phosphate has been even more con-
clusively established, as you already know, by the
concordant results of half a dozen state experi-
ment stations. There are only two objections to the
use of the raw phosphate. One of these is the
short-sighted plan or policy of the average farmer,
and the other is the combined influence of about
four-hundred fertilizer manufacturers who prefer
to sell, quite naturally, perhaps, two tons of acid
phosphate for $30, or four tons of so-called ‘‘com-
plete” fertilizer for $70 to $90, rather than to see
the farmer buy direct from the phosphate mine one
ton of fine-ground raw rock phosphate in which he
receives the same amount of phosphorus, at a cost
at) $7 ito $9

Until we can provide a greater abundance of de-
caying organic matter we may make some tempor-
ary use of kainit, in case the experiments conducted
by the state show that it is profitable to do so.

In a laboratory experiment made at college it
was shown that when raw phosphate was shaken
with water and then filtered, the filtrate contained
practically no dissolved phosphorus; but, if a dilute
solution of such salts as exist in kainit was used in
place of pure water, then the filtrate would con-
tain very appreciable amounts of phosphorus.

In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish
some readily available potassium, magnesium, and
sulfur; and, by purchasing kainit in carload lots,
the potassium will cost us less than it would in the
form of the more expensive potassium chlorid or
potassium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of
course we do not need this in order to add to our
total stock of potassium, but more especially [ think
to assist in liberating phosphorus from the raw
phosphate which is naturally contained in the soil
and which we shall also apply to the soil, unless the

rey, PLANNING FOR LIFE 273

Government permits the fertilizer trusts to get such
complete control of our great natural phosphate de-
posits that they make it impossible for farmers to
secure the fine-ground rock at a reasonable cost,
which ought not, I would say, to be more than one
hundred per cent. net profit above the expense of
mining, grinding, and transportation. We may feel
safe upon the matter of transportation rates, for
the railroads are operated by men of large enough
vision to see that the positive and permanent main-
tenance of the fertility of the soil is the key to their
own continued prosperity, and some of them are al-
ready beginning to understand that the supply of
phosphorus is the master key to the whole indus-
trial structure of America; for, with a failing sup-
ply of phosphorus, neither agriculture nor any de-
pendent industry can permanently prosper in this
great country.

If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only
the grain, the supply of potassium in the surface
soil of Poorland Farm is sufficient to meet the needs
of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per acre every year
for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer
than the time that has passed since the Master
walked among men on the earth; whereas, the total
phosphorus content of the same soil is sufficient for
only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full
life of one man. Keep in mind that Poorland Farm
is near Heart-of-Egypt, and that this is the com-
mon soil of our “Egytian Empire’’, which contains
more cultivable land than all New England, has the
climate of Virginia, and a net work of railroads
scarcely equalled in any other section of this coun-
try, and in addition it is more than half surrounded
by great navigable rivers.

On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre
fields which are at least as nearly level as they

274 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

ought to be to permit good surface drainage, and
there is no need that a single hill of corn should
be omitted on any one of these seven fields; and |
am confident that with an adequate supply of raw
phosphate rock and magnesian limestone and a lib-
eral use of legume crops this land can be made to
pay interest on $300 an acre.

Why not? At Rothamsted, England, they have
averaged thirty-eight and four-tenth bushels of
wheat per acre during the last twenty years in an
experiment extending over sixty years, and they
have done this without a forkful of manure or a
pound of purchased nitrogen. Why not? The
wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded
forty bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel,
would pay nearly five per cent. interest on $300 an
acre for the entire two hundred and forty acres
used in my suggested rotation.

Aye, but there is one other very essential re-
quirement: To wit, a world of work.

Hoping to hear from you, and especially about
your alfalfa, I am,

Very sincerely yours,
PERCY JOHNSTON.

CHAPTER XXXV
SEALED LIpPs

O one realized more than Percy Johns-
ton that toleration of life itself was
possible to him only because of the
world of work that he found always
at hand in connection with his abid-
ing faith and interest in the upbuild-

ing of Poorland Farm. WHe had accepted Ade-
laide’s sweet smile and lack of apparent disap-
proval with confidence that he might at least have
an opportunity to try to win her love. As he was
permitted at the parting to look for more than an
instant into those alluring eyes, he had felt so sure
that they expressed something more than friend-
ship or gratitude for him. He had felt the more
confidence because he thought he knew that she
would not permit him to humiliate himself by ask-
ing and failing to receive from her father permis-
sion to write to her, when she could easily in her
own womanly way have discouraged such a thought
at once. Had she not insisted upon driving slowly
back to the turn in the road, and did he not feel the
absence of a previous reserve?

Oh, misleading imagination. The will is truly
the father of thought and faith. Percy knew as he
parted from Adelaide that he had left with her the
love of heart and mind of one whose life had de-
veloped in him the character which does nothing by
halves. His love had multiplied with the distance
as he journeyed westward, with a great new pleas-
ure which life seemed to hold before him and with
a pardonable confidence in its achievement.

He had written Mr. West a week after his re-

275

276 THE SPORTY OF THE son:

turn in a way which would not fail of understanding
if his hopes were justified. “The belated reply which
reached him after the holidays was accepted as final.
His pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream
of his life abruptly ended. He felt the more help-
less and the more deeply wounded because of Mr.
West’s reference to his special service in the pro-
tection he had once rendered to Adelaide. It con-
tinually reminded him that, as the highest type of
gentleman, he should do nothing that could be con-
strued as an endeavor to take advantage of the con-
sideration to which that act might seem to entitle
him. Bound and buried in the deepest dungeon,
waiting only for the announcement from his keeper
of the day of his execution. ‘This was his mental
attitude as the months passed and he began to re-
ceive an occasional letter from Mr. West in each
of which he looked for the news of Adelaide’s mar-
riage.

In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had devel-
oped for Adelaide. She was certain that she had
marred the happiness of her son. The heartless-
ness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of
one who had a right to assume in her an honor
equal to his own deserved only to be hated with
even righteous hatred. She saw the scrawled note
which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did
it signify? An excentric old lady’s penchant for
match making? Perhaps she was even more guilty
than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in
Adelaide more than he ought. She might even take
an old flirt’s delight in the mere number of con-
quests made by her granddaughter. Or was the
scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank-
playing fourteen-year-old brother? In any case
was it wise that Percy should see the note? She
could probably do nothing better than to leave it

SEALED LIPS 277

with the letter. Even if the girl were worthy, Percy
could never hope to win one of her class, whose
pride of ancestry is their bread of life. It might
not have been quite so, perhaps, if Percy had only
selected some more respected profession. Why
should not he have become a college professor?

CHAPTER XXXVI
Harp TIMES

HEN Percy and his mother reached

Poorland Farm in March. they

found a small frame house needing

only shingles, paint, and paper to

make it a fairly comfortable home,

until they should be able to add such

conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the

country as well as in the city. From the sale of

corn and some other produce they were able to add

to the residue of $1,840, which represented the

difference between the cost of three hundred and

twenty acres in Egypt and the selling price of forty

acres in the corn belt. An even $3,000 was left in
the savings bank at Winterbine.

“If we can live,” said Percy, “‘just as the other
‘Egyptians’ must live, and save our $3,000 for
limestone and phosphate, I believe we shall win
out. Through the efforts of the Agricultural Col-
lege and the Governnor of the State the convicts in
the Southern I[llinois Penitentiary have been put to
quarrying stone, and large crushers and grinders
have been installed, and the State Board of Prison
Industries is already beginning to ship ground lime-
stone direct to farmers at sixty cents a ton in bulk
in box cars. The entire Illinois Freight Associa-
tion gave an audience to the Warden of the Peni-
tentiary and representatives from the Agricultural
College and a uniform freight rate has been grant-
ed of one-half cent per ton per mile. This will en-
able us to secure ground limestone delivered at
Heart-of-Egpyt for $1.22 per ton.

‘‘Now, to apply five tons per acre on two hun-

278

HARD TIMES 279

dred and forty acres will require one thousand two
hundred tons and that will cost us $1,570 in cash,
less perhaps the $70, which we save on roads and
the untreated check strips which I want to leave.
To apply one ton of phosphate per acre to the same
six fields will cost about $1,600. Of course, I
shall not begin to apply phosphate until after I
have applied the limestone and get some clover or
manure to mix with the phosphate when I plow it
under; and I hope with the help. of the limestone
we shall get some clover and some increase in the
other crops. In any case the $3,000 and interest
we will get for what we can leave in the bank dur-
ing the six or eight years it will take to get the ro-
tation and treatment under way will pay for the
initial cost of the first applications of both limestone
and phosphate; and we shall hope that by that
time the farm will bring us something more than
a living.”

The carload of effects shipped from Winterbine
to Heart-of-Egypt included two horses, a cow, a
few breeding hogs, and some chickens; also a sup-
ply of corn and oats sufficient for the summer’s
feed grain.

After the expenses of shipping were paid, less
‘than $350 were deposited in the bank at the County
Seat. Of this $250 were used for the purchase of
another team. Hay was bought from a neighbor
and some old hay that had been discarded by the
balers, who had purchased, baled, and sold the
previous hay crop from Poorland Farm, Percy
gathered up and saved for bedding.

He plowed forty acres of the land that had not
been cropped for five years, and, after some serious
delays on account of wet weather, planted the field
in corn, using the Champion White Pearl variety,
because the Experiment Station had found it to be

280 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

one of the best varieties for poor land.

“T wouldn’t plant that corn if you would give
me the seed,’ a neighbor had said to him. “See
how big the cob is; and the tip is not well filled out,
and there is too much space between the rows. I
tell you there’s too much cob in it for me. I want
to raise corn and not corn cob.”

“Tt certainly is not a good show ear,” said Percy,
“but what I want most is bushels of shelled corn
per acre. Perhaps these big kernels will help to
give the young plant a good start, and perhaps the
piece of cob extending from the tip will make room
for more kernels if the soil can be built up so as
to furnish the plant food to make them. ‘The cob
is large but it is covered with grains all the way
around; and, if those kernels of corn were putty,
we could mash them down a little and have less
space between the rows, but it would make no more
corn on the ear. However, my chief reason for plant-
ing the Champion White Pearl is that this variety
has produced more shelled corn per acre than any
other in the University experiments on the gray
prairie soil of ‘Egypt.’ ”’

There were only sixteen acres of corn grown on
the entire farm in 1903 and this yielded thirteen
bushels per acre, as Percy learned from the share
of the crop received by the previous landowner.

In 1904 the Champion White Pearl yielded
twenty bushels per acre, as nearly as could be de-
termined by weighing the corn from a few shocks
on a small truck scale Percy had brought from the
north. He numbered his six forty-acre fields from
one to six. Forty No. 7 was occupied by twelve
acres of apple orchard, eight acres of pas-
ture, and twenty acres of old meadow. By getting
eighty rods of fencing it was possible to include
twenty-eight acres in the pasture, although one

HARD TIMES 281

hundred and ninety-two rods of fencing had been
required to surround the eight-acre pasture. ‘The
remainder of the farm was in patches, including
about fifteen acres on one corner crossed by a lit-
tle valley and covered with trees, a tract which
Percy and his mother treasured above any of the
forty-acre fields. While the week was always filled
with work, there were many hours of real pleasure
found in the wood’s pasture on the Sunday after-
noons.

Forty No. 1 was left to lie out, and No. 2
raised only twelve acres of cowpeas. No. 3 was
plowed during the summer and seeded to timothy
in the early fall. No. 4 was in corn and Nos. 5 and
6 were left in meadow, two patches of nine and
sixteen acres previously in cowpeas and corn hay-
at been seeded to timothy in order, as Percy said,

“square out’’ the forty-acre fields. About fifty
acres of land were cut over for about sixteen tons
of hay. The corn was all put in shock, and the
fodder as well as the grain used for feed, the refuse
from the fodder and poor hay serving as bedding.
About three tons of cowpea hay of excellent quality
were secured from the twelve acres, and fifty bar-

rels of apples were put in storage.

’ Another cow and eight calves were bought, and
during the winter some butter, two small bunches
of the last spring’s pigs, and the apple crop were
sold. A few eggs had been sold almost every week
since the previous March.

In 1905, No. 1 was rented for corn on shares
and produced about six hundred bushels of which
Percy received one-third. No. 2 yielded four hun-
dred and eighty-four bushels of oats. No. 3 pro-
duced fourteen tons of poor hay. No. 4 was “‘rest-
ed” and prepared for wheat, ground limestone hav-
ing been applied. No. 5 was fall-plowed from old

282 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

meadow and well prepared and planted to corn in
good time; but, after the second cultivation, heavy
rains set in and continued until the corn was seri-
ously damaged on the flat acreas of the field, the
more so as he had not fully understood the impor-
tance of keeping furrows open with outlets at the
head-lands through which the excess surface wa-
ter could pass off quickly under such weather con-
ditions. Patches of the field aggregating at least
five acres were so poorly surface drained that the
corn was ‘‘drowned out,’ and fifteen acres more
were so wet as to greatly injure the crop. How-
ever, on the better drained parts of the field where
the corn was given further cultivation the yield was
good and about 1,000 bushels of sound corn were
gathered from the forty acres.

A mixture of timothy, redtop and weeds was cut
for hay on No. 6, the yield being better than half
a ton per acre.

The apples were a fair crop, and the total sales
from that crop amounted to $750, but about half
of this had been expended for trimming and spray-
ing the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels, picking,
packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch
of hogs were sold.

Another year passed. Oats were grown on No.
1 and on part of No. 2, yielding eleven bushels per
acre,

No. 3 yielded one-third of a ton of hay per acre.

Wheat was grown on No. 4, and clover, the first
the land had known in many years, if ever, was
seeded in the spring,—twenty acres of red clover
and twenty of alsike.

The fifty-four acres of wheat, including fourteen
acres on No. 2, yielded seven and one-half bushels
per acre. Soy beans were planted on No. 5, but
wet weather seriously interferred and only part of

A world of work and 11 bushels of oats per acre.

HARD TIMES 283

the field was cut for hay. Limestone was applied,
but heavy continued rains prevented the seeding of
wheat.

No. 6 produced about twenty-seven bushels per
acre of corn.

Two lots of hogs were sold for about $800, and
some young steers increased the receipts by nearly
$ LOO.

Mrs. Johnston continued to buy the groceries
with eggs and butter; but it was necessary to buy
some hay, and the labor bill was heavy.

No. 5 joined the twenty-eight acre pasture and
on two other sides it joined neighbors’ farms where
line fences were up, and on the other side lay No. 4.

Percy was trying to get ready to pasture the
clover on No. 4, and a mile of new fencing was re-
quired. ‘he materials were bought and the fence
built, and when finished it also completed the fenc-
ing required to enclose No. 5. ‘The twenty-eight
acre pasture was inadequate for sixteen head of
cattle and the young stock was kept in a hired pas-
ture. Unless he could produce more feed, Percy
saw that the farm would soon be overstocked, for
some colts were growing and eight cows were now
giving milk.

His hope was in the clover, but as the fall came
on the red clover was found to have failed almost
completely, and the alsike was one-half a stand. As
the red clover had been seeded on the unlimed
strip there was no way of knowing whether the
limestone had even benefited the alsike. The neigh-
bors had ‘“‘seen just as good clover without putting
on any of that stuff.”’

There were no apples, but the spraying had cost
as much as ever, and some team work had been
hired.

Three years of the hardest work; limestone on

284. THE STORY OF ‘THE SOn,

two forties, but only twenty acres of poor clover
on one and no wheat seeded on the other. The
neighbors ‘“‘knew the clover would winter kill.” The
bills for pasturing amounted to as much as the but-
ter had brought; for the twenty-eight-acre pasture
had been very poor. The feed for the cows for
winter consisted of corn fodder, straw and poor
hay, and not enough of that.

They had to do it—draw $150 from the Winter-
bine reserve, besides what had been used for lime-
stone. Part of it must go for clover seed, for
clover must be seeded before it could be grown. The
small barn must also be enlarged, but with the
least possible expense.

It was February. Wet snow, water, and almost
bottomless mud covered the earth. With four
horses on the wagon, Percy had worked nearly all
day bringing in two ‘“‘jags” of poor hay from the
stack in the field. It was all the little mow would
hold.

He had finished the chores late and came in with
the milk.

‘Put on some dry clothes and your new shoes,”’
said his mother, ‘‘while I strain the milk and take
up the supper. There is a letter on the tables
hardly see how the mail man gets along through
these roads. They must be worse than George
Rogers Clark found on his trip from Kaskaskia to
Vincennes. ‘They say his route passed across only
a few miles from the present cite of Heart-of-
Egpyt. I suppose the letter is from Mr. West.”

Percy finished washing his hands, and opened the
letter. Two cards fell to the table as) he drew
the letter from the envelope.

He picked up one of the cards, and read it aloud
to his mother:

HARD TIMES 285

fay. and Favs. Paul Stronugworth Barstow

At home after March's, 1907

1422 College Avenue
Raleigh, N. C.

“With Grandma’s Compliments,” was penciled
across the top of the card. Percy glanced at the
other card and read the plain lines:

Announce the marriage of their daughter

Did his eyes blurr? He laid the one card over
the other, scanned Mr. West’s letter hurriedly, re-
placed it with the cards in the envelope, and laid
the letter at his mother’s plate.

Percy replaced his rubber boots with shoes, and
his wet, heavy coat with a dry one.

‘You remember the letter | had from the Col-
lege?” he asked, as he took his seat at the table.

iesy ly remember,’ she replied, “but.,the / Insti:
tute was to begin to-day.’

“I know,” said Percy, “but Hoard and Terry
both speak to-morrow,—Terry in the morning and
the Governor in the afternoon, and they are the
men the Professor especially wanted me to hear, if
I could. I think I'll ’phone to Bronson’s and ask
Roscoe to come over and do the chores to-morrow
noon. I can get back by nine to-morrow night.”

“But, dear, how in the world can you get to
Olney to hear Mr. Terry speak to-morrow morn-
ing.

“There is a train east about eight o’clock,” he
replied. ‘Of course the roads are too awful to
think of driving to the station, especially since the
mares ought not to be used much. I put four on
the wagon to-day and tried to be as careful as pos-

286 THE STORY OF (Vine Sor

sible but it does not seem right to use them. I can
manage alright. I will get up a little early in the
morning and get things in shape so I can leave here
by daylight and I am sure I can make the B. & O.
station by eight o’clock easily. I will wear my rub-
ber boots and carry my shoes in a bundle. I[ can
change at the depot and put my boots on again
when I get back there at seven at night. If it clears
up, I will have the moon to help coming home.”

“But Percy, you do not mean to walk five miles
and back through all this mud and water?”

“T wish you would not worry, Mother. There
is grass along the sides most of the way, and I am
used to the mud and water. I will spy out the
best track as I go in the morning and just follow
my own trail coming back.”

“Then it is time we were asleep,’ replied the
mother.

CHAPTER XXX VIT
HARDER TIMES

HE State Superintendent of Farmers’ In-
titutes called the meeting to order soon
after Percy entered the Opera House
at Olney about ten o’clock the next
morning.

“Divine blessing will be invoked by
Doctor T. E. Sisson, pastor of the First Methodist
Church of Olney:”

“Oh, Thou, whose presence bright all
space doth occupy and all motion guide, all
life impart, we come this morning in the ca-
pacity of this Farmers’ Institute to thank
thee for Thy mercies and for Thy blessings,
and to invoke Thy presence and Thy con-
tinued favor. As Thou with Thy presence
hast surrounded all forms of creation and
all stages of being with the providences of
welfare and development and grace, so we
pray, our Father, for guidance through the
sessions of this institute, for the providences
of Thy love and Thy wisdom divine as it re-
veals itself in the open field, in the orchard,
in the garden, bringing forth those things
which replenish the earth with food and fill
the mouths of our hungry ones with bread.

“We thank Thee for this larger knowl-
edge which has come to the minds of men,
because they have been learning to study
Thy works and to walk closer to Thee. Wilt
Thou, Heavenly Father, continue to en-
lighten this body of men and women that

287

288

THE STORY OF THE SOIL

are represented in this great field of the
world’s busy bee hive so that the starving
millions of the world, now in our cities riot-
ing for bread, and in the vast nations where
they are crying for food, may be fed. We
pray Thee, reveal such improvement of
knowledge to these who are willing to get
close to Thee to learn Thy secrets and know
Thy wisdom, as that unto all shall be given
plenty, for replenishing our physical needs.
And help us to know, our Father, as we
learn Thy will and seek to do Thy will and
live in the higher courts of knowledge and
wider circles of thought, so shall God reveal
himself unto us.

“Our Father, we thank Thee for all the
developments and great sources of utility
that come through the means of this insti-
tute in the development of the resources of
this country, this great State and adjoining
states through the length and breadth of this
favored nation. We pray, Heavenly Fath-
er, while studying all these replenishments
and seeking to defend them from the in-
roads of evil, of the rust and the mildew and
the worm, we pray also for the beautiful
homes, for the souls of the children given
to our homes, that we may study their men-
tal and spiritual being in such a way as shall
keep all harm and evil and wrong from this
life of ours, and so to work in the field of
Thy providences, revealed in hand and mind
and heart and relationships, of school and
church and state and farm, and all the activi-
ties of this life’s great work, as that good
shall be our inheritance.

‘‘We pray Thee, Heavenly Fatther, to be

HARDER TIMES 289

with the officers of this institute. Give Thy
strength, Thy presence, and Thy discern-
ment to these who participate in the work,
the membership and onlookers, and those
who come to learn. We pray Thee, give us
the revelation of Thy wisdom to replenish
and build up every human family, and to
Thee all praise shall be given to-day for this
blessing and for Thy continued favor; and
not only to-day but to-morrow and the day
after and through all eternity the praise
shall be Thine, in the name of Him who
came into this world to give us the life of
the knowledge of God. Amen.”

Ve wmay be,” said the Chairman, ‘that; a State
Farmers’ Institute sometimes exercises a little ar-
bitrary power in selecting subjects we want to speak
of. I think county institutes might adopt the same
plan to advantage, and assign the topic they wish
discussed.

‘The topic assigned our speaker to-day is ‘What
I did and how I did it.’ It may sound egotistical,
but I want to relieve the speaker of that imputa-
tion, because the subject was selected by the Insti-
tute.

‘Allow me to present Mr. Terry, who needs no
introduction to an audience of American farmers:”’

Mr. Terry began to speak:

‘Thirty-six years ago last fall,” he said, “my
wife and I bought and moved onto the farm where
we now reside. We went on there in debt $3,700,
on which we had to pay seven per cent. interest.
I had one horse, an old one, and it had the heaves,
a one-horse harness, and a one-horse wagon, three
tillage implement, and nine cows that were paid
for; and a wife and two babies, but no money.

290 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

Now, that was the condition in which we started
on this farm, thirty-six years ago, in debt heavily,
and no money; but that is not the worst of it. If
it had been as good soil as you have in some parts
of this State, we should have been all right. How
about the soil? For sixty years farmers had been
running it down until it could scarcely produce any-
thing. We had a tenant on the place one year, be-
fore we could arrange to move on, after we got it.
They got eight bushels of wheat per acre, and he
said to me, “That is a pretty good yield, don’t you
think, for this old farm?’ Oh, friends, I didn’t
think so;—never ought to have bought this farm;
—didn’t know any better,—born and brought up
in town, my father a minister, and | thought a farm
was a farm. But 1 learned some things) after
awhile. That tenant mowed over probably forty
acres of land. (We originally bought one hundred
and twenty-five). He put the hay in the barn. It
measured twelve tons. Half of that was weeds.
Most of the hay he cut down in a swale. ‘There
wasn’t anything worth considering on the upland.
That was the condition of the land.

‘How about the buildings? ‘The house had
been used about sixty years, an old story-and-a-half
house. Dilapidated, oh, my! Every time the rain
came, we had to take every pan upstairs and set it
to catch the water. We did not have any money
to put on more shingles. It was out of the ques-
tion, we couldn’t do it. How about the dooryard?
It was a cow yard. ‘They used it for a milking
yard, for years and years. You can imagine how
it looked. The barn was in such condition that
cattle were just as well off outdoors as in. ‘The
roof leaked terribly. The tenants had burned up
the doors and any boards they could take off easily.
They were too lazy to take off any that came off

HARDER TIMES 291

hard. They burned all the fences in reach.

“Now friends, that was the farm we moved onto
and the condition it was in. Some of you will
know we saw some pretty hard times for a while.
Time and again I was obliged to take my team, af-
ter we got two horses (the second I borrowed of
a relative, it was the only way I could get one),
and go to town to do some little job hauling to get
some money to get something to eat. That is the
way we started farming. I remember, after three
or four years, meeting Dr. W. I. Chamberlain.
Some of you know him. He said: ‘Terry, if you
should get a new hat, there wouldn’t anybody know
you. Your clothes wear like the children of Israel’s.’
They had to wear. No one knew how hard up we
were. It was not best to let them know. That
money was borrowed of a friend in Detroit, se-
cured on a life insurance policy. We did not let
anybody know how hard up we really were. My
wife rode to town (to church when she went), in
the same wagon we hauled out manure in, for a
time. ‘Time and again she has been to town when
she said she could not do without something any
longer and came back without it. Credit was good.
We could have bought it. We didn’t dare to.

“Now, friends, a dozen years from the time we
started on that farm, under these circumstances, we
were getting from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred and fifty bushels of merchantable potatoes
per acre right along—not a single year, but on the
average—varying, of course, somewhat with the
season. We were getting from four to five tons
of clover hay in a season, from two cuttings, of
course, per acre. We were getting from thirty-
three to thirty-eight bushels of wheat per acre, not
one year, but for five years we averaged thirty-five
bushels per acre, and right on that same farm. No

292 THE 'SQPORY ‘OF THE SOIL

fertility had been brought on to it, practically, from
the outside. A man without any money, in debt
for the land $3,700, was able to do this. Now,
how did he do it? That is the question I have
been asked to talk upon. I have told you briefly
something like what we have aceomplished. I
might say, further, the old house I told you that we
lived in for fourteen years while we were building
up the fertility of this soil, we sold for $10, after
we got through with it. It is now a horse barn on
the farm of our next neighbor and has been cov-
ered over.

“Eleven years from the time we started we paid
the last $500 of our debt, all dug out of that farm,
not $25 from any other source. Thirteen years
from the time we started, we carried off the first
prize of $50 offered by the State Board of. Agri-
culture of Ohio, for the best detailed report of the
best and most profitably managed small farm in
the state,—only thirteen years from the time we
started on that run-down land, and no fertility
brought from the outside; without any money; and
meanwhile we had to live.

“Now I had arranged with the tenant the first
year, before we went on there, to seed down a cer-
tain field. It had been under the plow for some
time. I wanted it seeded so I could have some
land to mow and he seeded half of it. It was only
a little lot, about five acres. He seeded half with
timothy and left the other half. That was his way
of doing things, anyway. When we moved onto
the farm later I naturally wanted to finish that
seeding and get that field in some sort of shape for
mowing. I went to my next neighbor, who lives
there yet, and asked him what I had better use. I
didn’t know anything, practically, about farming,
and he advised me to try some clover seed. He

HARDER TIMES 293

said: ‘So far as I know, none was ever sown on
that farm. They have sowed timothy everlastingly,
everybody, because it is cheap. I knew timothy
wouldn’t grow there to amount to anything. If I
were in your place I would try some clover.’

“T got the land prepared and sowed that clover
alone, so as to give it a chance. I did have sense
enough to mow off the weeds when they got six or
eight or ten inches high perhaps, so that the clover
could have a little better chance to grow. It hap-
pened to be a very wet season. I remember that
distinctly. This was a lot near to the barn. I
suppose what little manure they had hauled out had
been mostly put on this land. With these favoring
conditions the result was fairly good. Of course
not half what we got later, but we got quite a little
clover and when I came to mow it, and to mow that
timothy at the other end, I could see I could draw
the rake two or three times as far in the timothy as
in the clover. ‘There was more clover on an acre.
A load of timothy would go in and a load of clover.
When I fed it to the cows in winter I noticed when
feeding clover for a number of days they gave
more milk. I didn’t know why. I don’t know as
anybody knew why then. There wasn’t an experi-
ment station in the land. We were following our
own notions. But the cows gave more milk; I
could see that plainly.

‘A little later I had an experiment forced on me
by accident. I tell you just how it came about. It
resulted in putting a good many thousands in our
pockets and I hope millions in the pockets of the
farmers of America. Later I wanted to plant corn
on this field, and, as I wanted to grow just as good
corn as I could, I got out what manure we saved
and put it on the land preparing for plowing. I
knew there wouldn’t be more than half enough to

294 THE STORY OF) THE’ SO1L

go over the field. I said to myself, if there was
any good corn, I would like it next to the road
where people would see it. Wouldn’t any of you
do it? I didn’t have a dollar to hire any help. I
paid one dollar that year for help, and it was aw-
ful hard to get that dollar. I began spreading that
manure next to the road. The back half of the
field was nearly out of sight. When I got half way
back there wasn’t any manure left and the back half
didn’t get any. Now it so happened that the timo-
thy ‘was on the front) end of, the field) ) Pama
it got ‘the manure. ‘The clover. on) the jac
half, didn’t, get, any. It. camé:)/about) iim
simple way I told you of. Naturally I didn’t ex-
pect much corn where I hadn’t put any manure, but
what was my surprise to find it was just about as
good on that clover end of the field without any
dressing as on the timothy end with what I had
been able to put on. It is only right I should say
there wasn’t much of the manure. It was poor in
quality because we couldn’t get grain for the cows
when we couldn’t get enough for ourselves to eat.
There wasn’t much manure and it was pretty poor,
but such as it was that was the result. More hay
to the acre, better hay, increased fertility, some
way, by growing this clover!

‘Now let us go back a little. I think it was the
second spring after we moved onto the place that
I happened to be crossing the farm of my next
neighbor, Mr. Holcombe, now dead. I found him
plowing. He had been around a piece of land, I
should judge five acres, half a dozen times. He
was sitting on the plow, tired out,—too old to work
anyway. He said, ‘I wish you would take this land
and put in some crop on the shares; I want to
get rid of the work; I can’t do it, and would like
to let you have it in some way. All I want is that

HARDER TIMES 295

it should be left so I can seed it down in the fall
again.’

“Tt was an old piece of sod he had mowed in the
old eastern way until it wouldn’t grow anything any
longer. I don’t suppose he got a quarter of a ton
of hay to the acre. He wanted it plowed so he
could re-seed it. I didn’t know the value of the
land, but, foolishly perhaps, as most people
thought, offered him five dollars an acre for the
use of it. I hadn’t enough to do at home. I didn’t
have my land in shape so I could do much. We
were working along as fast as we could. I thought
I could do well if I had this job, and could perhaps
make something off it. He agreed to it.

“T went home and got my team and plow, and
finished the plowing. I remember making those
furrows narrow and turning the ground well, a
little deeper than it had been plowed before. I
didn’t realize what I was doing, then. I simply
had been brought up to do my work well. I thought
I was doing a good job, that was all. When I was
through plowing I got my old harrow, a spike-
tooth, and harrowed the ground. I had a roller.
They were manufactured in our town. ‘The firm
busted and J had a chance to buy one very cheap.
I had a roller, harrow, and plow. That was all
the tillage implements. The harrow had moved
the lumps around a little. I ran the roller over the
lumps; then harrowed, rolled, and _ harrowed.
When the harrow would not take hold, I put a
plank across and rode on it. I worked that land
alternately until I had the surface as fine and nice
as I could make it, two or three inches deep. The
harrow would not take hold any longer and I had
to quit. By and by a rain came. I didn’t know
anything about how to till land,—this spring fal-
low business—but I happened to hit it right. Af-

296 THE STORY (OF THE son.

ter it rained, I said that harrow will take hold bet-
ter now. I loaded the harrow and got on it, and
tore that ground up three or four inches deep.

‘The harrow teeth were sharp. I harrowed and
rolled it and my neighbor said, “Terry, you are
ruining that land, it will never grow anything any
more, it will all blow away.’ I reminded him of
his bargain; I should raise what I pleased and take
the crop home. Every little while, I can’t remem-
ber how often, I would go over and harrow and
roll that land. I probably plowed it the first week
in April. For two months that was a sort of sav-
ings bank for my work. I would run over and
work that land, occasionally, until, about the first
week in June, I had it prepared just as mellow and
fine and nice as it was possible to make it. It was
nice enough for flower seeds.

“T builded better then than I knew. I had no
idea what the result was going to be. When it was
already, I sowed Hungarian grass seed. I wish
you could have seen the crop. It grew four and a
half or five feet high, as thick as it could stand on
the land. I believe if J had thrown my straw hat, it
would have staid on the top. It was enormous for
that land. I had four big loads to the acre. You
know what you can put on a load of Hungarian.
When I went by the owner’s house with those loads
and took them to our barn, he was out there and
he looked awfully sour. That man, to my knowl-
edge, had never grown half as much to the acre
since I had known of his being on the land, prob-
ably never more than one-third as much. Old run-
out timothy sod; no manure, no fertilizer, nothing
but the work, __this spring fallowing. I enjoyed
the matter more, because he had told some of the
neighbors he had got the start of that town fellow;
I would never see five dollars an acre back, out of

ae ee ee Le

HARDER TIMES 297

the land. That was his opinion of what I could
raise.

“Hay was hay that fall, after a dry season. We
live in a dairy section. The cows were there and
had to be fed. I got $18 a ton for that hay in our
barn, something like $70 per acre. I think the
laugh was on the other side. That was my fist
awakening, along this line of tillage. Didn’t know
how it came about, didn’t know anything about the
fertility locked up in the soil, just the plain facts.
I did so and so, and got such and such results. The
next year Charlie Harlow, still living there, said, ‘I
wish you would put in some Hungarian for me this
spring.’ I said, ‘What part of the crop?—I should
want two-thirds.’ He said he had an offer for half.
I said, ‘Then let him have it.’ He replied, ‘One-
third of what you will raise is more than half of
what he will raise.’ He saw what I did on his
brother-in-law’s farm.

“The following year I had a piece of land ready
to grow corn, I had cleared out the stumps and
done the best I could to get it in shape. I plowed
it just as soon as the ground was dry enough, about
the first of April, that is. I worked it every little
while just as nearly as I could as the Hungarian
land had been worked, I harrowed and rolled, let
it rest a while, then harrowed and rolled. I kept
it up until my next door neighbor, Mr. Croy, had
planted his corn, and it was four inches high and
growing pretty well. Ours wasn’t planted. A
neighbor came and said, ‘I am sorry for you Terry,
you don’t know what you are about. You are fool-
ing away your time. Your corn ought to have been
in before this.’ I was harrowing and rolling. [
was determined to see whether I could do it over
again. Some of the neighbors said it couldn’t be
done again.

298 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

“The fourth or fifth of June—too late, ordinar-
ily, to plant corn with us—I put in the crop. I
wish you could have seen it grow! It came up and
grew from the word ‘Go.’ In four weeks it was
ahead of any corn about. It went ahead of my
neighbor’s corn that was three or four inches high
when ours was planted. We had a crop that, the
farm in the condition that it was, was considered
as something remarkable. They couldn’t account
for it, neither could I. All I knew was I had been
working the ground so and so and getting such and
such results.

“Tet us go back once more. The first year that
I moved onto that farm, the first fall, we had nine
cows, and I wanted to save all of the manure.
Now, there wasn’t an experimental station in the
land. I didn’t know anything about the potassium
or nitrogen in the liquid manure, but I had seen
where it dropped on the land and how the grass
grew. I thought it was plant food, and our land
was hungry. I said, I must try and save this man-
ure, and not have it wasted. I hadn’t a dollar.
What did I do? There was an old stable there
that would hold ten cows. It was in terrible shape. —
It had a plank floor that was all broken. I tore it
out. I hauled some blue clay. I filled the stable
four or five inches deep with the blue clay,
wet it, pounded it down, shaped it off and
got it level, fixed it up around the sides. saucer
shape, so it would hold water. Then I laid down
some old boards (I couldn’t buy new ones), and
put in a lot of straw there and put my cows in. [
saved all that manure the first year, all that liquid.
I had twice as much, probably more, from the same
number of cows as had been saved on that farm
before, and it was much more valuable. That was
the beginning, the first winter, when I hadn’t any-

HARDER TIMES 299

thing.

‘For the horse stable I went to town and found
some old billboards. It was new lumber, but had
been used for billboards. After the circus the
owner offered to sell the boards cheap, and to trust
me. He was a carpenter, and he jointed them. We
put them crosswise on the old plank floor, and when
they got wet they swelled and became practically
water tight. I even crawled under and saw that
there was no liquid manure dropping down there.
I drew sawdust and used for bedding. I saved the
liquid of the horse stable. I didn’t know it was
worth three times as much, pound for pound, as
the solid. I didn’t know it was worth two times as
much in the cow stable, pound for pound, as the
solid. I found it out by experience.

‘‘Now, when I was in town, before going on this
farm, I worked for S. Straight & Son, the then
great cheese and butter kings of the Western Re-
serve. I was getting over a thousand dollars a
year in their office. ‘They didn’t want me to leave
at all, but wife and I took a notion to be independ-
ent, to work for ourselves, and we bought this old
farm. We had a chance to work for ourselves, al-
right. The first year we worked from early in the
morning until nine or ten o’clock at night, and then
we tumbled into bed, too tired to think, to get up
and do it over again. I worked in the field, taking
out stumps and doing something, as long as I could
see, and then helped my wife to milk. We would
get our supper along about nine or ten o'clock. At
the end of the year we had not one single dollar,
after paying our interest and taxes,—not one dol-
lar to show for our work. Do you wonder we were
pretty discouraged?

“T-met Mr. Straight one day. He said: ‘Terry,
things are not going very well in the office since you

300 THE STORY OF ‘THE SOIL

left. I wish you would come back. You are not
doing much over on that farm that I can see. You
are having a hard time. I will gladly give you $1,-
200 a year if you will come back into our office.’ It
was a great temptation. Think what it meant. To
move back to town and have $100 a month. But
I said, ‘No, Mr. Straight; I can’t do it.’ T/dont
deserve any credit for it, friends; but I wasn’t built
that way. I can’t back out. When I undertake
anything I have got to go through. I would have
been willing enough to leave that farm, if I had
made a success of it, after I made a success of it,
as I thought then; but I wasn’t willing to give up,
whipped—to acknowledge that I had undertaken
that job and had to back out and go back to town
to make a living.

‘Some little incident sometimes will change the
whole character of a man’s life. I remember, when
we were in very hard conditions, we were sitting un-
der an apple tree in our door yard one evening. It
is there yet. Two men from town went by. One
of them said to the other, ‘What is Terry going to
do?’ The other said, ‘If Terry sticks to it he will
make something out of that old farm.’ Just as
quick as a flash, friends, I said, ‘Terry will stick to
ut

‘You see what condition we were in. I began to
put all these matters together. I had been taught
how to. In college I had been trained to study and
think, of course,—not to work with my hands.
When I got onto the work at first I worked myself
almost to death with my hands, and had no time to
think or study; but gradually old methods came
around again and I began to think and study. I
said: ‘Here, more hay to the acre, better hay, in-
creased fertility by growing that clover, increased
fertility by working that soil so much.’ I didn’t

- ——

HARDER TIMES 301

know why, but there was the fact. ‘Now, isn’t it
possible to put these matters together and so work
them out as to build up the fertility of this farm
and make it blossom like the rose?’

“I began to work it out. What was the first
step? I sold eight or nine cows to get a little
money to start, thus cutting off practically our whole
source of income. ‘There was no other way I could
get any money. We had to do some draining. A
part of the land we could not do anything with un-
til it was tile-drained. It took money to buy tile. I
had to have a little help about the digging, al-
though I like to boast that I laid every tile on my
farm with my own hands. I buried every one and
know it will stay there. ‘They were all sound and
hard and good. In all these years not one has ever
failed, not one drain or tile. I worked day after
day, in the rain, wet to the skin, because it had to
be done. It was the foundation of our success.

‘‘As I was coming here yesterday, and passed so
much of your flat land, in need of drainage, I
thought, drainage is the foundation of success for
lots of these people, down here in southern Illinois.
You can’t do much until you have the water out of
the land. Then you have a chance to do some-
thing with tillage and manure-saving and clover.
But you throw away your efforts when you try to
do this work on land that is in need of drainage.

‘“As fast as possible we fixed up this land. Of
course, it took years. We hadn’t money, and there
were many things that had to be done,—changin
fields, getting out stumps, doing drainage,—it al
took time. I had my plans made and was working
as fast as I could.

“Two things I did, to keep life in our bodies un-
til we got ready to make some money. One was
to cut off every bit of timber on the farm. Our

302 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

neighbors laughed at us and prophesied rain and
all that. There were two things in my mind. We
had to have money to live on, and I managed to
get quite a little of it in that way. In the next place
we didn’t have much of a farm, and I wanted the
land for tillage. We can buy wood of the neigh-
bors to-day, cheaper that we sold ours, so we never
lost anything.

‘Another way we got some money, as we went
along, that helped us, was raising forage crops. I
did not attempt to put in crops that required much
hand labor. I raised Hungarian, and everything I
could to be fed to cows. In our dairying section,
with feed often scarce in the fall, farmers often
had more stock than they could winter. We could
pick up cows cheaply on credit and hold them. I
could winter them for people, and the manure we
used as a top dressing, to make the clover grow.
Starting with a little piece of land, we spread out
more and more, and got more and more enriched,
and more and more growing clover, and by and by
we got all the cultivated land growing it. ‘Then
we were ready for business.

“T am afraid to tell you Illinois farmers, with
your great big farms, how large our farm was.
We bought one hundred and twenty-five acres. We
sold off all but fifty-five. That didn’t help us, for
the man who bought it was so poor he didn’t pay us
for over thirty years. ‘Then the land went up in
price and he was able to sell it for a good price and
we got our money. Fifty-five acres were selected,
the best we could for our purpose. “Twenty acres
was so situated as to have no value. Thirty-five
acres was fairly good, tillable land, the best we
could pick out. I began a system of rotation, after
we got the land ready for it, of clover, potatoes,
and wheat. My idea was to have the clover gather

HARDER TIMES 303

fertility to grow potatoes and wheat. I was going
to make use of the tillage to help out all I could,
and sold the potatoes and wheat, and then had
clover again, and so on around the circle. Every-
body said, of course I would fail. I didn’t know
but I would. It was the only chance and [ had to
take it.

“Of course it took quite a while to get this thing
going. The first three or four years didn’t amount
to much. After six or eight years we were sur-
prised at the result. We were getting more than
we hoped for. In a dozen years the whole coun-
try was surprised. I remember when a reporter
was sent from Albany, New York, to see what we
were doing, and reported in the Country Gentle-
men. We had visitors by the score from various
states, it made such a stir. They couldn’t believe
it was possible for a man to take land as poor as
that, and make it produce so well. We had some
they could see that had not been touched. As I
told you, in eleven years we were out of debt. Af-
ter about ten or eleven years we were laying up a
thousand dollars a year, above all living and run-
ning expenses, from this land, raising potatoes and
wheat. It doesn’t seem possible to you large farm-
ers, but you can’t get around the facts. In 1883
we laid up $1,700 from the land. But this was a
little extra.

“We wanted to build a new house. We had
lived in the old shell long enough. We had the
money to pay cash down for the new house and to
pay for the furniture that went into it. We paid
$3,500 cash down, that fall, for the house and fur-
niture, and every dollar taken out of the land.
Only two or three years before that we paid the
last of our debt. I had not done any talking or
writing to speak of, at that time. I did not be-

264. THE STORY OF THE SOIL

gin until 1882. I never went to an institute, and
never wrote an article for a paper, except when
called upon to do it. I never sought such a job and
prefer to stay at home on my farm. It was only
because I was called to do this work that I got into
it. For twenty-one years I was never at home one
week during the winter season. Farmers called for
me and I didn’t feel that I could refuse to go.

“Now, how did we do it? I told some of the
things. Let us go down to the science of the mat-
ter a little, now. I didn’t know anything about the
science at the time. That came later. | Practiag
came first. We know now—of course, you all
know—that clover has the ability, through the lit-
tle nodules that grow on the roots, to take the free
nitrogen out of the air to grow itself. You know
about four-fifths of the air you are breathing is ni-
trogen in the form of gas, and clover has the ability
to feed on that and make use of it. The other plants
have not. I might illustrate it in this way: You
can’t eat grass; at least, you wouldn’t do very well
on it. But the steer eats grass and you eat the
steer, so you get the grass, don’t you? Your corn,
wheat, oats, timothy, potatoes, so far as we know,
can’t touch free nitrogen in the air, but clover can
and then feed it to those other crops.

“Tet us look into how we got the phosphorus.
On land that would not grow over six to eight
bushels of wheat per acre we have succeeded once
in growing forty-seven and three-fourths bushels to
the acre, on all the land sowed, of wheat that sold
away above the market price and weighed sixty-
four pounds to the measured bushel, and never put
on a pound of phosphorus. We got it from that
tillage we told you about. Our land in northeast-
ern Ohio is not very good naturally. It is nothing
like what you have in this state. Most of you

HARDER TIMES 306

know that is the poorest land we have in the state
in general, but we have a fair share of clay and
sand in ours. That has helped us wonderfully. We
have clay enough so that with our tillage we can
make so far all the plant food available we want.

“Now, a little more about the tillage. I told
you how we worked the surface of that ground and
made it fine and nice. After five or six years, per-
haps, of this kind of work, I got to thinking if I
had some tool that would stir that ground to the
bottom of the plowed furrow and mix it very deep-
ly and thoroughly, I might get still better results
out of the tillage. I happened to be in town one
morning in the fall, when we had some wheat land
(clover sod) plowed and prepared for wheat. I
had harrowed and rolled it and made it as nice as
I could.—It was what the neighbors would call all
ready for sowing and more than ready. In town
I saw a man trying to sell a two-horse cultivator. I
think it was made in this State. It was the first one
I ever saw—you can judge how long ago. It was a
big, heavy, cumbersome thing,—a horse-killer. I
thought, if I only had that, I knew I could increase
the fertility of our soil still more. I hadn’t any
money. We hadn’t got far enough that there was
a dollar to spare. What did I do? I gave my
note for $50 and took that cultivator home with
me. I could have bought it for $35 in money, but
I didn’t have it. My wife didn’t say a word when
I got home. I have heard since that she did a lot
of crying to think I would go in debt $50 more,
and all for that thing.

“T got home about eleven o’clock and you can well
suspect that I couldn’t eat any dinner that day. I
hitched up and went right to work, and told my
wife I couldn’t stop for any dinner. I rode that cul-
tivator that day and tore up that field in a way

306 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

land was never torn up in our section before. There
was nothing to do it with. The soil would roll up
and tumble over. After going lengthwise I went
crosswise. A thousand hogs couldn’t have made
it rougher. The neighbors looked on and said that
Terry would do ‘most anything if you would only
let him ride.’ The worst of it was, I really didn’t
know but what they were right, and all he would
get out of it was the riding. It was a serious thing.
I had to wait until the harvest time before I could
know.

‘“What was the result? I got ten bushels of
wheat more per acre than had ever grown on the
land before, without any manure or fertilizer hav-
ing been applied since it grew the previous crop in
the rotation. Clover had been grown. It was a
clover sod. I didn’t know how much came from
the clover and how much from the tillage. I didn’t
care, they went together to get that result. I ask-
ed some of the old settlers how much had been
grown there per acre during their recollection.
They said twenty-three bushels was the most they
had known. I got thirty-three. The neighbors
said, ‘It happened so, you can’t do it again.’ You
know how they talk, to make out nothing can be
done with an old farm. I was interested in doing
it again. I paid that note and had a large margin
of profit left, you see, out of the extra wheat. It
all came right.

‘The next year I took the next field in rotation
and worked it in the same way, probably more. I
got thirteen bushels more wheat per acre than ever
grew before. Thirty-six bushels of wheat! Such a
thing was never heard of in our section before;
land that would not grow anything a dozen years
ago. Do you wonder I have been an enthusiast
on tillage since then? Why, they call me a crank

~—

=

HARDER TIMES 307

sometimes. It is a good crank, as it has turned out
prosperity for us.

“After a time I began to think, can’t we carry
this matter a little further? People generally don’t
cultivate their crops more than two or three times
in a season. Can [| cultivate more to advantage? I
began to try it, six or eight times, eight or ten. I
think there have been dry years when I have culti-
vated our potatoes as many as fifteen times. [|
don’t believe we ever went through them when it
didn’t pay. I remember one fall, when it was a
wet season. When the tops began to die and got
to the point where I could see the space between the
rows, f started the cultivators again. I had money
then to hire men and I hired plenty of them. I start-
ed to cultivate between the rows. People said, ‘What
is the idiot doing now?’ I said, ‘He is going to
raise five bushels more by doing that work, that 1s
what he is after.’

‘“‘Now, remember, more hay to the acre, better
hay, increased fertility by growing clover, increased
fertility by working this land over and over in the
different ways I have told you of. They used to
send for me to talk on this subject, before I knew
anything about it, except that I had done it. In
Wisconsin, some twenty years ago, I helped at the
first intitute held in the state. They sent for me
to come up. I told them what I was doing and how
I thought it came about, what I thought clover was
doing for me. When I was through I asked Pro-
fessor Henry, who was in the audience, to tell me,
honestly, what he thought about my talk. He said,
‘As a farmer I believe you are right, but as a
scientific man I dare not say so in public. ’

; “Professor Roberts came to my place one time,
ito investigate a little. I knew what he came for. |
showed him around, and showed him the land we

308 THE SPORY OF THE SOM

had not touched, not to this day. He was a sur-
prised man. I remember the second crop of clover
was at its best. It was above his knees. He says,
‘This will make two tons of hay to the acre, and it
is the second crop.’ He didn’t say but very little.
I couldn’t get him to talk much. He went home
and began that system of experiments at Ithaca that
has practically revolutionized the agriculture of the
east—experiments in tillage. Pretty soon we had
his book on the fertility of the soil. I think he got
his inspiration from what he saw. He said to him-
self, seems to me, “Terry has something that scien-
tific men do not know.’ He got samples of soil all
over the state. They analyzed the soil and found
what the average soil of New York contained. They
found about four thousand five hundred pounds of
nitrogen, six thousand three hundred pounds of
phosphoric acid, and twenty-four thousand pounds
of potash in an average acre eight inches deep; and
they had been buying potash largely. (laughter).
- “The farm we moved onto was the old Sanford
homestead. Old Mr. Sanford lived there and
brought up a large family, I think five of them
boys. Every one of these boys left the farm just
as soon as they could get away. ‘There wasn’t any-
thing in farming for them. After we had been at
work a dozen years or more and got things going
nicely, they came back (one of them lives in Com
necticut) and visited the old homestead. I remem-
ber Lorenzo said. ‘It seems like a miracle. I don’t
know how you did it. We worked from daylight
to dark, from one year’s end to another, and never
had anything. We boys used to be promised a
holiday on the Fourth of July if the corn was all
hoed. That was all we got. How on earth have
you done these things ?’

“Friends, there were three farms we bought.

eee ae ee

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Yr 7

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1

HARDER TIMES 309

Old Mr. Sanford didn’t know anything about but
one. ‘There was the air and the soil and there
was the subsoil. He had been working only the
soil, plowing it three or four inches deep, scratch-
it over, taking what came, and every year less and
less came. The land had run down until the sur-
face had quit producing. We took the same soil,
put in clover and took the fertility out of the up-
per farm, the air, and out of the lower one, the sub-
soil, and put it into the second one. We plowed
the surface soil a little deeper and deeper until we
got it eight or nine inches deep instead of four. We
worked it more and more, setting more and more
of the available plant food in the soil free. ‘That
is how we did it.

“I say ‘we’ advisedly, because, friends, if I hadn't
had a wife fully able and willing to do her part,
and more, I would not have this story to tell.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII
AN AWAKENING DREAM

8 HE chores are all done,” said Mrs.
Johnston, as Percy began to take
down his heavy work-coat about nine
o'clock that evening.

“You ought not to have done
them,” he chided as he slipped his
arm around her and drew her to the sofa.
‘Tell me about the Institute,” she said, stroking
the hair from his forehead.
He told her of the professors who were there

from the University and briefly reported the ad-

dresses he had heard.

“And I verily believe,’’ he added, “that if ‘Terry
were to wake up some morning and find himself
located on the ‘“‘Barrens” of the Highland Rim of
Tennessee, he would start out with the firm convic-
tion that all he would need to do to become a suc
cessful farmer there would be to sow clover and
then ‘work the land for all that’s in it.’ But, after
all, it is not so strange, perhaps, that one who has
himself discovered and then utilized the power of
clover and tillage to restore and increase the pro-
ductive power of land rich in limestone, phos-
phorus and all other essential mineral plant food,
should jump to the fixed and final conclusion that
the same system of treatment is all that is needed
to make any and all land productive. The fact
that Terry’s land (if equal to the nearby New York
land) contained two thousand three hundred
pounds of phosphorus in the plowed soil of an
acre when he began to work it out, while the soil
ot the Tennessee “Barrens’’ contains only about

310

|
|
|

AN AWAKENING DREAM 311

one hundred pounds, does not disturb him or mod-
ify his opinion so long as his personal experience is
limited to his own land.

‘Terry’s problem was easier than Mr. West’s
on his Virginia farm, where the soil is acid and
hence limestone must be used liberally in order
that clover and other legumes may be grown suc-
cessfully. Even the supply of phosphorus and
other mineral elements is probably greater in Ter-
ry’s farm in northeastern Ohio than in the soil of
Westover.

“Our problem is even more difficult, because we
must not only increase the supply of active organic
matter, although we have a reserve of old humus
far above that contained in the Terry or West
farms; but in addition we need more limestone than
Mr. West and then we must add the phosphorus.
Of course the surface washing is a serious factor
on Westover, but perhaps our tight clay subsoil is
worse.

“But I learned at least two things that I shall
try to profit by. One of these was from Gov-
ernor Hoard’s lecture on ‘Cows Versus Cows, and
the man behind the cow;’ and the other is that we
must do more work on the land.”’

“Oh, Percy, I am so sorry you went. How can
you possibly do more work than you have been do-
ing ?”’

“IT may need to hire more,” he replied; ‘“‘and, of
course, that will further increase our expenses, but,
it will surely pay to do well what we try to do.”

‘When does my boy expect to get married?”’ she
asked, softly, as she gently stroked his hair.

“T am married,” he replied.

She looked at him in wonder.

“Mother, mine, I thought that you knew I was
married.”

312 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

‘Your face is blank sincerity, as usual,’ she said
smiling, “but you never deceive me with your voice.
Your voice reveals every attempt at deception. Tell
me what you mean.”’

His voice was sincere now. ‘I am married to a
farm and laboring together with God. After hear-
ing Terry’s talk, | am more than ever determined
to continue to do my part, working in the light as
He gives me the power to see the light.”

‘Percy, dear,” she asked, ‘‘did you know the
bride whose wedding cards you received yester-
day?”

‘Don’t you remember what I told you of Ade-
laide West, Mr. West’s daughter?” he queried.

“IT thought so,’ said the mother. She stepped
to Percy’s home-made desk, and from one of the
pigeon holes, drew out a bunch of letters, and se-
lected the top and bottom letters from the pile.

‘Here are the first and last letters you have re-
ceived from Mr. West. Did you ever see this?”
She drew out a crumpled piece of paper and placed
it in his hand.

“Her Grandma has not consented,’ he read.
‘What does that mean?”

‘“T do not know and I did not know when I read
it three years ago. It came in your first letter from
Mr. West. I thought you had not found it in the
envelope, but you gave me the letter to read and I
found it. I left it in the letter, but never till to-day
did I feel that I ought to mention it to you. Yes-
terday you received a letter with two cards; but you
read only one of them to me.”

“But I saw the other was only the wedding an-
nouncement, and I left them both in the letter for
you to read.”

‘‘And I read them both,” she said. ‘‘Read this.”

Percy took the card and slowly read: |

AN AWAKENING DREAM 313
far. and Fars. Clarence Voit

Announce the marriage of their daughter
Amelia Louise
to
jrofessor aul Strongworth Barstow

She watched his face but saw no sign. She kiss-
ed his forehead and then pointed to the writing,
“With Grandma’s Compliments,” saying, ‘“‘I do not
know what this means, but I thought my boy might
be getting too careless, when he fails to read even the
wedding announcement of college professors, sent
to him by such a good friend as Grandma West
may intend to be.”’

Percy looked into his mother’s face as if to read
her thoughts.

“T think I understand what you have in mind,”
he said. ‘Mr. West has mentioned once or twice
that Adelaide was teaching school, but I supposed
that she was trying to earn enough to buy
her own wedding outfit.”

‘Perhaps that is true,’’ replied the mother, ‘‘and
perhaps she is already married or soon to be mar-
ried; but I thought you ought to know that she
had not married Professor Barstow, lest you might
allude to it in your letters to Mr. West.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

Honey WitTHoutT Wax
« % ELL, I reckon the cowboy’s gone
back to ’tend to his cows,’’ remark-
ed the grandmother to Adelaide,
as she returned from taking Percy
to Blue Mound and found the old
lady sitting on the lawn bench ap-
parently enjoying the mild late November weather.
‘Did you leave him at the station or see him off ?”

“Neither,” Adelaide replied, sitting down beside
her. ‘The train was late, and he insisted on com-
ing back with me to the first turn, and then stood
and watched till I came within sight of home at the
next turn. I doubt if he is back to the station yet.”

‘He reminds me, Pet, of the Latin definition you
gave for sincere,’ remarked the grandmother.
‘Pure honey without wax, wasn’t it?”

‘Oh no, Grandma. Not pure honey. It says
nothing about honey. Sine is the Latin for with-
out, and cera means wax; so that our word sincere,
taken literally from the Latin, means without wax.”

“Oh yes, I see now; but let me tell you, Ade-
laide, I think that professor of yours is right smart
wax.”

“Why, Grandma! I never heard you say such
a thing. You know papa and mamma like Pro-
fessor Barstow, and [ think I like him too, and,—
and he has papa’s consent, and mamma’s consent.”

“Well, you never heard me say such a thing be-
fore and you won’t ever hear it again, but he hasn’t
got my consent. [ think he’s some wax, but I reckon
you think he’s some honey, and I know he thinks
he’s some punk’ns. Of course, your father would

314

HONEY WITHOUT WAX 315

like an English or Scottish nobleman for a son-in-
law, or at least a college professor with a string of
ancestry reaching across the water; but the Henry’s
prefer to make their own reputations as they go
along, and | doubt if Patrick ever saw England or
Scotland. I tell you, Adelaide, a pound of gump-
tion will make a better husband than a shipload of
ancestry, and I just hope you will more than like
your husband, that’s all.”

With that the old lady arose and walked to the

house.

CHAPTER XT
INSPIRATION

WESTOVER,
March 14, 1907.
Mr. Percy Johnston,
Heart-of-Egypt, II.

Y Dear FRIEND:—We were delight-
ed to receive your interesting letter
of March 2, describing the Farm-
er’s Institute. I have been to two
such meetings in Virginia, but they
are devoted to fruit and truck and

dairying, and no one seems to know much about
our soils. I appreciate more and more every year
the absolute knowledge you helped me to secure
concerning Westover, where we had been working
in the dark for two centuries. I am sure you will
succeed on Poorland Farm, —just as confident as any
one can be in advance of actual achievement; and I
expect to see the time when Richland Farm will be
a more appropriate name.

I only wish you could see my alfalfa. I have been
seeding more every year and now have sixty acres.
It has come through winter in fine condition and it
will be a fine sight by Easter. Here’s a standing
invitation to take Easter dinner with us, or any
other dinner, for that matter, if you ever come
Fast.

I am planning to sow about forty acres more al-
falfa this year. A writer for the Breeder's Ga-
zette visited us last summer, and he said some of
our alfalfa was as good as any he had ever seen in
California. He-said ground limestone was plainly

316

INSPIRATION 317

what we need for alfalfa at Westover, but’ he
thought some phosphorus would also help on the
less rolling areas, where the alfalfa is not so good
as where you found more phosphorus.

I can get ground limestone for $2.90 a ton now,
delivered at Blue Mound in bulk in carload lots. We
are hoping to get it still lower, and I think we will,
for some of the big lime manufacturers, such as the
company at Riverton, are making plans to furnish
ground limestone; and the railroad companies are
likely to make better rates, or the State will do so
for them.

It is truly a lamentable situation, when our hills
and mountains are full of al! sorts of limestone,
and our exhausted lands are crying for that more
than anything else. We understand, even better
than you, that everybody is poor in a country where
the land is poor; and it should be to the greatest
interest of the railroad companies as well as to all
other industries, to unite in an effort to make it
possible for every landowner to apply large
amounts of limestone to his land,—the more the
better,—and no one should exvect any large profit
from the business; but wait till the benefit is pro-
duced on the land,—wait till the farmer has his in-
creased crops, and some money from the sale of
those crops. Then the railroads can make profit
hauling those crops to market and hauling back the
necessary supplies, and even the luxuries, which the
farmer’s money will enable him to buy and pay for.
Then the factory wheels will turn; for, as you told
us, the Secretary of Agriculture reports that eighty-
six per cent. of all the manufactured products are
made from agricultural raw materials.

There is no danger but what the railroads and
manufacturers and commercial people will get their
share out of the produce from the farms; but it is

318 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

absolutely sure that, when the farms fail to pro-
duce, then there is no profit for any of them, and
the last man to starve out will be the farmer him-
self, for he can live on what he raises even though
he has nothing left to sell.

We are all well. My son Charles is still book-
keeping for a Richmond firm, but he is becoming
greatly interested in my alfalfa, and says he some-
times wishes he had taken an agricultural course in-
stead of the literary at college. His grandmother
says she reckons the agricultural college could give
him about all the literature he needs keeping books
for a hides and tallow wholesale company; and I
am coming to believe that she is about right. I
still remember that the dative of indirect object is
used with most Latin verbs compounded with ad,
ante, con, in, inter, ob, post, pre, pro, sub, and super,
and sometimes circum; but it would have been just
as easy for me to have learned forty years ago that
the essential elements of plant food are carbon,
oxygen, and hydrogen; nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium; magnesium, calcium, iron, and sulfur;
and possibly chlorin; and I am sure that the cul-
ture of Greek roots and a knowledge of Latin
compounds have been of less value to me during
the forty years than the culture of alfalfa roots and
even a meager knowledge of plant-food compounds
have been during the last three years.

Adelaide is teaching; Frank is in the academy;
and the younger children are all in school.

We shall always be glad to hear from you.

Very respectfully yours, |
CHARLES WEST.

“That is an exceptionally good letter,’”’ said Mrs.
Johnston, as Percy finished reading.
“Not for Mr. West,” he replied. ‘His letters

INSPIRATION 319

are always good, always helpful and encouraging,
almost an inspiration to me. Mr. West is in many
Ways a very exceptional man. If he had not been
tied down all his life to a so-called worn-out farm
of a thousand acres, he might just as well have
been the Governor of the State. Even in spite of
himself he has been practically forced to accept
some very responsible public offices, but the finan-
cial sacrifice was too great to permit his retaining
them very long. I never realized until I was near-
ly through college that the trustees of our own
University devote a large amount of time to that
public service with no financial remuneration what-
ever. They are merely reimbursed for their actual
and necessary travelling expenses.”’

“Well, if I were a young man about your age,
this letter would be an inspiration to me,”’ said his
mother.

“You mean his suggestion about changing the
name of our farm?”

“No, I mean his possible suggestion about chang-
ing the name of his daughter.”’

Percy was silent.

‘How can I tell anything from your blank face?
Why do you not speak?”

“You will have to show me,” said Percy.

‘Will you accept his invitation?”

“Oh, Mr. West always closes his letters with an
invitation for me to visit them if I ever come East.
There is nothing exceptional or unusual in that.”

‘The letter is very exceptional,’ she repeated,
‘insomuch that if there is no understanding there
is no misunderstanding, and if there is some mis-
understanding there was no intention. When Mrs.
Barton says: ‘Do come over when you can,’ there
is no invitation intended and no acceptance expect-
ed; but when Mrs. McKnight says: ‘Can’t you

320 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

and your son come over and take supper with us
Thursday evening,’—well that is an invitation to
come. In the case of Mr. West’s letter, perhaps
you had an invitation to spend the Easter vacation
at Westover when his daughter will be at home, —
and perhaps not.”

Percy was silent and his mother quietly waited.

‘In any case,” he said, “I cannot afford to go
this spring. We never were so short of funds. I
almost begrudged the railroad fare I paid to go to
the Institute.”

‘T have agreed to agree with you regarding the
matter of hiring more help on the farm if you need
it,’ she said; “for it is easily possible to lose by
saving. There are some things which should never
be influenced by financial considerations. It is more
than three years since your Eastern trip. You
need a rest and a change. It would be entirely
commonplace for you to spend the Easter time in
Virginia. You ought to see the country in the
spring; and you ought especially to be interested in
Mr. West’s sixty acres of alfalfa. Expectations
are always followed either by realization or by dis-
appointment, either of which my noble son can
bear.”

Her fingers passed through his hair as she kissed
his forehead.

‘The only question is, whether you would enjoy
a visit to Westover,’ she continued. ‘You have
insisted that the Winterbine deposit remain in my
name, but I have written and signed a check against
that reserve for $100, and you have only to fill in
the date and draw the amount at the County Seat
whenever you wish. If you go, express my regards
to the ladies, and especially remember me to the
grandmother.”’

CHAPTER XLI
THE KINDERGARTEN

HEART-OF-EGYPT,
November g, 1909.
Hon. James J. Hill,
Great Northern Railroad Company,
St. Paul, Minnesota.

Y Dear Sir:—I have read with very
great interest your article in the No-
vember World’s Work on ‘‘What
We Must Do to be Fed.” I won-
der if you read The American
Farm Review! In the editorial

columns of that journal, issue of October 28, 1909,
occurs the following:

‘“The pessimist always assumes that every man
who quits farming for some other business does so
because there is something the matter with the
farm. Mr. James J. Hill has recently considered
the question and decided that, unless the farmer
and his family can be confined on the land and be
compelled to do better work than they have been
doing, the balance of the population must starve
to death. The bug-a-boo of impending decadence
raised by such talk is based upon a wrong assump-
tion, inadequate statistics, and a failure to com-
prehend the evolutional movement in agriculture.”

The evolutional movement means, of course, that
we are different from other people. Have not
England, Germany and France run their lands
down until they produce only fourteen bushels of
wheat per acre and have we not steadily built ours
up to an average yield of thirty bushels? Other

321

q22 THE STORY OF THE So

peoples wear out their soil because they fail to have
part in the evolutional movement; whereas, did we
not come to America and at once begin to make
our rich land richer than it ever was in the virgin
state? Do you not know, Sir, that the oldest lands
in America are now the richest, most productive,
and most valuable? We admit, of course, that the
Bureau of Soils of the United States Department
of Agriculture reports the common level upland
loam soil of St. Mary county, Maryland, to be
valued at $1 to $3 an acre, and the same kind of
land in Prince George county, adjoining the Dis-
trict of Columbia, to be worth $1.50 to $5; but do
you not know the American evolutional movement
could easily move all those decimal points two
places and at once make those values read from
$100 to $500 an acre. And likewise, it would be
a very simple matter to change the yield of corn in
Georgia from eleven bushels per acre and have it
read one hundred and ten bushels. Why not, if an
acre of corn in the adjoining State of South Caro-
lina has produced two hundred and _ thirty-nine
bushels in one season? Do you not see that this
simple evolution would also put plate glass in the
thousands of windowless homes now inhabited by
human beings, both white and colored, in the State
of Georgia?

There is another phase of this evolutional move-
ment which should not be overlooked. ‘There is al-
ready fast developing in this country a class of
people who can live and grow fat on hot air, and
they will tell you that your only trouble is poor
digestion, and they are glad that they can see the
bright side of things and enjoy life in this glorious
country, assured that the future will take care of
itself. Have not all other great agricultural coun-
tries rapidly gotten into this evolutional movement

THE KINDERGARTEN 323

until all their people live on Easy Street?

I have a letter from a missionary in China, a
former schoolmate, Clarence Robertson, who re-
signed the position of Assistant Professor of me-
chanical engineering in Purdue University in order
to accept in the largest sense the Master’s specific
invitation to “Go ye, therefore, and teach all na-
tions.”’

This letter was written in February, 1907, and
contained the following statement regarding the
famine district in which the writer was located:

‘At the present time the only practical thing to
do is to let four hundred thousand people starve,
and try to get seed grain for the remainder to plant
their spring crops.”’

I think we have failed utterly, Mr. Hill, to lay
special emphasis upon either the evolutional or the
emotional in agriculture. Is it not probable that a
superabundance of emotion would even permit the
constitution to wave the bread requirement in the
bread-and-water-with-love diet? As a cure for
pessimism the emotional tonic is strongly recom-
mended.

On the other hand, there are some people who
are even too emotional, people who are inclined to
sit up and take notice when the mathematics and
statistics are spread out in a clear light and plainly
reveal the fact that the time is near at hand when
their children may lack for bread. (They already
lack for meat and milk and eggs in many places).
To allay any feeling of this sort that might tend to
excite those who are so emotional as even to love
their own grandchildren, some sort of soothing
syrup should be administered. A preparation put
out by the Chief of the United States Bureau of
Soils and fully endorsed by the great optimist, the
Secretary of Agriculture, is recommended as an

324 THE STORY OF ‘THE SOIL

article very much superior to Mrs. Winslow’s. As
a moderate dose for an adult, read the following
extracts from pages 66, 78, and 80 of Bureau of
Soils Bulletin 55 (1909), by the Chief of the
Bureau:

‘*The soil is the one indestructible, immutable as-
set that the nation possesses. It is the one resource
that cannot be exhausted; that cannot be used up.”’

“From the modern conception of the nature and
purpose of the soil it is evident that it cannot wear
out, that so far as the mineral food is concerned it
will continue automatically to supply adequate quan-
tities of the mineral plant foods for crops.”

‘“As we see it now, the main cause of infertile
soils or the deterioration of soils is the improper
sanitary conditions originally present in the soil or
arising from our injudicious culture and rotation
of crops. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to
work out the principles which govern the proper
rotation for any particular soil.”’

‘‘As a national asset the soil is safe as a means
of feeding mankind for untold ages to come. So
far as our investigations show, the soil will not be
exhausted of any one or all of its mineral plant
food constituents. If the coal and iron give out,
as it is predicted they will before long, the soil can
be depended on to furnish food, light, heat, and habi-
tation not only for the present population but for
an enormously larger population than the word
has at present.”

“Personally, I take a most hopeful view of the
situation as respects the soil resources of our coun-
try and of the world at large. I cannot bring my-
self to believe that the discouraging reports that
have been issued from time to time as to the
threatened deterioration of our soils, as to the ex-
haustion of any particular element of fertility, will

THE KINDERGARTEN aad

ever be realized.”

Sweeten to taste, and repeat the dose if neces-
sary.
If you desire mathematical proof that we can al-
Ways continue to take definite and measurable
amounts of plant food away from the limited sup-
plies still remaining in our American soils and still
have enough left to supply the needs of all future
crops, let it be understood:

That y = oe
Then «xy = x
And «xy—y = x—y’
Or y (x—y) = (xty) (xy)
Hence, y = xty
Thus, y = 2y
Therefore, 1 = 2

Now cube both sides of the last equasion and:.
1-8

Multiply by one hundred and sixty, the number
of pounds of phosphorus still remaining in the
common upland soil of Southern Maryland, and

behold:
160 = 1280

Thus the soil again becomes the equal of the
$200 corn belt land,—Q. E. D.

Fortunately, Mr. Hill, you have not found it
“exceedingly dificult to work out the principles
which govern the proper rotation’ that “actually
enriches the land.”’

Seriously, I hope you will permit me to take this
opportunity to say that I deplore, as must all right-

326 THE) STORY OFTHE SOL

minded and clear-thinking men, the occasional petty
criticisms which attribute to you some selfish motive
for the honest and noble stand you have taken con-
cerning the importance of immediate action and of
a wide-spread, far-reaching, and generally effective
movement looking toward, not the conservation,
but the restoration, and permanent preservation of
American soils. According to the Scriptures, there
is a sin which God, Himself, will not forgive;
namely, the sin of imputing bad motives to the one
who does right from motives only good and pure.

Thoughts that deserve a place of honor in Amer-
ican history you have expressed in the following
words:

“The farm is the basis of all industry, but for
many years this country has made the mistake of
unduly assisting manufacture, commerce, and other
activities that center in cities, at the expense of the
farm: The result is a neglected system of agri-
culture and the decline of the farming interest. But
all these other activities are founded upon the ag-
ricultural growth of the nation and must continue
to depend upon it. Every manufacturer, every
merchant, every business man, and every good citt-
zen is deeply interested in maintaining the growth
and development of our agricultural resources.
Herein lies the true secret of our anxious interest
in agricultural methods; because, in the long run,
they mean life or death to future millions; who are
no strangers or invaders, but our own children’s
children, and who will pass judgment upon us ac-
cording to what we have made of the world in which
their lot is to be cast.”

True and noble thoughts are these, from the mas-
ter mind of a great statesman; for there are states-
men who neither grace nor disgrace the Halls of
Congress,

THE KINDERGARTEN 327

Your article contains twenty-eight pages of whole-
some reading matter and instructive illustrations,
and, in addition, about one page, I regret to say, of
misinformation that will do much to destroy your
otherwise valuable contribution to agricultural lit-
erature.

Briefly you have shown very clearly and very
correctly that the present practice of agriculture in
America tends toward land ruin, and that, with our
rapidily increasing population, with continued de-
pletion of our vast areas of cultivated soils, and
with no possibility of any large extension of well-
watered arable lands, we are already facing the
serious problem of providing sufficient food for our
own people.

You summarize your conclusions along this line
in the following words:

‘We have to provide for a contingency not dis-
tant from us by nearly a generation, but already
present. The food condition presses upon us now.
The shortage has begun. Witness the great fall in
wheat exports and the rise of prices. Obviously it
is time to quit speculating about what may occur
even twenty or thirty years hence, and begin to take
thought for the morrow. As far as our food sup-
ply is concerned, right now the lean years have be-
gun.”

It is certain that the time is near when our food
supplies shall become inadequate if our present
practices continue, but the enforced reduction in ani-
mal products will at least postpone the time of actual
famine in America. I keep in mind always that we
are feeding much grain to domestic animals, an ex-
tremely wasteful practice so far as economy of hu-
man food is concerned; because, as an average, ani-
mals return in meat and milk not more than one-
fifth as much food value as they destroy in the cor-

328 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

responding grain consumed; and, as we gradually
reduce the amounts of grain that are fed to cattle,
sheep, and swine, we shall also gradually increase
our human food supply. Ultimately our milk-pro-
ducing and meat-producing animals will be fed only
the grass grown upon the nonarable lands and possi-
bly some refused forage not suitable for human
food or more valuable for green manure, unless we
modify our present practice and tendency, which we
can do if the proper influences are exerted by the in-
telligent people of this country, and thus make possi-
ble the continuation of high standards of living for
all our people.

I keep in mind, too, that much of the food taken
into the average American kitchen is wasted, and
that progress in the science of feeding the man will
ultimately prevent this waste and, by adding to this
better preparation and combination of foods, will
increase to some extent the nutritive value of our
present food supply.

The serious fact remains, however, that our old-
er lands are decreasing in productive power and, in
spite of what may be accomplished by such methods
of conservation, we are now facing a rapidly ap-
proaching shortage of food supplies for the rapidly
increasing population of these United States; and
you have put me and all other American citizens un-
der lasting obligations to you for your frankness,
good sense, and true patriotism in thus pointing out
in advance our great national weakness.

According to the statistics of the United States
Government, a comparison of the last five years re-
ported in this century with the last five years of the
old country, shows, by these two five-year averages,
that our annual production of wheat has increased
from about five hundred million to seven hundred
million bushels; that our annual production of corn

THE KINDERGARTEN 329

has increased from two and one-quarter billion to two
and three-quarter billion bushels; that our wheat ex-
ports have decreased from thirty-seven per cent. to
seventeen per cent. of our total production; that
our corn exports have decreased from nine per cent.
to three per cent. of our total production; and yet
the average price of wheat, by the five-year periods,
has increased thirty-one per cent., and the aver-
age price of corn has increased ninety-one per cent.,
during the same period.

The latest Year Book of the Department of Ag-
riculture (1908) furnishes the average yields of
wheat and corn for four successive ten-year periods,
from 1866 to 1905. By combining these into two
twenty-year periods this record of forty years shows
that the average yield of wheat for the United
States increased one bushel per acre, while the aver-
age yield of corn decreased one and one-half bushels
per acre, according to these two twenty-year aver-
ages.

If we consider only the statistics for the North-
Central states, extending from Ohio to Kansas and
from ‘‘Egypt’”’ to Canada, the same forty-year rec-
ord shows the average yield of wheat to have in-
creased one-half bushel per acre, while the average
yield of corn decreased two bushels per acre.

Thus, nothwithstanding the great areas of rich
virgin soils brought under cultivation in the West
and Northwest during the last forty years, notwith-
standing the abandonment of great areas of worn-
out lands in the East and Southeast during the same
years, nothwithstanding the enormous extention of
dredge ditching and tile drainage, and, notwith-
standing the marked improvement in seed and in
the implements of cultivation, the average yield per
acre of the two great grain crops of the United
States has not even been maintained, the decrease in

330 THE SPORY OF THE SOIL

corn being greater than the increase in wheat, and
not only for the entire United States, but also for
the great new states of the corn belt and wheat belt.

(Seasonal variations are so great that shorter
periods than twenty-year averages cannot be con-
sidered trustworthy for yield per acre).

Meanwhile, the total population of the United
States increased from thirty-eight millions in 1870
to seventy-six millions in 1900, or an increase of
one hundred per cent. in thirty years; and the only
means by which we have been able to feed this in-
crease in population has been by increasing our
acreage of cultivated crops and by decreasing our
exportation of foodstuffs; and I need not remind
you that the limit to our relief is near in both of
these directions. But have we decreased our ex-
portation of phosphate? Oh no. On the contrary,
under the soothing influence of the most pleasing
and acceptable doctrine that our soil is an inde-
structible, immutable asset, which cannot be deplet-
ed, our exportation of rock phosphate has increased
during the years of the present century from six
hundred and ninety thousand tons in rgoo, to one
million three hundred and thirty thousand tons in
1908, an increase of practically one hundred per
cent., in accordance with the published reports of
the United States Geological Survey.

But I am writing to you, Mr. Hill, not only to
thank you for what you have said and shown in the
twenty-eight pages above referred to, but also in
part to repay my obligation to you by giving you
some correct information, which I am altogether
confident you will appreciate; namely, that, while
you are a graduate student or past master in your
knowledge of the supply and demand of the world’s
markets, you are just entering the kindergarten class
in the study of soil fertility, as witness the following

THE KINDERGARTEN 331

extracts from the one erroneous page of your
article:

“Right methods of farming, without which no ag-
ricultural country such as this can hope to remain
prosperous, or even to escape eventual poverty, are
not complicated and are within the reach of the
most modest means. ‘They include a study of soils
and seeds, so as to adapt the one to the other; a di-
versification of industry, including the cultivation of
different crops and the raising of live stock; a care-
ful rotation of crops, so that the land will not be
worn out by successive years of single cropping; in-
telligent fertilizing, by-the system of rotation, by
cultivating leguminous plants, and, above all, by the
economy and use of every particle of fertilizing ma-
terial from stock barns and yards; a careful selec-
tion of grain used for seed; and, first of all per-
haps in importance, the substitution of the small
farm, thoroughly tilled, for the large farm, with its
weeds, its neglected corners, its abused soil, and its
thin product. This will make room for the new
population whose added product will help to re-
store our place as an exporter of foodstufts. Let
us set these simple principles of the new method
out again in order:

“First—The farmer must cultivate no more land
than he can till thoroughly. With less labor he
will get more results. Official statistics show that
the net profit from one crop of twenty bushels of
wheat to the acre is as great as that from two of
sixteen, after original cost of production has been
paid.

“Second—There must be rotation of crops. Ten
years of single cropping will pretty nearly wear out
any but the richest soil. A proper three or five-

ear rotation of crops actually enriches the land.

“Third—There must be soil renovation by fer-

332. THE STORY OF THE SOIL

tilizing; and the best fertilizer is that provided by
nature herself—barnyard manure. Every farmer
can and should keep some cattle, sheep, and hogs on
his place. The farmer and his land cannot prosper
until stock-raising becomes an inseparable part of
agriculture. Of all forage fed to live stock at least
one-third in cash value remains on the land in the
form of manure that soon restores worn-out soil to
fertility and keeps good land from deteriorating.
By this system the farm may be made and kept a
source of perpetual wealth.”

Your first principle will be agreed to and em-
phasized by all; but it should be kept in mind that
the large farms are frequently better tilled than
the small farms. The $200 land in the corn belt is
usually ‘“‘worked for all that’s in it”. It is tile-
drained and well cultivated, and the best of seed is
used. If more thorough tillage would increase the
profits, these corn-belt farmers would certainly prac-
tice it.

It ought to be known (1) that as an average of
six years the Illinois Experiment Station produced
seventy and three-tenths bushels of corn per acre
with the ordinary four cultivations, and only seventy-
two and eight-tenths bushels with additional culti-
vation even up to eight times; and (2) that the
average yield of corn in India on irrigated land
varies from seven bushels in poor years to twelve
bushels in good seasons, and this is where the aver-
age farm is about three acres in size.

One Illinois farmer with a four-horse team raises
more corn than ten Georgia farmers with a mule a
piece on the same total acreage. Fertile soil and
competent labor are the great essentials in crop
production. A mere increase in country population
does not increase the productive power of the soil.
The farms down here in “Egypt” average much

THE KINDERGARTEN 333

smaller than those in the corn belt of Illinois, but
our “Egyptian” farms are nevertheless poorly till-
ed as a rule and some of them are already becom-
ing abandoned for agricultural purposes.

Certainly the land should always be well tilled,
but tillage makes the soil poorer, not richer. Till-
age liberates plant food but adds none. “‘A little
farm well tilled” is alright if well manured, but it
should not be forgotten that the men who consider
‘Ten Acres Enough” are market gardners, or truck
farmers, who are not satisfied until in the course of
six or eight years they have applied to their land
about two hundred tons of manure per acre, all
made from crops grown on other lands.

All the manure produced in all the states would
provide only thirty tons per acre for the farm lands
of Illinois. In round numbers there are eighty mil-
lion cattle and horses in the United States, and our
annual corn crop is harvested from one hundred
million acres. All the manure produced by all do-
mestic animals would barely fertilize the corn lands
with ten tons per acre if none whatever were lost or
wasted; and, if all farm animals were figured on the
basis of cattle, there is only one head for each ten
acres of farm land in the United States.

Your second principle is, that ‘‘a proper three or
five-year rotation of crops actually enriches the
land.”

I hope the God of truth and a long-suffering,
misguided people will forgive you for that false
teaching. If there is any one practice the value of
which is fully understood by the farmers and land-
owners in the Eastern states and in all old agricul-
tural countries, it is the practice of crop rotation.
Indeed, the rotation of crops is much more common
and much better understood and much more fully
appreciated in the East than it is in the corn belt.

334 #THE STORY OF THE SOIL

Practically all we know of crop rotation we have
learned from the East. Every old depleted agricul-
tural country has worn out the soil by good systems
of crop rotation. I once took a legal option of an

“abandoned” farm in Maryland (beautiful loca-
tion, two miles from a railroad station, gently un-
dulating upland loam, at $10 per acre) that had
been worn out under a four-year rotation of corn,
wheat, meadow, and pasture. A few acres of to-
bacco were usually grown in one corner of the corn
field, and clover and timothy were regularly used
for meadow and pasture. Wheat, tobacco, and
live-stock were sold, and manure was applied for
tobacco and so far as possible for corn also. In
the later years of the system the ordinary commer-
cial fertilizer was also applied for the wheat at the
usual rate of two hundred pounds per acre, this
having become a “‘necessity”’ toward the end of this
slow but sure system of land ruin.

The “‘simple principles” of your ‘‘new method’
were understood and practiced in Roman agriculture
two thousand years ago; and they included not only
thorough tillage, careful seed selection, regular crop
rotation, and the use of farm manure, but also the
use of green manures. ‘Thus Cato wrote:

‘Take care to have your wheat weeded twice—
with the hoe, and also by hand.”

And again Cato wrote:

‘‘Wherein does a good system of agriculture con-
sist? In the first place, in thorough plowing; in the
second place, in thorough plowing; and, in the third
place, in manuring.’

Varro, who lived at the same time as Cato, wrote

as follows:

“The land must rest every second year, or be
sown with lighter kinds of seeds, which prove less
exhausting to the soil. A field is not sown entirely

THE KINDERGARTEN 335

for the crop which is to be obtained the same year,
but partly for the effect to be produced in the fol-
lowing; because there are many plants which, when
cut down and left on the land, improve the soil.
Thus lupines, for instance, are plowed into a poor
soil in lieu of manure. Horse manure is about the
best suited for meadow land, and so in general is
that of beasts of burden fed on barley; for manure
made from this cereal makes the grass grow luxuri-
antly.”’
Virgil wrote in his Geogics:

“Still will the seeds, tho chosen with toilsome pains,
Degenerate, if man’s industrious hand
Cull not each year the largest and the best.”’

It was in 1859 that Baron von Liebig wrote as
follows, regarding these and similar ancient teach-
ings:

‘All these rules had, as history tells us, only a
temporary effect; they hastened the decay of Ro-
man agriculture; and the farmer ultimately found
that he had exhausted all his expedients to keep his
fields fruitful and reap remunerative crops from
them. Even in Columella’s time, the produce of the
land was only fourfold. It is not the land itself
that constitutes the farmer’s wealth, but it is in the
constituents of the soil, which serve for the nutri-
tion of plants, that this wealth truly consists.”’

Suppose, Mr. Hill, that a successful American
farmer should tell you that your bank account will
actually increase if you will give from three to five
members of your rie the privilege of writing
checks instead of following the single checking sys-
tem! ‘But,’ you will ask, “doesn’t rotation pro-
duce a larger aggregate yield of crops than the sin-
gle crop system?’’ Certainly, and, likewise, a ro-

336 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

tation of the check book will produce a larger ag-
gregate of the checks written; but the ultimate effect
on the bank deposit is the same as on the natural
deposit of plant food in the soil, and finally the
checks will not be honored. Indeed, it would be a
fine sort of perpetual motion if we could actually en-
rich the soil by the simple rotation of crops, and
thus make something out of nothing.

Consider, for example, the common three-year
rotation, corn, wheat, and clover. A fifty-bushel
crop of corn removes twelve pounds of phosphorus
from the soil; the twenty-five bushel wheat crop
draws out eight pounds; and then the two-ton crop
of clover withdraws ten pounds, making thirty
pounds required for this simple rotation. The most
common type of land in St. Mary county, Mary-
land, after two hundred years of farming, contains
phosphorus enough in the soil for five rotations of
this simple sort. Mathematically that is all the fur-
ther traffic in rotations that soil can bear. Agricul-
turally that soil has refused to bear any sort of
trafic, whether single or in rotations, and has been
abandoned for farm use except where fertilized.

These crops would remove from the soil one
hundred and twenty-four pounds of nitrogen in the
corn and wheat, and the roots and stubble of the
clover would contain forty pounds of nitrogen.
Now, if the soil furnishes seventy-six pounds of ni-
trogen to the corn crop and forty-eight pounds to
the wheat crop, will it furnish forty pounds to the
clover crop, or as much as remains in the roots and
stubble? If so, how does the rotation actually en-
rich the soil in nitrogen?

You will be interested to know that there are
many exact records of the effect upon the soil of the
rotation of crops. ‘This particular three-year rota-
tion has been followed at the Ohio Agricultural Ex-

THE KINDERGARTEN 337

periment Station for a dozen years, and the aver-
age yield of wheat has been, not twenty bushels, not
sixteen bushels, but eleven bushels per acre, where no
plant food was applied; although where farm
manure was used the wheat yielded twenty bushels,
and with manure and fine-ground natural rock
phosphate added the average yield of wheat for the
thirteen years has been more than _ twenty-six
bushels per acre. The corresponding yields for
corn are thirty-four, fifty-three and sixty-one bushels,
and for clover they are one and two-tenths, one and
six-tenths and two and two-tenths tons of hay per
acre.

You will wish to know also that the Ohio Station
has conducted a five-year rotation of corn, oats,
wheat, clover, and timothy for the last fifteen years,
both with and without the application of commer-
cial plant food. As an average of the fifteen years
the unfertilized and fertilized tracts have produced,
respectively:

30 and 48 bushels of corn

32 and s0 bushels of oats

11 and 27 bushels of wheat
.g and 1.6 tons of clover
1.3 and 1.8 tons of timothy

In 1908 the unfertilized land produced nine-
tenths ton of clover while land treated with farm
manure produced three and two-tenth tons per acre.

You will welcome the information that the aver-
age yield of wheat on an Illinois experiment field
down here in “‘Egypt,” in a four-year rotation, in-
cluding both cowpeas and clover, has been eleven
and one-half bushels on unfertilized land, fourteen
bushels where legume crops have been plowed un-
der, and twenty-seven bushels where limestone and

338 | THE STORY OF THE SOIL

phosphorus have been added with the legume crops
turned under; and that the aggregate value of the
four crops, corn, oats, wheat, and clover, from an-
other “Egyptian” farm, has been $25.97 per acre on
unfertilized land, and $54.24 where limestone and
phosphorus have been applied.

In your very busy and very successful railroad
experience, you may have overlooked the reports
of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, showing the results of a four-year rotation of
crops that has been conducted with very great care
for more than a quarter of a century. These, you
will agree, are exactly such absolute data as we
sorely need just now when facing the stupendous
problem of changing from an agricultural system
whose equal has never been known for rapidity of
soil exhaustion to a system which shall actually en-
rich the land. By averaging the results from the
first twelve years and also those from the second
twelve years, in this rotation of corn, oats, wheat,
and hay (clover and timothy), we find that the
yields have decreased as follows:

Cormudeereaped iy riihiithili ja: 34 per cent.
Dats \decneased |) aviihoaiy i 21 per cent:
Wheat decreased. (yi oui). 4 per cent.
blay, @eeredsed aah sa/ioia 29 per cent.

Appalling, is it not? It is the best information
America affords in answer to the question, Will the
rotation of crops actually enrich the land?

No, Sir. We cannot make crops nor bank ac-
counts out of nothing. ‘The rotation of crops does
not enrich the soil, does not even maintain the fer-
tility of the soil. On the contrary, the rotation of
crops, like the rotation of your check book, actually
depletes the soil more rapidly than the single sys-

THE KINDERGARTEN _ 339

tem; and, if you ever have your choice between two
farms of equal original fertility, one of which has
been cropped with wheat only, and the other with a
good three or five-year rotation, for fifty years, take
my advice and choose the ‘‘worn-out’”? wheat farm.
Then adopt a good system of cropping with a mod-
erate use of clover, and you will soon discover that
your land is not worn out, but ‘‘almos’ new lan’ ”’ as
a good Swede friend of mine reported who made
a similar choice. But beware of the land that has
been truly worn out under a good rotation, which
avoids the insects and diseases of the single crop
system, and also furnishes regularly a moderate
amount of clover roots which decay very rapidly
and thus stimulate the decomposition of the old hu-
mus and the liberation of mineral plant food from
the soil.

Perhaps you have heard of Rothamsted. If not,
your kindergarten teacher is at fault. A four-year
rotation of crops has been followed on Agdell field
for more than sixty years. An average of the crop
yields of the last twenty years reveals:

(1) That the yield of turnips has decreased
from ten tons to one-half ton per acre since 1848.

(2) That the yield of barley has decreased from
forty-six bushels to fourteen bushels since 1849.

(3) That the yield of clover has decreased from
two and eight-tenth tons to one-half ton since 1850.

(4) That the yield of wheat has decreased from
thirty bushels to twenty-four bushels since 1851,
wheat, grown once in four years, being the only crop
worth raising as an average of the last twenty years.

No, Sir. Neither optimism, nor ignorance, nor
bigotry, nor deception can controvert these facts.

Do you know that the people of India rotate
their crops? They do; and they use many legumes;
and some of their soils now contain only a trace of

340 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

phosphorus, too small to be determined in figures by
the chemist. Do you know there are more of our
own Aryan Race hungry in India than live in the
United States?

Do you know that Russia regularly practices a
three-year rotation and actually harvests only two
crops in three years, with one year of green man-
uring? Yes, and the average yield of wheat for
twenty years is only eight and one-quarter bushels
per acre.

Think on these things.

Your third principle is, that “‘of all forage fed
to live stock at least one-third in cash value re-
mains on the land in the form of manure that soon
restores worn-out soil to fertility and keeps good
land from deteriorating. By this system the farm
may be made and kept a source of perpetual wealth.”

I grieve with you; pity ’tis, ’tis not true.

No, Sir. Neither crops nor animals can be made
out of nothing, and no independent system of live-
stock farming can add to the soil a pound of any
element of plant food, aside from nitrogen, and
even this addition is due to the legume crops grown
and not to the live stock.

Under the best system of live-stock farming
about three-fourths of the nitrogen, three-fourths
of the phosphorus, and one-third of the organic
matter contained in the food consumed can be re-
turned to the land if the total excrements, both
solid and liquid, are saved without loss. Of course,
the produce used for bedding can all be returned,
but it could also be returned without live stock.

Under a good system of crop rotation with all
grain sold from the farm it is possible to return to
the soil more than one-third of the phosphorus and
more than one-half of the organic matter contained
in the crops, and even as much nitrogen as all of

THE KINDERGARTEN 341

the crops remove from the land in the grain sold.
Thus, with a four-year rotation of wheat, corn,
oats, and clover, and a catch crop of clover grown
with the wheat and turned under late the following
spring for corn, we may plow under three tons of
clover containing one hundred and twenty pounds
of nitrogen, in return for the one hundred and nine-
teen pounds removed from the soil for the twenty-
five bushels of wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and fifty
bushels of oats. These amounts of grain and the
two bushels of clover seed might be sold from the
farm, while the two and one-half tons of straw, one
and one-half tons of stalks, and three tons of clover
might be returned to the land. These amounts ag-
gregate seven tons of organic matter, or the equiva-
lent of seventeen tons of manure, measured by the
nitrogen content, or of twenty-four tons, measured
by the content of organic matter. To replace the
twenty-two pounds of phosphorus sold from the
farm in the grain of these four crops would require
the expenditure of sixty-six cents at present prices
for raw phosphate delivered at Heart-of-Egypt.

I have no doubt you will be glad to have your
attention called to the fact that the world does not
live wholly, or even largely, upon meat and milk.
Bread is the staff of life, and I note from your
W orld’s Work article that you prefer to have the
bread made of wheat. Thus, most farmers must
raise and sell grain and vegetables.

If no independent system of live-stock farming
can add a pound of phosphorus to the one hundred
and sixty pounds still remaining in the great body
of the level uplands constituting forty-one per cent.
of St. Mary county, and forty-five thousand seven
hundred and seventy acres of Prince George county,
Maryland, adjoining the District of Columbia, nor
even maintain the phosphorus supply in our good

342 THE STORY OF. THE SOIL

lands, then what must we do to be fed?

Manifestly, we should make large use of legume
crops for the production of farm manure or green
manure; and, manifestly, America should stop sell-
ing every year for five million dollars enough raw
phosphate for the production of one billion dollars
worth of corn, valued at the consumer’s price. How
long can we afford to give away a thousand million
for five million?

Do you know, Mr. Hill, that, at the Second Con-
servation Conference called by the President of the
United States, Doctor Van Hise, of the University
of Wisconsin was the only man to raise his voice in
the interest of the common soils of America? For
three days the statesman and experts discussed the
forests, forests, forests, and the waters, waters, and
the coal and iron; and for fifteen minutes President
Van Hise pleaded for the conservation of phos-
phate, the master key to all our material prosperity;
and he was called a crank with a hobby.

With deep respect, I am,

Very sincerely yours,
PERCY JOHNSTON.

“IT wish you could have seen the untreated check strips.”’

‘CHAPTER XLII
ADVANCE. INFORMATION
HEART-OF-EGyPT, November 14, 1909.

EAR father and mother: I can scarcely
realize that I have been an ‘“‘Egyptian”’
for almost two years. I feel that the
time has been shorter than two months
of school-teaching.

Percy is so encouraged with the
crops that I rejoice with him, although I could never
weep with him unless I weep for joy. He says the
crops needed only that I should stroll over the fields
with him; that they would grow rapidly if I only
looked at them. Think of it—I drove the mower to
cut hay, —not all of the 8o acres, to be sure, but I
cut where it yielded two tons per acre. That is on
No. 4, where Percy applied his first cars of lime-
stone. I wish you could have ‘seen the untreated
strips—no clover and only half a ton of weedy tim-
othy, while the rest of No. 4 and No. 6 were clean
hay of mixed alsike and timothy. Percy says that
No. 4 produced as much real hay last year as all the
rest of the farm has produced since he came, and.
that the hay crop this year is worth as much for feed
as all that has been harvested during the previous
five years; and the cattle and horses seem to agree
with him.

We sold our main lot of hogs for $654, and have
another lot to go later. We are getting so many
horses and cattle on the place, that we are going
out of the hog business.

Percy says that hogs belong more properly in the
corn belt, than in the wheat and fruit belt. You

343

344 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

know the year I came the corn crop was on No. 1,
which had never grown anything but corn, oats, and
wheat, so far as we can learn; and the corn was
so poor the hogs ate most of it in two months’ time.
During the same two months the price of hogs drop-
ped from 7 to 4% cents, so that the hogs were worth
no more after eating the corn crop than they were
before. :

Next year we are to have corn on No. 4, and
Percy says it will be the first time that corn has had
a ‘‘ghost of a show to make a decent crop”’ since he
bought the place. The spring before we were mar-
ried he reseeded that forty, sowing mixed alsike and
timothy. The clover came on finely, evidently be-
cause the scanty growth of clover the year before
had at least allowed the field to become thoroughly
infected with the clover bacteria. There was no
clover on the unlimed strip. So we say that lime-
stone and bacteria brought clover. The hay and
other feed has made manure enough so that No. 4
has been completely covered with six tons per acre,
and the phosphate has also been applied; so with ma-
nure and phosphate on clover ground we hope to
grow corn next year, if we have good weather.

The phosphate has also been put on some of the
other forties. I convinced him that the money will
pay a higher rate of interest in phosphate than it
would in the savings bank, even if he put it on before
manure and clover could be plowed under. The ex-
periments of several states show this very conclu-
sively.

The corn is on No. 3 this year and it is the best
crop in the six years. Percy says the “Terry Act”
(which means lots of work in preparing the land) 1s
some help, but he thinks the phosphate shows against
the check strips. The young wheat on No. 2 is look-
ing fine, and with both limestone and phosphate on

——

““But I cut where it yielded two tons per acre.’’

ADVANCE INFORMATION 345

that field and the extra work on the seed bed, we
hope for a better crop than we have ever grown on
a full forty; even though we must depend solely up-
on our reserve stock of nitrogen for the crop. We
are all about as jealous of that reserve stock of or-
ganic matter and nitrogen as we are of the Winter-
bine bank account.

I cannot forget how Percy tried to persuade me
to postpone our wedding for a year because, as he
said, the hogs had taken his corn crop and given
nothing in return for it; and above all how he ob-
jected to my reembursing the Winterbine reserve
from my teacher’s wages to the extent of $250,
which he had drawn in part to tide over the hard
times, and in part to come to see me that Easter.
But I am glad to have him still insist upon it that
that uncertain venture proved his best investment,
even if he does tease by adding that it paid one
hundred and fifty per cent. net profit at Winter-
bine.

We are selling some cows this fall,—trying to
weed out our herd by the Babcock test which shows
that “some cows don’t pay their board and keep,”
to quote Governor Hoard’s lecture on “Cows versus
Cows,” which Percy heard at Olney the winter Pro-
fessor Barstow was married. The “versus cows’’
are worth only $45.

I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer.
Sir Charles Henry is the dearest child, and his
grandmother insists upon it that it is better for me
to help Percy in the field with such light work as I
can do, and I am out for a few hours every day
when the weather is good. Percy’s mother is such
a dear. I am sure she could be no more sweet and
loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to
herself for so long that I was really afraid
she might not like to share him with me, but Percy

346 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

says that it was his mother who persuaded him to
make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she
hasn’t much use for either of us now, and that we are
likely to get jealous because Charles Henry gets so
much of her affection.

I forgot to tell you of Percy’s four-acre patch of
wheat. He said it is so long to wait till 1912 for his
first wheat crop on land that had grown clover at
least once during historic times that he thought he
would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat,
just to see how real wheat would look; or, as he
sometimes says, to see how wheat grows in Egypt
when it has a ghost of a chance.

He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood’s
pasture with limestone, phosphorus, and farm ma-
nure, did the “Terry Act” in preparing the seed
bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on Oc-
tober 17,—a little later than he likes to finish sow-
ing wheat. It came up with a good stand but did not
make very much fall growth, partly owing to the dry
weather. In the spring the man came across the
patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was
mighty small and he guessed it was “gone up,”’ al-
though it seemed to be all alive. Percy said that he
would not worry about it if it were alive because
the wheat would find something to please it when it
really woke up in the spring. I reckon it did, for a
neighbor passed on his way to town in early May
and called over the fence to Percy that his patch
of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well
the four acres yielded 129% bushels, or a little
more than thirty-two bushels per acre. Percy said if
he could have eighty acres of it and sell it for $1.18
a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it
would amount to twice the original cost of the land,
—and then some.

Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise “just

— =

ADVANCE INFORMATION 347

as good crops with good old farm manure,” and if
he could not build up his whole farm with farm
manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three
thousand tons for the first application. Mr. Bar-
ton then suggested that that was more than the whole
township produced. |

No. 5 has been in pasture for three years, clover
and grass having been seeded in 1906, even though
the wet weather had prevented the seeding of wheat
the fall before, and the ground was left too rough
for the mower. Percy hopes to have that forty
completely covered with manure by the time he will
be ready to apply the phosphate and plow it under
for the Ig11I corn crop.

Now your “Egyptian” son has just read over this
long, long letter, and he says that if I were a real
wise old farmer I would not begin to talk about re-
sults before a single forty acres of grain had had a
ghost of a chance to make a crop. He says that
every bushel of corn, oats, and wheat that this old
farm has produced during the last six years has been
wholly at the expense of the meager stock of re-
serve nitrogen still left in the soil after seventy-five
years of almost continuous effort to ‘work the land
for all that’s in it.”” He says that we have no right
to expect really good crops until after the second
rotation is completed, because the clover grown dur-
ing the first rotation does not have a fair show, the
limestone not yet being well mixed with the soil; the
phosphorus supply being inadequate, the inoculation
or infection being imperfect, and no provision what-
ever having been made to supply decaying organic
matter in advance of the first clover crop. I think
he is right as usual and I promise to give no more
advance information hereafter except upon inquiry,
at least not until 1918, when the first wheat crop
will be grown on land which has been twice in clover.

348 THE STORY OF THE SOIL

We are mighty sorry not to be able to be with you
for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but really we can-
not go to the expense; our house is so small (we just
must build a larger barn) and our home equipment
is so meager that, in the words which you will re-
member Percy told us his mother credited to Mrs.
Barton, I feel that as yet I must say,

‘Do come over when you can.”

Your happy, loving daughter,
ADELAIDE.

P. S.—Three big oil wells, belonging to the class
called ‘‘gushers,”’ have been struck about seven or
eight miles from Poorland Farm. We are all get-
ting interested except Percy. He says he does not
want any oil wells on his six rotation forties or in
the wood’s pasture, but he might let them bore in
the twelve-acre orchard, which has never produced
but one crop that paid for itself, and the profit from
that is about all gone for the later years of spray-
ing.

The first oil boom in Illinois was at Casey where
they struck oil six or eight years ago, but they say
the wells there are dry already and they have to go
back to farming again to get a living. Of course if
we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten
acres and get a royalty of $400 a day for a few
years, it would help out nicely, but the oil business is
uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote Percy,
“the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which
her children must always draw their nourishment.”

Some have spoken to Percy about the coal right,
but he says if there are ten thousand tons of coal per
acre under Poorland Farm, he will save it for
Charles Henry before he will allow anyone else to
take it out for less than ten cents a ton. He says
that just because the United States Government was
generous enough to give the settler three hundred

a
=

Limestone and raw rock phosphate make the difference between clover and no clover.

ADVANCE INFORMATION 349

and twenty acres of land, and foolish enough to
throw in with it three million tons of coal if it hap-
pened to lie beneath, is no reason why he should sell
it to any coal company or coal trust at the rate of
ten tons for one cent, which is the same as ten dol-
lars per acre for the coal right. He says if Uncle
Sam ever wants to assume his rightful ownership of
all coal, phosphate deposits, or other minerals whose
conservation and proper use is essential to the con-
tinued prosperity of all the people, then our coal
shall be his; but, if he does not want it then he will
consider nothing less than leasing on the basis of a
royalty of ten cents a ton to be paid to him, his
heirs, and assigns, etc.; but even then he wants
enough coal left to hold up the earth, so that there
will be no interference with the tile drains which
he expects sometime to put down at an expense ex-
ceeding the original cost of the land.
With much love,
ADELAIDE.

P. S.—Percy sénds his love to grandma and a
photograph for Papa, from which you will see that
on such land as ours no limestone or phosphate
means no clover.—A. W. J.

350 THE STORY OF THESSOL.

The author takes this occasion to say to the kind
reader who has had the patience and the necessary
interest in the stupendous problem now confronting
the American people, of devising and adopting into
general practice independent systems of farming that
will restore, increase, and permanently maintain the
productive power of American farm lands, —to those
who have read thus far the Story of the Soil and
who may have some desire for more specific and
more complete or comprehensive information upon
the subject,—to all such he takes this occasion to say
that this volume is based scientifically upon ‘‘Soil
Fertility and Permanent Agriculture.’*

This little book is intended as an introduction to
the subject; the other may be classed as technical,
but nevertheless can be understood by any one who
gives it serious thought. ‘This book tells the true
story of the soil, for which the other gives a thou-
sand proofs.

Grateful acknowledgment is here expressed that ©
even the measure of success thus far attained on
Poorland Farm has been possible largely through
the cooperation of a beloved brother, Carl Edwin,
the man who does a world of work.

*Ginn and Company, Boston.

One copy del. to Cat. Div.

OCT 24 191¢

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