Addresses delivered at the annual meeting of the Ohio State board of agriculture, Columbus, January 10 and 11, 1912

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ADDRESSES

AGRiCULTURAI
LIBRARY,
DELIVERED AT THE I "UNIVERSITY

ANNUAL MEETING . CALIFORNIA.

OF THE

Ohio State Board of
Agriculture __

COLUMBUS
JANUARY 10 AND 11

1912

Columbus, Ohio
The F. J. Heer Printing Co.

1912

^

^\

V'

Boost Ohio.

The Ohio State Board of Agricukiire held its most successful annual
meeting, at Columbus, January lo and ii.

The Central Idea of the entire program was an appreciation of the
virtues and resources of the "Buckeye State."

In talent and personality, those persons on the program, are not excel-
led. Their -enthusiasm in a good cause is easily a virtue.

Governors, Ambassadors, College Presidents, and other great leaders
of thought, helped to fling more widely the Battle Line of Agriculture.

The onward march of the Ohio Farmer was given added momentum,
by reminding him, that not far away, but right here at home he can
shake hands with "Golden Opporunity."

"Stay in Ohio" and "Boost Ohio" are to be the texts of the future,
for all who love their native state and ever called Ohio "Home."

The attendance was an inspiration to all the speakers. The addresses
of such merit as to justify the State Board of Agriculture in comply-
ing with many requests for publication, and which are herewith sub-
mitted.

Respectfully,

Secretary

2li'2432

ANNUAL ADDRESS.

By President C. H. Gaxson,
Urhana, Ohio.

At our annual meeting it is customary for the President to make an adrress,
stating the condition of affairs pertaining to past and present work of the State
Board of xA.griculture. The President would not be able to do this except for
the kindness and help of the Secretary. I have asked the Honorable A. P.
Sandles. our very efficient Secretary, who has at his comand the data of all
work of our Board, to briefly outline what we are attempting in the interest
of agriculture. He is an inveterate as well as an earnest worker ; has the interest
of the farmers at heart; and has kindly consented to prepare and present a^ state-
ment which will be much more to the point than I can make. ' He understands
the business and is today one of the best State Fair .Secretaries in the United
States, is all wool and a yard wide. It is a pleasure for any Board to have the
services of such a Secretary. Close attention paid to his remarks will inform
this convention of our work.

With the assistance and advice ,of the farmers' friend, Governor Harmon,
A. P. Sandles and other broad minded men, agriculture has made rapid strides,
and today the farmer need not take a back seat. He is not called the "Old Hay
Seed," but a man of affairs with a profession second to none. The successful
farmer, and all can be successful (as the word "can't" should not be m the
farmer's dictionary) should and does feel that his calling is the best and most
useful of all professions as well as the most independent. The farmer need
play second fiddel to none, especially the Ohio farmer, as Ohio is one of the
best agricultrral states in the Union. It is the garden spot, with its good roads,
good water and diversity of first class soils. We should be proud of our grand
old state. Let us BOOM OHIO.

We have one of the best and grandest State Fairs in the Union. T^he past
year was it banner year. Profit certified into the state treasury amounted to
approximately $20,000. It is conceded by those who know that the Ohio State
Fair grounds excel in buildings and beauty any fair grounds in the United States.
The State Fair is second to none in exhibits. It is educational as well as at-
tractive. The "No Pass System"' was inaugurated at the last State Fair, and the
attendance and receipts are the proper answer to its workings. Complaints
were not had from people who patronize the Fair from year to year and pay
their admissions. It is admitted that the pass question may have two sides and
be hard to adjust, but to be fair with the people all should be placed on the same
footing. The Ohio State Fair is being well patronized, and the management
hopes to make it worthy of commendation and patronage.

- W^e should have nothing but praise for Ohio and her agricultural institu-
tions, - which include the Ohio State University, the Ohio Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, the Farmers' Congress, Farmers' Institutes, County Fairs and the
different branches of the State Board of Agriculture. Running of agricultural
trains by the diffcrert railroads is to be commended and the service of the rail-
roads appreciated. The service rendered by speakers on the tra'ns has been
very useful. Alore than forty thousand farmers have attended the train meet-
ings and have been benefited by the talks. It is an education along the lines of
the best methods in agriculture.

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6 ^ ADDRESSES

Farmers' Institutes and scliobls are working wonders in the way net only
of education, but in exchange of ideas and a closer relation of friendship between
our citizens. The state law authorizes four institutes to each county. They have
been so useful and popular that counties are wanting more and many counties
have independent institutes.

The State Board of Agriculture has been pushing work on the Serum
Farm, and in another year expects to be in position to handle the output of
serum to the satisfaction of the farmers. From the good work the serum has
done in the past, we have no doubt but that hog cholera will be so much lessened
that the breeders and dealers will have little fear of this plague. They will know
that a proper treatment with serum will make the pigs immune. Dr. Fischer,
State Veterinarian, has t4ie serum proposition in charge. He understands his
occupation thoroughly. There is no harder student than he, and no veterinarian
his superior.

Fertilizer inspection has been satisfactory during the past year. The Nursery
and Orchard Division has been doing good work. The Live Stock Division —
in fact all divisions of the State Board of Agriculture are doing a good work.

The farmer is the bone, sinew and muscle of the country. Agriculture as
a profession is the most useful of all the professions. As a class, the farmers
are the most independent and as a rule enjoy life mo3t. When it comes to an
election on important questions, the rural districts are generally on the right
side and often turn the tide for the betterment of the country. The agriculturist
is on top. He has learned the lesson of his position and learned it well. He
has gained in knowledge of soil fertility and rotation of crops and in the breed-
ing and care of stock until today the farmer is, indeed, to be envied. Our soil,
with the knowledge we are gaining and putting into practice, will support our
growing population. Let us keep abreast of the times and improve our chances.

The lessons that we may learn by a careful study of such institutions as
the Ohio State University, the Ohio Experiment Station, the Ohio State Fair,
the county fair, as well as other useful state institutions, will be very useful to
us all. We should lend our aid to all institutions connected with agriculture.
We should boom Ohio; boom agriculture; boom your State Fair and other agri-
cultural industries. While we are gaining knowledge in our vocations on the
farm and putting our knowledge into practice by raising better crops, better
stock and by improving our condition in many ways, we must not forget the
importan part of farm life — our^ homes. Our good wives, who make our homes
pleasant, must be thought of, cared for and appreciated. They are interested.
To them we may largely credit our success. Let us make our homes what they
should be in doing our duty by our families, who, as a rule, will prefer the
country to the city. Let us remember the old saying, "Woman's work is never
done." We can materially lessen their labors by appreciating their service with
help and kindness, and with beautifying home and its surroundinfys.

THE IMPROVEMENT OF FARM LIFE.

By Presidext Charles William Dabney,
University of Cincinnati.

This is not to be a sermon, although I shall take as a text these words of
the "Father of his Country" :

"I know of no pursuit in which more real and important service can be
rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture."

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 7

Soldier and statesman, though he was, George Washington was first of
all a farmer. Founder and builder of the nation he, taught that agriculture
was to be its chief support through all the ages. He says : "In proportion as
nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, the primary
importance of agriculture becomes apparent and renders the cultivation of the
soil more and more an object of public patronage."

Believing this, what would the "Father of his Country" think if he came
back to us today and learned the ratio of our agricultural population to our other
populations? What would he think if he found that the agricultural population
of the country, which was 96 in 100 in his day, had dwindled to 52 in 100 in
qualities the case is quite different.

our day? Even in this great agricultural state of Ohio, the rural population,
which in 1890 amounted to 50 per cent of the total population of the entire
state, decreased in 1900 to 42 per cent, and in 1910 to 35 per cent. To put it
another way, whereas the total population of Ohio increased about 15 per cent
and the urban population increased 30 per cent for each decade above, the rural
population actually decreased 4 per cent the first decade and 6^ per cent the
second decade. The census brings us the same story from all the older portions
of the country. Everywhere the urban population is increasing ahead of the
rural, and in most of the old states the total rural population, just as in Ohio,
is steadily decreasing. More ominous than the trust menace, the currency ques-
tion,, or the labor problem, is this drift of the people away from the farm ; for,
as Mr. James J. Hill puts it, "Land -without population is a wilderness, and
population without land is a mob."

The resources of our soil and climate are limitless and unsurpassed by
those of any other country in the world, yet, for some reason, the young people
in all the older states are escaping from the farm Why? — because the attrac-
tions of the town are greater than those of the country. How to change this
condition is the question of the hour. Even if there are still enough people in
the country to produce all the food needed, and although the relative size of
the two classes of population does not as yet disturb our national life very
seriously, still we must be deeply concerned to ascertain the causes which have
thus upset the economic and social co-ordination of these two important parts
of our civilization.

Daniel Webster once said, "Farmers are the founders of civilization and
prosperity" ; and it has been the proud boast of America that the farmer occupied
the highest position of independence. Is the farmer now to become submerged
in the social order and form only an underlying straturn? He must always be
the foundation, but is he to be rammed down below the surface and become a
mere mud-sill? This, and not the matter of his relative numbers, is the crux
of this question.

It has always been true that one type of men gathers in the cities, while
another grows up in the country. There have always been two classes in human
society : one the collective and the oth.er the individualistic. Heretofore, in our
civilization, the farmer, the representative of the individualistic class, has steadily
developed the greatest power, and has, therefore, maintained^ his own in the
republic. Have the city men, the representatives of the collective class, now com-
bined to put him down? What's the matter with the farmer?

If the city lives on the country, the country should logically be able to con-
trol; but, as our life is organized today, our cities, like cuttlefish with their great
tentacles spread out in every direction, are sucking the life out of the regions
around them. The weakness of our civilization lies in the fact that the city and
the country seem to be, temporarily at least, opposed in their economic interests.

3 • . ADDRESSES

Thus it is coming more and more to be a story of fat cities and lean country.
Must this be so necessarily and always?

The relative loss of population by the country threatens every business and
every interest. Land values decrease, other farmers move away, the young people
drift to the cities, stores and dwellings become vacant, schools and churches
dwindle, until finally all life and enterprise drop into decay. Witness the aban-
doned farms in New England and in New York; witness the rural schools with
their diminishing attendance; witness the pastorless churches in the country;
and, worst of all. witness the decay of manhood itself in some of our country
districts !

This, I say, is the question of the hour. How shall we restore the balance
between the urban and the rural forces? Why have men nowhere, worked out
a perfect relation betw^een town and country? A fair adjustment must be found
before we can have a permanent, happy civilization. Is it not true that we
have developed the city civilization far beyond that of the country? Both are
necessary adjuncts of human life. "All political economy," Mr. Hill says, "rests
upon the ratio of population to land area, the abundance and value of the prod-
ucts of the soil, and the proper balance and inter-relation of different industries."
If this be true, surely our manufacturing and agricultural industries are out of
balance. Why — Because, says ]\Ir. Hill again^ "We have been busy as a nation
helping the so-called industrial interests of the country — in fact, everybody ex-
cept the man on the farm." No matter how high our culture may rise in its
various aspects, until a proper balance between the agricultural and the other
industries is established, civilization in America certainly cannot be perfected,
nor peace between the classes be long maintained.

This ominous charge is not explained by any falling off in agricultural
production. The farmer is doing his work. Our total agricultural exports keep
up. We still hold our own in the world's markets of the great staples. With
only 6 per cent of the world's population, we produce 45 per cent of the world's
wheat supply and this year 72 per cent of the w^orld's cotton — the greatest crop
ever produced. The American farmer's total contribution to the wealth of the
nation this year is nearly ten billion's of dollars. The trouble is not with the
totals of production, but with the conditions and costs of production in relation
to prices.

What, then, is the matter with agricultural production and why are farm
prices not satisfactory? All prices are relative, and if the agricultural industry
drags in a given community, it is evident that there is something wrong either
with the conditions surrounding the farmer and his family, or with the costs
of what he sells, as compared with the prices of what he has to buy. What is
wrong?

In the opinion of the best authorities, like the Country Life Commission-,
things are wrong, both with the conditions of rural life and with the farmer's
methods, his costs, and the rewards of his labors. Let us begin our study with
a consideration of the last of these,, the farmer's rewards, as compared with his
costs ; then take up his methods, and, finally, the surroundings of his life.

In our opinion, one cause of country depopulation is the meager share the
farmer actually receives, or is allowed to keep, of the tremendous wealth he
produces. The cotton planter receives, we are told, a larger share of what the
consumer pays for his product than any other farmer — he gets nearly 70 per
cent of the consumer's money. This is because cotton is handled in the farmer's
original package and passes directly through the hands of the fewest number
of middlemen to the manufacturers. The vegetable and fruit grower gets the
smallest part of the consumer's money — only 20 per cent. The patient calcula-
tions of the agricultural expert? show that, upon an average, the farmer gets

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. y

only 35 cents of the consumer's dollar. The consumer pays today a higher price
for beef than ever before, but, according to Secretary Wilson, the packers pay
the farmers for their cattle barely as much as they did ten or fifteen years ago,
■when butcher's meat was comparatively cheap. It is true, no doubt, that for
most products, farm prices are now higher than for many years past, but it
is universally recognized abo that everything the farmer buys, including his
clothing, tools, and implements, is proportionately higher. The standard of living
of his family has advanced greatly during recent decades, making both the volume
and grade of his purchases of manufactured goods and luxuries much larger
and higher. Owing to our excessively high tariff, the American people are living
and working on an abnormally high level of costs. In the last twenty years,
the costs of most things have been artificially lifted; the manufactured goods
used by farmers most of all, and the farmer's products least of all. The farm-
ing class, being imperfectly organized, is thus being made to pay tribute to every
other class, especially to the manufacturer, the middleman, and the financier.
This is shown clearly in the case of wool by the report of the Tariff Commis-
sion, and is acknowledged by all schools of economists, except the representa-
tives of the favored interests. It is most unfortunate for the workers of America
that these questions have always been decided by political methods. They are
not political, in any sense, but economic. They can not, therefore, be omitted
from any discussion of agricultural depression. Having stated these facts in
our diagnosis of the disease, it will not be necessary in this company to discuss
further the remedy. All present, i am sure, believe in a fair, if not a low,
tariff.

In the- above statements we have, I think, presented to you the darkest side
of our farmer's life, and may turn now to look upon the bright side of life in
Ohio, and consider the measures destined, as I firmly believe, to make our
farmer's life happier and still brighter every year.

The first great truth to be noted is that Ohio is near the centre of gravity
of the population, of the manufacturers, and of the wealth 'and trade of this
country. The centres of gravity of all these things, as shown by the census,
of the state, its climate and resources, make it forever a great field of commerce.

One conclusion to be drawn from this situation — a conclusion as certain
as that growth follows sunshine — is that whatever the economic conditions in
the country at large may be at any given time, their results are bound to be
most favorable in a state located like ours. If railroads and trusts oppress
the farmers throughout the country, coiuHtions being equal all over, they can
hurt them less in Ohio, where the markets are near at hand, than in the Dakotas,
for example, where all the farmer's products have to be shipped a thousand
miles to market and all his goods, hauled back again over the same hundreds
of miles. So also, if the tariff takes his little remaining profits, or the money
trust wants his last -cent in interest, you may be sure that he has, thanks to
these same favorable conditions, a good deal better chance in Ohio than in the
Northwest. Whatever the advantages from these general economic conditions
and laws, the Ohio- farmer is certain to get a little more good out of them,
and whatever the disadvantages, they are sure to bear less heavily upon him
than upon his brother in those distant states. All economic laws are bound,
in the very nature of things, to favor you here for many years to come. This
is as certain as the laws of nature. Then stay in Ohio !

This great central trade state, with its urban population constantly increas-
ing, with its large mining and manufacturing interests, and its thousands of
miles of railroads running through it in every direction, also offers many oppor-
tunities, scarcely dreamed of as yet, for agricultural development. By way of
illustration, let me speak of the opportunities for co-operation, especially for

10 ADDRESSES

co-operative marketing of products, offered the farmers of Ohio by these very
trade conditions. Why has not the farmer taken advantage of the facilities
for communication and transportation to make them serve his interests more
perfectly, as the manufacturer and the middleman have done? For example, the
either fall in Ohio, or just to the southwest. Our state is now, therefore, the
central state of the Union commercialh^ in the sense that a large part of the
trade of the country must pass through or over Ohio. The geographic location
manufacturer is using the telephone, the mails, the express and freight lines,
more and more each year, to sell directly to the farmers and so increase profits.
Why does not the farmer organize in similar manner to sell directly to the
manufacturer and his other consumers? These facilities are just as good for
the one as the other. When one observes the losing way in which most farmers
do their business with their city consumers, one would, think that the telephone,
the mail, and the railroads did not work both ways, or, at least, that they did
not work backward towards town fcr the farmer, but only for the commission
merchant. The trouble, of course, is that the farmers are not organized for
co-operative marketing.-

There are no better ilhistrations of the gains of small farming and of
co-operation among producers than those found in the experiences of the farmers
of Denmark. After the Germans robbed them of their province and took away
their markets on the continent, the Danes sank rapidly, 3^ou will remember, into
a condition of extreme poverty. Necessity drove them to adopt new methods.
After a half century of scientific farming and co-operation, they are now the
wealthiest farniers per capita in the world. This remarkable change, which, by
the way, has been accompanied by great industrial development in all other direc-
tions, is attributed directly to the improvement of agriculture through educa-
tional methods and its increased gains through co-operation.

The Danes have, for instance, developed scientific dairying and stock rais-
ing in all its branches. The government employs many ex-^erts to instruct the
people in the breeding of live stock. If a group of -farmers wish to purchase a
bull, for example, for its co-operative society, it first consults the government
man. Even in the breeding of single hogs the individual farmer will consult
the expert. These experts furnish their services readily to the farmers who
ask them. The result of this has been the "rapid improvement of live stock and
a steady increase in the quantity and quality of the milk and the character of
all dairy products. In many herds the quantity of milk annually given by each
cow has been increased over one hundred gallons. The Danes attribute much
of this increase to their scientific methods of milking, as well as to this scien-
tific breeding. The creameries impose severe rules upon the farmers as to the
methods of feeding the cows and of handling the milk, and the loyalty of the
men to their organizations is remarkable. The Danish trade in butter alone —
and their butter is considered the best that reaches the London market — has
multiplied ten times in twenty years.

Severe economy is practiced in all matters, with remarkable results. This
economy extends even to the cows, which are hitched and required to graze a
portion of the pasture urtil it is eaten clean. They milk three times a day, milk
tests are systematically applied, and the cows with poor records are discarded,
while the calves of record mothers are kept for the farm.

The Danish co-operative methods of producirig and selling are also most
interesting. The co-operative dairy movement now includes one thousand societies
with two hundred thousand members, and it delivered last year over five billion
pounds of milk, which produced two hundred million pounds of butter worth
sixty millior.s of dollars.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 11

The increase of wealth in our cities insures markets at the highest price
here at home for milk products of fine quality, such as can only be produced
with the help of modern science. As Director Thcrne of the Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station testifies, "The dairy^man who can furnish evidence that his
cattle are free from disease, and whose product shows that strict attention has
been paid to every essential of cleanliness in production, is able to command
very remunerative prices."

Similar co-operative societies market the eggs, bacon, and lambs of the
Danish farmers. There are two poultrymen's associations, one with four thou-
sand, and the other with six thousand members. Each has some forty centres
for experimentation and distribution of pure-bred stock. Each week the associa-
tion's collector gathers the eggs, which must be marked with the producer's name,
and pays on the spot the market price for them. The man who delivers stale
eggs is severely punished. After selection and careful examination, the egg is
then stamped with the association's stamp. This simple guarantee has raised the'
price of hen's eggs in the English markets until the industry now brings Denmark
ten millions of dollars a year. Eggs are now (January 10, 1912) in demand in
Cincinnati and Cleveland at 40 cents at retail, and Director Thorne tells me
that the Ohio station is selling eggs by the case in Pittsburg at 45 cents a dozen,
and hot house lamb at 35 cents per pound dressed. He says : "The demand for
such products is steadily increasing, as is also our knowledge of the methods
by which they may be produced." Is there not a larger business to be found
here ?

Other market products are handled by co-operative creameries of Denmark
in a similar manner. The Danes no longer send their live hogs abroad, but kill,,
cure, and manufacture every scrap at home, with the result that pigs which
brought Denmark only $7,500,000 a few years ago, now bring $25,000,000. The
Dane believes in manufacturing the farm products to the highest degree before
he lets them leave his farm or co-operative factory. He sells the finished
product and not the raw material, for he believes that the nation which sends
away its raw material for a more skilled people to finish is ruined. The factory
farm and these co-operative methods are needed in Ohio.

Another lesson we can learn from the Danes is intensive farming of smaller
areas. We are still trying in Ohio to cover too ixkany acres with our poor
culture. . We should farm only as many acres as we can cultivate in the best
way, and no more. There is, as we know, scarcely a limit to the value each acre
of ground may be made to produce. Scientific methods and intensive agriculture
are these days within the reach of the poorest farmer, whether they include the
study of the soils, the testing of seeds, the rotation of crops, or the raising of
live stock. Intelligent fertilizing with chemical manures, or by growing leguminous
plants, the use of improved groans and fancy stock — such methods are today
within the reach of all. These methods increase the interest in farming, as well
as make room for new population, whose presence and added product increase
the opportunities for co-operation and all forms of social improvement. The
fruit farmer, the dairy farmer, the poultryman, and every cultivator who has
specialized in his work have already learned these principles. Our problem is to
find a way to teach them to the half million or more farmers in Ohio still
engaged in general agriculture. Take /corn culture in Ohio as an illustration.
Corn is still our greatest crop, but it does not pay very well to produce it at
the rate of 38 bushels per acre. The Experiment Station has shown that if we
used tested seed only and so secured a better stand, we might increase this yield
to an average of at least 76 bushels per acre, while a perfect stand of plants,
each yielding a one-pound ear of corn, would produce 152 bushels per acre.
A little South Carolina bov raised over 200 bushels of corn on one acre. Can

12 ADDRESSES

not the Ohio farmer make at least one-half as much? Ohio cultivates some
three million acres of corn annually. Supposing we added 20 bushels only to
each acre, the result would be 60,000,000 bushels more corn in Ohio each year,
which at 40 cents a bushel, would yield a return of $24,000,000. Think of the
gigantic waste resulting from the careless cultivation of too many acres!

The same can be said in regard to the waste in raising poor stock. . Every
farmer must keep some cattle, sheep, and hogs. Why not the best? No farmer
■can prosper until stock raising becomes a considerable part of his agriculture.
The natural increase of animals, the butter, milk, lambs, pigs, etc., sent to market
add materially to his income. A few forage- fed live stock leave at least one-
third of their value on the land in the form of manure that results in fertility
and keeps the farm from running down. Only by keeping stock can the farm
be made and kept the permanent source of wealth it should be. The keeping of
good stock throughout the country creates at once a great industry and makes
opportunity for specialists in various lines of stock-breeding to do good business.
That we are making progress in this line is well illustrated by Greene County,
which already claims to have a larger number of different breeds of pure bred
stock than any other equal area in the world. If all our farmers went to work
to improve their stock, we would have in Ohio at least- a half dozen Greene
Counties. ■

It is a narrow view of agriculture, however, which regards this great art
only as a means of providing men with the simplest means of existence. We
are interested in the progress of agriculture, not only as a means of supplying
the food necessary for the increasing peoples of the earth, but also as the art
which chiefly supports man's advancement along all lines, intellectual and spiritual,
as well as physical. ''Man shall not live by bread alone." It is a condition of
civilization that man is not satisfied with a mere subsistence,, but that his wants
increase with his development. The modern man is not satisfied with the simplest
food, or the plainest raiment, or the barest shelter. Because such food pro-
motes health, happiness, and the development of his finer nature, he wants at-
tractive and delightful food. Hence there have been developed the various special
branches of agriculture and horticulture, and the many arts of milling, manu-
facturing, preparing, and preserving the products of the soil which make food
substances tempting and delicious, as well as convenient for use. Americans owe
much of their success as purveyors to their excellent methods of preparing food
materials of all kinds, and to their skill and taste in presenting them to the public.
It is not enough that quantity alone should be considered, for, in these days,
quality plays, increasingly, a part in food production. Hence the arts of producing
choice meats,, cereals of greater attractiveness, etc., which arts may properly be
termed the "higher agriculture"; hence also the practical arts of wine-making
and canning and preserving fruits, which may be considered a "higher horti-
culture." These arts have all been developed in response to man's demand for
more refined and delicious food, a demand which is certain to grow more exact-
ing with the progress of civilization.

It does not pay any longer in the older states to grow the staple crops exclu-
sively and to sell only the raw materials of food. It may still pay on the great
rich prairies, or in new agricultural regions, but the highest profits in the future
will come to those who produce a specialty, or manufacture their products into
the highest form before putting them on the market. The profits of the future
will be in the dairy business, the canning business, or the business of preparing
delicate meats for the richer markets. Through these and similar special in-
dustries, farm products are greatly advanced in value, while the women and the
girls take a part in productive work.

ANNUAL :MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 13

We come thus to consider the improvement of the educational and social
conditions in the country as a means of keeping the young people on the farms.
The physical discomforts of farm life have largely been ameliorated in the
Central States. As the farm houses are rebuilt, modern comforts and conveni-
ences are introduced. With cheap appliances now vi'ithin the reach of every one,
there is, for example, little excuse for the farmer who has not provided his
home and barn with running water. Good roads, rural free delivery ,tele-
phones, automobiles, interurban lines, co-operative reading circles, the new litera^
ture of nature and farm, — and soon, we hope, the parcels post, — will greatly
improve the social conditions of the country people. But there is still much to
be desired in the way of community spirit and of co-operation for the older
people and of social life and amusement for the young. The towns, with their
amusement parks and theatres, moving picture shews, and skating rinks, have
become steadily more attractive, making the country appear bare and lonesome
to the boy and girl. Their influence must be overcome by beautifying the home
and farm and by establishing social centres in the country. Rural life must be
made not only more profitable ecoromically than urban life, it must also be made
more humanly interesting, more richly enjoyable. The farm and the country
possess all the elements to make it so ; there resources need only to be developed.

We should remember that the farmers who desert the country, often the
very best men, do so in search of the higher things in life for their families.
They tear up their homes and make great sacrifices that they may provide better
training in mind and in spirit for their children and better social privileges for
their wives. So long as there are better schools, better churches, and better social
opportunities in tkc cities, so long will men flock into them. So long as prac-
tically no literature, art, and music are to be had in the country, so long will
men and women seek them where they are to be found.

Neither the state nor the church has done its full duty by the farmer.
Though eight-tenths of the preachers and teachers are reared in the country,
the state puts its best schools in the city and the church usually sends its dullest
preachers to the country. And yet we look to the country to feed the city with
its best blood, brain, and heart ! We draw constantly upon its sources of physical
and spiritual sustenance, but make few plans for renewing this fountain of our
life. Let us, therefore, take stock of the country's educational and social re-
sources, as we have of its economic resources, for the purpose of seeing how
they may be reorganized and directed toward a happier and more profitable
social end.

The country school is to be a large factor in the improvement of country
life and the chief agency in keeping the youth on the farm. If the boys and
girls are to be induced to, stay on the farm, it will be done, not merely be making
the farm attractive and remunerative, but by interesting the youth in the work on
the farm. This can only be done by making that work intelligent. Until recently,
all our elementary school courses were made by city people to prepare people
for city occupations. Even general subjects are taught almost exclusively in the
terms of trade. The readers and spellers are filled with stories of city life and
the arithmetics are given up to problems of interest and accounts, wnth no refer-
ence to the business of the farmer. The rural school finds these courses largely
unadapted to the needs of country life. So far, the school has not taken hold of
country life. From the soil, out of which the children must make their living;
from the animals they must rear and use ; from the plants they must cultivate
and the forests they should preserve; and even from the impressive phenomena of
sky and weather, which so largely control the every-day life and success of the
farmer, the school has not only stood apart, but has actually held the children
away, while it stuffed them with antiquated formulas and useless rules, or with

24 ADDRESSES

facts about the history and geography of foreign countries. The varied resources
and exhaustless charm of the country have small part in its teachings. Too
often, when the teacher opens man's book before the eyes of the child, he closes
to him, as far as he can, the book of nature. All schools should be related to
the economic life of the people and prepare them to work under the conditions
in which they must earn their livelihood.

It is very fine to talk about giving every boy and girl a liberal education —
which means usually a mere smattering of a literary education — but the fact re-
mains that the great majority of our children in cities, as well as country, leave
school before they are fifteen, with little education of any kind and no training
for re^l life. The result is we have thousands of industrially untrained boys
going into the ordinary commercial callings, and few scientific farmers and engi-
neers; and thousands of young girls eager to earn the pitiful pittance of a sales-
woman, while none can be found for well-paid manufacturing positions. A gentle-
man in my city tells me, for example, that an advertisement for a typist at six
■dollars per week brought scores of applications, while one for an expert candy
maker at fifteen dollars failed to find him a single competent person. With the
sales positions and typewriting places always overcrowded, the wages of girls re-
main below the requirements of decent living, with sad results in too many cases.
If the rural school is to accomplish what we expect of it, it must not be a
thing apart from the life of the people, as the old school was. We must take
the life and the work of the people into the school and carry the teaching and
influence of the school into the life of the people. The practical work of the
farm and the home must go into the school, and the thought and knowledge
•of the school must go on to the farm and into the home. ^ The new century
found a large, 'growing body of new science related to farm and home voca-
tions, and this science is gradually yielding to -organization in text-book and in
practice — work in gardens and fields, in barn and dairy, and in home and shop.
That this immense body of new knowledge must have a place in the training of
our country youth can not now be questioned; and that it will greatly increase
the general and economic efficiency of the country people has already been shown
"by the work of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations. Various methods
of uniting school training with farm and home training have been suggested.
Teachers can co-operate with parents, for example, in arranging field and feed-
ing experiments, in testing seeds, in studying varieties of plants. The operations
of the garden and orchard; pruning, budding, grafting, and spraying trees and
vines; testing the value of foods and fertilizers — these activities offer many
opportunities for co-operation between teacher and farmer in the interest of the
children.

We must not only take the work of the farm and home into the school,
but the school must go into the life of the people. In the old days,, the church
was the centre of the life of the people. The whole life of the people, social,
educational, and religious, centred around the old church. The protracted meet-
ings were the great social events of the year, and practically all social develop-
ments, including the weddings, had their source in the church, the school, or the
Sunday-school. Now all this is changed. In this sense, I fear the church is
losing its hold upon the life of the country people. It has certainly ceased to be
the one centre of their life, as it formerly was. The pastor, teacher, and physician
should be the joint conservators of country life and they should all work together
from one common centre.

There may be differences of opinion as to where the new centre of the life
of our country people should be located. Some think it should be in the town
or village; others, that there should be lyceums or agricultural clubs; and still
others that it should be in the country school. It is probable that more than one

AXXUAL MEETING OHIO STATE 150ARD UF AGRICULTURE. 15

social centre will be developed in large, prosperous communities. No church can
undertake all this co-operative work, because it is interested in only one phase
of life, but the whole community is equally interested in the public school. It
would seem, therefore, that the school is the natural, organic centre of country
life. If, however, the school is to develop as such a centre, it must concern it-
self directly with all the interests of the people and organize all the social forces
of the community.

Such are some of the chief opportunities and needs of the farmers. We
have in this state, we see, all the resources and conditions for a prosperous and
happy country life. With as good soils and climate as can be found anywhere,
with better markets and other economic conditions than are found in most places,
with a noble people for friends and neighbors, with good schools now and better
ones coming, why should any man wish to leave Ohio?

How shall we classify these wanderers away from the old state into the
West? How shall we analyze their motives? Some are restless and never satis-
fied anywhere long; others are essentially land speculators and buy cheap lands
in the West to sell to their friends at home. Most of the farmers who are
urging you to go West belong to that class. Some good men, having large
families of boys and little money, go West to buy cheap lands for them. Some
go simply because they have in their blood the pioneering spirit, inherited from
their fathers, who settled this great country; but a large majority, including all
those who put the things of mind and spirit above material things, will stay at
home in Ohio, where all the conditions are favorable for making our children
nobler, wiser, truer, and braver than we are ; for this, after all. is the chief end
of our living and striving.

OHIO; A BATTLEGROUND; HER POSSIBILITIES.

By George W. Brown^
Zanesville, Ohio.

That Ohio is today a battleground is quite evident to the close observer.
Her history from Col. Zane and Tecumseh to this day is replete with characters
that have left a deep impress upon her institutions. Her valleys have afforded
a natural outlet to the lakes and the Mississippi. Her soil has not only produced
an abundance of life-giving qualities but has likewise sent forth from her hill
tops and valleys men and women of worth to all the vocations of life. Her
churches and schools have been a mighty factor in her development. Today a
mighty battle is being fought over the same territory that our forefathers fought
over. Ours is a different battle. They fought for the possession of the soil and
we are fighting for the retention of its soil and its rehabiliment. Our forefathers
contended against a mighty foe who sought to destroy the home life of the
whites. We are contending against foes as deadly to home life as were the early
men of the forest. Let us see along what lines these battles are being waged.

Ohio, politically, is a battleground. Adams County vote sellers, grafters and
bribers in high places, failure to enforce law until a mighty crisis arises that
compels a stern hand; all these are indicative of a mighty contention that must
soon bring us to a better day. But this phase does not so much concern in this
article.

Religiously there is a mighty battle raging. This is especially true in the
rural districts where the churches have seemingly outlived their usefulness. By
that is meant the church that no longer serves the community in which it is

16 ADDRESSES

situated. The large number of churches in a given community is another mighty
problem awaiting a proper solution. That a given community is over churched
goes with the mentioning of the fact. One place known to the speaker has, in
two hundred square miles, (20 miles long by 10 miles wide) forty-six churches
and hardly any of them doing anything to forward the cause of the Master's
kingdom. This problem must and will be fought out.

The rural schools are likewise undergoing transition. Depleted districts are
compelling the solution. The little "red school house" has passed into history
together with many other things dear to our hearts. The boys and girls of our
rural districts . are demanding as good an education today as the boys and girls
in the city. That can best be accomplished by the centralization of our rural
schools.

And the greatest battle might well be termed the battle of the soil. The
correct solution of this problem will, in a large manner, solve all the rest. ]\Iany
of her fields and farms are depleted in fertility and power to produce. The
home life they once maintained has passed. The social life in many places a
thing of "the long ago." And all this because of a depleted soil which has been
robbed by an incompetent husbandman or a type of farmer that hitherto wrought
havoc on many Ohio farms.

' Having recounted some of the most important battles that are being fought
let us turn our attention to possibilities that are awaiting the state of Ohio.
That her possibilities lie in the correct solution of her battles is self-evident.
And the correct solution is centralization.

Let me say to you, gentlemen, two things that I want you to forever
remember. (1) No people will ever fise higher than their religion. Religion
is the fountain-head from whence all might impulses flow, (2) Farmmg is to
enable a man to live and not to make a living. That vast numbers of men have
only farmed to make a living is evident from the large number of depleted and
abandoned farms. Our great aim therefore should be to keep alive our religious
interests as well as our farming interests. Let us endeavor to unify them. x\nd
in seeking to unify the interests of religion and farming we work for the idea
of centralization.

Our church life has undergone a rapid transition the last decade. It once
served well the community. The early pastor visited among the homes, had prayer,
kissed the babies and served the church by serving the family group. The idea
of serving the community group had not dawned. His service to the community
was wholly through the family. But today the new idea has dawned. The
pastor serves the entire community. He renders his best service as he serves
the entire community. In other words it is not sufficient alone to have prayer,,
some squaw talk and kiss the babies, but his interests lie in working for those
things that will bring the entire community to higher ideals. And that means to
endeavor to establish a community heart or ideal. Without doubt, gentlemen,
the establishment of a community ideal will work alike to the good of religion
and better farming. Are they not one and the same in a way. And the setting
up of a community ideal is what we mean by centralizing.

Let us see how this community ideal works out. As a specific illustration
we will take the farmer and his apples. One farmer may take the blue and red
ribbon both at the county fair but the price of apples in his community remain
the same. However if it is a community ideal and business to raise good apples,
the best, the price of apples will be raised accordingly for the entire output can
be handled by a single buyer. (And right here is certainly a good application of
the Master's famous saying "Ye shall love your neighbor as yourself.") Hood
River apples from Oregon sell on the Ohio market for about three dollars a box
(bushel per box) and outsell our apples with three bushels in a barrel. Why?

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 17

Hood River apples are sent out by a Packers' Association backed up by a com-
munity ideal. Apples that will not pass through a two and a half inch hole are
sent out as Al apples. Any man who dares to send out apples under that grad-
ing is expelled from the association. In some instances his "output" has been
destroyed by the community rather than suffer their ideal to be lowered by one
stingy cuss whose interests are personal rather than community. Now what,
about Ohio apples? No community ideal. Alas how many think it a sharp busi-
ness deal to put large apples in the head end of the barrel and fill with cider
culls. At a recent apple show in Baltimore, "New York apples were ruled out
because of dishonesty in the packing, though on the authority of President
Brown of the New York Central, three shipping points of New York State each
ship more apples than Washington, and Oregon and Colorado combined." (See
Technical World for August, 1911, page 635.) There, gentlemen, is a striking
instance for the country pastor to strike for a community ideal and to serve the
entire community by bringing it about. Are not the interests of the farmer and
pastor one and the same? Again I say — no community can rise higher than her
religion. And downright honesty is a basic principle that must be strictly adhered
to by all mankind.

Another striking example is the egg business. Here we see the lack of
community ideal or co-operation. Some people do candle their eggs. The price
of eggs, however, are determined by the uncandled eggs. The difference in price
between the producer and consumer is brought about largely at this very point.
Alas, again, how many bring uncandled eggs to market. Rotten apples would be
detected at once and the sale spoiled. Rotten eggs are only detected when candled
or broken. The dealer must therefore candle and grade the eggs. To do this
he must estimate a per cent of bad eggs. The price to the producer is accord-
ingly reduced to cover all shortage. But suppose the entire community would
candle their eggs. Don't you see that the price of eggs are bound to go up
for the producer. Let it become known that Brownville people all candle their
eggs, that a case of eggs from that, community have the stamp and approval of
the community as an Al grade and the city merchant can afford to pay more
for such eggs and will gladly do so. Here is another instance for the pastorial
effort. And right here the speaker wants to say that in a case of eggs recently
purchased from a community whose religfous belief was one of the strictest at
least one- fourth if not one-third were bad. (Confidentially their religion was
about as rotten as their eggs.) I contend, gentlemen, that our work is not unlike.
I insist that our religion ought to get us somewhere. And I am mighty tired
of that sort of preaching that says to the down and out or the unfortunate
"Hold on, brother, and in the glorious hereafter you will have a gracious reward."
I say let's make heaven right here on earth. Have better homes, better schools,
better farms, better social environments and higher community ideals. And right
here I want to remind you of what I said a few moments ago, "Farming is to
enable a man to live and not to make a living." I believe in the preaching that
will enable a man to live better. In other words preach more about living grace
than dying grace.

Now in this idea of co-operation, community interest, etc., lies one of Ohio's
greatest possibilities. Around a given community build up a community ideal
and commodity. That commodity and ideal becomes known to the world at
large. It simplifies advertising and in a vast number of ways adds to the interests
of the community. Holstein cattle so largely raised in one of the counties of
Ohio is known in South America. So in the matter of raising good horses of
whatever breed. It likewise follows concerning sheep, hogs or whatever can be
advantageously raised in a given community.

3 AD. BD. AGR.

18 ADDRESSES

Again since the church Hfe in the country seems to be waning let us apply
the community ideal or more strictly speaking the community center. Make the
country church the center of all its activities. Around it revolve its religious
life, its social life and everything that pertains to the interests of that community.
Its religious life must seek to arouse and define and set up such ideals. In other
words it is not sufficient to say "Lord, what must I do to be saved," but "Lord,
what can I do to help." Constructive work and not defensive. The social life
will likewise seek its community center and that around the church. It will
take the place of the' "spelling school," "apple peeling," "carpet rag sewing," "log
rollin'," etc. The singing school can yet afford a starting point for such a social
life. And certainly no one will deny the need of the rehabiliment of the strong
type of social life in the country.

Around that center will be the centralized school which can best serve the
full interest of the community. It will give the very best educational system to
the country place. That will give the grades and grade teachers. And the central
school will be dependent upon the good roads leading to and from it. The church
will here again seek to arouse the community ideal. As I see this whole question
every community should be made a place so inviting that people will want to
move there to die rather than move to town. That brings us to the idea of the
home which we want to speak of for a few moments.

A few moments ago I said "Farming is to enable a man to live rather than
make a living." That is true and evident. "Farming to make a living" is the
farmer who robs the soil of its virgin fertility and then leaves for parts beyond
rather than like the other thief who leaves for parts unknown. The man who has
thus robbed a farm has been a menace to the community. Yea, he has been a
veritable thief. On the other hand the man who "farms to live" is the man who
will build up the soil, seek the best interests of the community as to her schools
and churches, roads, and what not. The home idea is the prevailing thought. And
that home idea must not be personal. It must seek the best ideals for the entire
community. For the community is not known to the world at large, by the best
homes in it but rather by the lowest. It's the individual and home that is on
the margin that represents that community to the world at large. The aim and
effort, therefore, should be to raise the standard of the marginal man or home.
Here again we see these interests converging. Let us take a specific instance.

Suppose a few farmers are interested in trying to raise the standard of their
community by assisting a few marginal men. In addition they are church men
seeking to carry out their Master's teaching "Ye shall love your neighbor as
yourself." They will, we will say, set aside a few hundred dollars to assist their
brothers not so fortunate. So they go to Tom Brown who has lost a team, to
Bill Smith who has lost a cow, and Sam Perkins who needs some new machinery
and say "Brothers we will help you." Each man is assisted to his want. He is
saved the expense of a mortgage, etc. Now the men who loaned the money are
interested in seeing Tom Brown, Bill Smith, " and Sam Perkins get a^ good crop,
good price and market (brothers keeper). And in turn Tom Brown, Bill Smith,
and Sam Perkins are interested in the church that relieves the present needs as
w^ell as tJwse to come and says : "By Gum ! this is the very sort of a community
and church that I want to 'tie up' to." As a result three good homes are soon
established and that community strengthened just that much. Such a church and
community ideals will eventually build up a home community of the strongest
type. Men believe in a religion and community like that and will seek to con-
tribute to its welfare themselves.

Gentlemen of The Ohio Agricultural Society, we must seek to establish the
community idea throughout our state to bring about the largest results. Then
in turn these community groups centralize into larger circles and these in turn

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTUI^E. 19

into the larger or state itself. Small communities blessed with good roads will
be interested in working for good roads throughout the entire state, the central-
ization of schools, nine foot stage of the Ohio for the counties bordering on the
Ohio, etc. But our greatest possibility will be in working out the greatest trust
reposed in us by the Creator of the universe when he said "Thou madest him
to have dominion over the works of Thy hands : Thou hast put all things under
his feet." Farming will be, or should be, considered a holy calling. God created
the universe. God is holy. Everything He created is holy. The earth is holy
and therefore everything that comes out of it is holy. It is ours to feed the
other two-thirds of the peoplne. But until we reach up to our highest ideals we
can never do it. We are taught to pray and say "Give us this day our daily
bread," but how can we see that prayer answered if we hang our hoe on the
fence and leave the plow in the shed? Impossible. And yet in this state there
are thirty-four counties producing less corn, wheat, and small grain than twenty-
five years ago, while there are, possibly, a million more people to feed. Shall
we offer the same prayer and expect to see the people fed? Never. We must
follow the laws of almighty God. He says "Thou shalt not steal," so we must
cease our robbing the soil of its fertility and put back again the elements that it
originally contained. The highest type of dominion is brain not brawn. Our
greatest aim is in Scientific Agriculture. To answer our own prayer will mean
to raise two bushels where now only one grows. To make it bloom like the rose
of Sharon.

In conclusion, gentlemen, let me use a few verses written for this occasion :
Boost Ohio, boost her high.
Boost Ohio and boost her dry.
Boost her valleys — up and down
Boost her country, village, town.

Boost her — North, East, South and West ;
Boost her — outside but inside best.
Boost her roads, schools, farms and church.
Boost not alone by words but work.

Build her government broad and deep:
Make social conditions all races keep.
Centralize and work and plan
Her markets, railroads to best serve man.

But in our boosting don't forget

God's will and plans are working yet. ^

To boost Ohio and make her rare

Have boys and girls of character.

OHIO'S INFLUENCE AND PRESTIGE IN THE LIVE STOCK

WORLD.

By Prof. C. S. Plumb,
Ohio State University.

Those sections which seem best suited to live stock, have what we term
a temperate climate and a reasonably fertile soil. If that is so, in what respect
is Ohio adapted to the raising of farm animals?

20 ADDRESSES

Without going into too much detail, the following facts may be credited
to Ohio. Our climate is of the moderate sort, such as might be expected of
territory lying approximately from 41° to 38° North. We have but very little
severe heat or cold, and over the southern half of the state, in winter snow is
the exception and not the rule. In central Ohio, winter is hardly expected be-
fore January, and in March the grass begins to take on new life. In southern
Ohio, live stock may be grazed on the fields for twelve months in the year. In
the northern section, snow is more abundant, closed stables in winter are com-
mon, and the conditions are more vigorous than farther south. However, over
much of the State, farm animals require much less winter shelter than is custom-
ary in the east and north. In the southern half of the State, the winter con-
ditions usually allow for much freedom of the stock in the open, to its advantage.

The soil of Ohio is variable, but there is hardly a section in which standard
forage crops and cereals will not grow to perfection under proper management.
There are two crops, universally recognized as playing a most important part in
farm economy as applied to stock, namely blue grass and Indian corn. These
two plants may be found in every section of the State. Better blue grass
cannot be. found in the famous region of Kentucky, than one finds here and
there in the pastures of Ohio. Blue grass is universal to Ohio, and where this
grass thrives, horses, cattle, sheep and. hogs are most economically kept for the
growing season of the year. Ohio is famous for its corn crop, and in yield per
acre this State stands up among the leaders, in 1909 producing over 150,000,000
bushels, ranking seventh among the states in the quantity produced. In average
yield per acre, Ohio ranked second among all the so-called corn growing states.

In the production of the other standard cereals, grasses and clovers, Ohio
is one of the leaders. Red clover is a universal crop, while alfalfa is rapidly
securing a strong clientage- in the State, some 20,000 acres reported as grown
in 1911. Any soil that will grow blue grass, corn, red clover, alfalfa and
timothy hay abundantly, can compete with the world in the breeding and feed-
ing of farm animals. This can generally be done on the farms in Ohio.

So far as markets and shipping facilities are concerned, no State is more
advantageously situated. We have a population of over 5,000,000 people. We
have five cities widely separated in the State, with populations ranging from
over 100,000 to 500,000 with many good sized towns and smaller cities. In
these is a market for the producer of meat. No State is better supplied with
railways and shipping facilities. In less than 24 hours we may deliver meat
stock by freight to the largest stock yards in America, while by express we can
deliver into New York, Philadelphia or Boston within a similar period of time.
Steam railways penetrate all but one of Ohio's eighty-eight counties, whereby
the farmer at a minimum of expense can easily reach a shipping point.

Ohio assumed a most important place in American live stock affairs at a
very early date. Vei-y early in the last century, before the day of the rail-
roads, cattle were driven overland from southern Ohio to Baltimore- and New
York. Ohio cattle were recognized as the best produced on the continent. In
1833 at Chillicothe, there was organized the Ohio Company for Importing and
Breeding Shorthorn Cattle. This company sent men to England to purchase
Shorthorns, and their 1834 importations is oue of the notable events in Am-
erican Shorthorn history. As a result of the success of this company, others
were organized in other counties in Ohio, and in other states. From that day
to this, Ohio has been regarded as one of the most important Shorthorn breed-
ing grounds in America. Today we have in the State, three herds of Short-
horns second to none on the continent, viz., that of Thomas Johnson of Colum-
bus, Carpenter and Ross of Mansfield, and D. R. Hanna of Ravenna. The herds
of these men have won the highest honors in tl.e most severe competitions in

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 21

the greatest of our shows. ^ The most famous Shorthorn bull of this genera-
tion, Whitehall Sultan, was calved at Yellow Springs on the farm of Mr. E.
S. Kelly, and a part of his long and notable service as a sire was in this State.
Three of his greatest sons, Avondale, Glenbrook Sultan and Fair Sultan, have
done much in these latter days to add to the laurels of our Ohio, breeders.
Our Shorthorn breeders have purchased the choicest breeding stock abroad,
regardless of expense, since the thirties, when Young Mary and Rose of Sharon,
founders of distinguished families, found their way to the Buckeye State. About
ten years ago, Mr. E. S. Kelly paid $6,000 in Scotland for Brave Archer, and
within the past few years both Carpenter and Ross and D. R. Hanna have im-
ported sires that in their herds are creating results that are of the very best
sort. At our state fair the Shorthorn assumes a place of great popularity.
Here in Ohio came the first development of the Polled Durham, and the names
of Miller of Ottawa and Crane of Tippecanoe City, will always hold a most
important place in the development of this breed. They were long recognized
as the master breeders of this Shorthorn family.

One of the greatest recognized beef breeds of today is that black, horn-
less one from Northern Scotland — The Aberdeen-Angus: In the beef show
competitions during the past ten years, the Angus has more than held its own,
— it has led. While there are comparatively few herds in Ohio of this breed,
we have long had a recognized place on the map. Mr. D. N. Hine of Erie
County introduced the Angus to Ohio about 1880. Almost thirty years ago,
Mr, Benton Garringer of Washington Court House, showed the Angus and
was a noted winner at the fairs, his bull Buffalo Bill being one of the . famous
early sires and show bulls of the breed. O. E. Bradfute and Son of Cedar-
ville and Dr. H. M. Brown of Hillsboro, have for years been active Angus
breeders. The Bradfute Meadowbrook herd is one of the noted ones of the
continent. One may be safe in saying that no herd in this country has done
more for the breed than that of Meadowbrook. Zaire 5th and Lucy's Prince,
long in service in this herd, may be regarded as two of the most valuable sires
of the breed, while as a show bull, the latter had a remarkable career,- such as
rarely comes to one animal. Each year sees the Bradfute herd lined up in the
most severe show ring competition and holding high place in the list of awards.

In beef production, since early days, Ohio has held high rank. Early in
the 19th century herds were driven overland from Ohio to Baltimore, Phila-
delphia and New York, after being fattened on our rich pastures. Since those
early days our feeders have been consistent shippers to Chicago, Cincinnati and
Pittsburgh markets, and each year hundreds of cattle are fed in Ohio for
export. It was our distinction as a beef and pork producing state that resulted
in the establishment of the stock yards and packing houses at Cincinnati, long
the leading institutions of their kind in America. While we do not produce fat
cattle for feeding as much as formerly, large numbers or cattle are shipped
into Ohio for feeding, later to be sent to the markets in finished condition. In
southwestern and western Ohio, thousands of feeders have fattened on our
grass and corn. Mr. D. W. Black of Lyndon, for years showed car load lots
at Chicago at the International Exposition, where his exhibit secured the highest
honors, that of grand championship, and attracted national attention. Mr. J.
D. Rogers of Bloomingburg for many years fed extensively and has been a
successful exhibitor at Chicago. Humphrey Jones of Washington Court House
has fed large numbers of steers, in which silage has been an important feature
of the rations, so that his feeding methods have attracted wide attention in the
middle West.

The dairy breeds of cattle have long had a strong foothold in Ohio, and
much more so today than ever. The great increase of population in our cities,

22 ADDRESSES

the enormous increased demand for milk, and the better compensation for its
production, has stimulated the dairy industry. Today we have about 1,000,000
milch cows in the State.

The Jersey breed of cattle was first introduced to Ohio in Hamilton County,
in 1865. The breed found favor, and for many years, this State Jias led in
Jersey cattle production. In recent years, more transfers of cattle of this breed
have taken place in Ohio than in any other State. In 1911, there were trans-
ferred 3,140 Jerseys in Ohio. There have been many men prominent in Jersey
development in the State. The late Mr. Frank Hart of Clevveland, had a very
noted herd, and King of St. Lambert's King, his leading sire, was recognized as
one of the great bulls of the breed. Mr. Hart had many great producers and
was for years one of the great promoters of the St. Lambert family. Later he
turned to the Island for stock, and made important importations, and was the
first man in Ohio to introduce in a serious way, cattle of Island blood lines and
type. He brought from the Island, Eminent's Raleigh, noted as a sire of high
class females. Judge Bradbury of Pomeroy has long been a prominent Jersey
breeder, as have Messrs. D. H. Olds of Springfield, Henry Dubois of Vigo,
L. P. Bailey of Tacoma and Hugh Stewart of Washington Court House. Jerseys
are found on every side in Ohio, and are generally popular. The Ohio Jersey
Cattle Club is the most wide-awake local State Club in this country. Among
the three notable Jersey herds of America today are those of Sheffield Farm,
Glendale, Ohio, Hartman Farm, Columbus, and Goodhold Farm, Mentor. Shef-
field Farm paid $11,000 for imported Plymouth Lad, Hartman Farm purchased
Lucy's Prince in the East, and Goodhold Farm secured Raleigh, each famous
sires.

In recent years the Holstein-Friesian has gained rapidly in favor in Ohio,
especially in the northern part contiguous to Cleveland. In 1866, O. F. Jones
of Wooster, Ohio, is credited with bringing the first cattle of the breed to
Ohio, a bull purchased from Chenery of Massachusetts. In 1882 it is said there
were just 1,000 Holsteins in Ohio. In the nineties, W. B. Smith & Son of
Columbus, had a famous herd and showed over much of the middle West with
great success. In their herd were many prominent producers. They had in
service Paul De Kol, Aaggie Beauty Seconds' Statesman and Clyde Paul De
Kol, sires of many advanced registry cows. This herd now is in the owner-
ship of Derrer & Son of Columbus, and is each year well represented on the
show circuit. In northern Ohio, the Horr herd for many years was prominent,
and today in Geauga County, herd of Dimmick & Brother is attracting national
attention. Here may be found Daisy Grace De Kol, with a world's record for
7, 60 and 90 days, for producing more butter fat than any other cow of her
age has done. From her milk was produced 32.5 pounds of 80% estimated
butter. They have five cows that in their two year form produced 20 or more
pounds each of estimated 80% butter, the. greatest showing of any herd in Am-
erica for this class. Their bull Pontiac Aaggie Korndyke, is rated as one of
the notable present day Holstein sires. Dimmick Bros, have several cows that
have produced 30 or more pounds of estimated 80% butter in seven days. At
the present time no class of cattle bring such relatively high prices and are so
much in demand as the Holsteins.

Among the dairy breeds, the Guernsey has very high place, and while
the breed has not had a prominent place in Ohio in the past, it bids fair to
become a popular favorite. Already Ohio has the largest Guernsey herd in the
world, that of Mr. O. C. Barber of Barberton, and in it is Spotlswood Daisy
Pearl, 17696, the world's champion butter producing cow of the breed. In one
year ending in November, 1911, she produced 936.4 pounds of butter fat, con-
taining 1,125 pounds of estimated 85% butter. This cow is now seven years old.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTL'RE. 23

an<l^ was bred in Ohio, by Mr. Jacob Beidler/ of Willoughby, a member, of our
State Board of Agriculture and long a Guernsey breeder of prominence.

Ayrshire cattle are also becoming better known in Ohio, and Mr. John
Sherwin of Willoughby has a large and choice herd, headed by Bargenoch
Bonnie Scotland, for which he paid in 1910 the sum of $1,600, the top price in
America for an Ayrshire bull at that time.

Red Polled are a general purpose breed, for both beef and milk. Ohio men
have long promoted this breed. Mr. J. McLain Smith of Dayton and Captain
V. T. Hills of Delaware were importers in the eighties, and did much to push
the breed to the front in America. Mr. Smith was long the Secretary of the
Red Polled Cattle Club, and Captain Hills did more than any other one man
to intelligently promote and test the breed. ^He brought out the famous May-
flower tribe, and his cow, Mayflower 2nd, in 1901 at the Pan American Exposi-
tion held second, place among fifty animals representing ten different breeds.
His sales at Chicago received the highest prices paid for cattle of this breed.

Our cattle interests are of great magnitude among the states, Ohio occupy-
ing ninth place in value, our combined beef and dairy cattle by the last census
being valued at $51,370,000.

Ohio horses from early days have been in great demand in the East.
While farm horses had been taken East for many years, the first notable prog-
ressive horse movement in this State occurred in the middle of the nineteenth
century, when some of our enterprising horsemen visited France and made im-
portations of French horses. Along at this time, Horse Importing Companies
organized in Ohio, and a movement set in to bring better horses to the State
than we then had. The introduction of the two Percherons, Louis Napoleon,
to Champaign County, and Pleasant Valley Bill to Pickaway County, about
1851, was really a notable historic affair, for these became great early day sires,
and largely aft'ected the character of the horse stock of this country. Since
these days, great numbers of draft horses have been brought to Ohio from
Europe, and more especially France. The Percheroru is essentially the favorite
draft breed in Ohio, and many of the best specimens imported to America have
been brought here by Ohio importers. For many years the McLaughlin Brothers
of Columbus, have been importing the best stallions purchasable in France, and
among the horses they have brought to America have been some of the best
show animals and sellers in the American market. This firm has probably dis-
tribute more high class stallions, and sold more horses at high prices than any
other American firm of equal age in the business. Among the noted horses they
have imported and sold are Orangiste, sold for $5,500, Fronton, sold for $6,500,
Pour-Quoi-Pas, sold for $7,000, and Rosemberg, sold for $8,000. In their recent
importations they have brought over three great show stallions, Etudiant, a famous
French winner, Intime, first prize in a competition of 177 two year old stallions
at the 1910 International Exposition, and Hantbois, first prize aged stallion at the
1911 International. Messrs. Bell Bros., of Wooster, Col. G. W. Crawford of
Newark, Forney Bros, of Plainfield, and Mr. D. J. Grindell of Kenton, have for
years been also engaged in importing draft horses. As a result of these various
importations, and our home breeders, Ohio has many high class draft horses
scattered over the State. Not only this, but Ohio draft geldings and mares have
become famous in the large eastern cities, due to the shipments made by dealers
in certain sections of the State. Large numbers of thin heavy horses are pur-
chased in states to the West of us, and are brought into different sections of
the State and fed by farmers mailing a specialty of this business, being later
shipped East. Horse feeding is a special industry in Wayne, Holmes, Delaware
and other counties of the State. It is said that about 3,000 horses were fed and

24 ADDRESSES

shipped out of Orrville in 1911, Farmers not only pay a high price for these
horses, but sell them also for top figures, $400 not being uncommon.

Light harness and saddle horses came into the State with the early settlers.
There was much nondescript blood in the early days. Thoroughbreds, Morgans
and what later came to be known as standard-breds gradually secured a foothold.
In 1832 a trotter named Bell founder was brought to Ohio from New York, and
stood at Cleveland and elsewhere and sired many fine colts. Along in the forties
the Morgans received considerable attention. With the development of the light
harness horses came increased interest in the trotter and pacer. Race tracks were
established over the State and the race became a feature of the county and tsate
fairs. At Columbus at the present day, we have one of the celebrated fast tracks
of the country. Here Cresceus on Angus 2nd, 1901, reduced the world's trotting
record to 2:02^, while Sweet Marie in 1907 reduced it again to 2:02. In 1909
at Cleveland, the mare Hamburgh Beir reduced the world's trotting record in a
race to 2:01i, and in 1910, against time. The Harvester reduced the world's trot-
ting record to 2 :01 at Columbus. The great Uhlan, the most noted gelding of
today, with a record of 1 :58f is owned by Mr. Billings of Cleveland. Independ-
ence Boy, 2 :01^, one of the best trotting geldings on the circuit is owned in
Columbus by Messrs. Shepard and Valentine. Around Washington Court House,
much interest is shown in the trotter, and here Bobby Burns, a noted sire, has
long been in the stud here. These facts simply show that the people of Ohio
take more than a passing interest in the speed producing horse.

The last census shows Ohio well up among the horse producing states, with
total valuation of about $125,000,000.

■ Since Seth Adams found his way in 1807 from Dorchester, Mass., to Mus-
kingum County, Ohio, with the first Merinos brought west of the AUeghanies,
Ohio has ranked at the top, or nearly so among the sheep producing States.
Adams came to Ohio and began to breed and distribute Merinos over this and
adjoining states and beyond. The Merino interests rapidly developed, and W. R.
Dickenson, became a noted promoter and pioneer in the eastern part of the
State. The hills of Eastern Ohio became dotted with Merinos, and the flocks
-developed in a very superior manner. James McDowell, Bezaleel Wells, Thomas
Rotch, and Adam Hildebrand contributed much to Merino development. Along
in the sixties and seventies, many fine flocks were established, and Ohio became
a powerful factor in the breeding of pure bred sheep. In 1870 there were nearly
5,000,000 sheep in the State. While the number has fallen off materially, the
13th census for 1910 giving the State 3,907,055 sheep and lambs. Ohio as a State
for stud flocks is pre-eminently the most important one in the country. In num-
bers, only Montana and Wyoming surpass Ohio, while for the states east of the
Mississippi River, no other state may be seriously regarded as in the same class
with Ohio. The sheep show at the Ohio State Fair each year is the most im-
•portant even of its kind on' the American continent, for the largest and finest
exhibit of breeding stock is brought forward here. Here gather the most prom-
inent exhibitors and breeders, and many important sales are made at this show.
Men attend the show to buy for the South African and South American trade,
and Ohio bred sheep are purchased for wide distribution over the United States.
The Merino is, generally speaking, the leading breed in the State, and the Ohio
Merino is known as the best produced today in America. The flocks of S. M.
Cleaver of Delaware, George Helser of Lafayette, A. T. Camber of Ada, Blamer
& Son of Johnstown, C. S. Chapman of Marysville, Uriah Cook & Sons of Peoria,
J. J. Deeds & Son of Pataskala, R. D. Williams of Xenia, W. M. Staley of Marys-
ville and many others, are well known. These men have bred sheep that have
been exported, and buyers of their stock have come from over a wide territory.
The prestige once held by Vermont as a Merino headquarter has been transferred

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. . 25

-to O^io, -and now the breeder of that State comes to this one for a source of
supply.

The Rambouillet, a cousin of the American Merino, has a great hold in
sections of Ohio, and has been bred here for long over a half century. The late
Mr. R. C. Moulton, of Woodstock, began with this breed in 1851, and main-
tained a herd for over fifty years continuously. Mr. Dwight Lincoln of Milford
Center, the Secretary of the American Rambouillet Sheep Association, has not
only imported Rambouillets from France and Germany, but has tried his hand
at exporting to the Argentine Republic. Ohio has a number of Rambouillet
colonies in the north and western part of the State, and from these colonies many
carloads of rams have been shipped to western buyers for us on the range. At
the present time, Ohio is the only State east of the Mississippi seriously produc-
ing Rambouillet sheep for outside trade. The flocks of Messrs. Dwight Lincoln
of Milford Center, L. W. Shaw of Pottersburg, "Max Chapman of Marysville,
P. Clark & Son of Cable, and J. H. McMullen of Woodstock, have distributed
Rambouillets over much of the country.

The mutton breeds were introduced in Ohio not long after the Merino, and
Isaac Maynard of Coshocton did much to promote some of these sheep. He in-
troduced the Southdown, Leicester, Cotswold and Lincoln in 1834, and thus made
a tmique record. The Shorpshire, the most common of the mutton breeds here
today, was probably first introduced about 1885, and Mr. Chauncey Hills of
Delaware was one of the earliest importers, and a very intelligent and successful
breeder. The first Oxfords were brought to the State in 1861, to Granville, and
since that day but comparatively, few flocks have developed here. Mr. W. A.
Shafor of Hainilton, has long been noted asa breeder, and years ago he was a
well known importer and exhibitor. The Dorset has been largely handled in the
past by the Wing Bros.^ of Mechanicsburg, but not many flocks are found in the
State. Some most excellent flocks of Cheviots are owned in Ohio, notably those
of F. L. Postle & Son of Camp Chase, Ed. S. Foust of Xenia, W. D. Calland &
Son of DeGrafif, and Boyd & King of Hillsboro. The Hampshire has been known
some time in the State, and C. O. Judd of Kent, P. W. Artz of Osborn, and
W. J. Cherry of Xenia are all prominent and most successful breeders. Mr.
Judd has been a very prominent importer for some years, and his sheep on the
show circuit have been among the most successful American winners. Chas.
Leet & Son of -Mantua are prominent breeders and importers of Hampshires and
Southdowns, and are well known as very successful exhibitors at the shows.
There are some very excellent Shropshire flocks in the State, although these in
the main represent Ohio bred stock. Messrs. F. W. Palmer & Son of Pataskala,
H. M. Brown of Hillsboro, Ed. Post and George F. Stallsmith of Urbana, Ralph
Postle, Camp Chase and J. D. Keiter of Xenia, breed and maintain superior
flocks. The beautiful Southdown has its following, and the Southdown show at
the Ohio State Fair is one of the fine exhibits of the. mutton breeds. Among the
breeders of Southdowns are R. B. Watt of Cedarville, C. J. Stuckey of Mechanics-
burg, Compton & Son of Kile, and C. L. Mitchell of Lucas.

The Longwool breeds years ago had a considerable hold in Ohio, but at the
present day but few are being produced. Dr. H. M. Brown of Hillsboro, and
W. A. Lisle & Son. of West Liberty, keep flocks of Lincolns. There are prob-
ably no Leicesters in the State, and but few Cotswolds.

In addition to its fame as a sheep breeding State, Ohio has long enjoyed a
high rank as a sheep feeding ground. Large numbers of Western sheep and
lambs are shipped into the State each year and fed during the winter season.
Very considerable success has attended this work in the past, arid Ohio fed sheep
command a comparatively high price in the market. The Wing Brothers of
Mechanicsburg have long fed Western lambs. On two different years, Dan W.

26 ADDRESSES

Black of Lyndon won the grand championship in the caiiot contests at the Inter-
national Live Stock Exposition, the highest honors obtainable. Mr. Black bred
these lambs, using Oxford rams on Western ewes. They were a very high class
lot of lambs. The feeding of lambs in western and northwestern" Ohio has had its
lips and downs, but generally the balance has been on the right side of the ledger.
During the past few years, a large number of sheep have been in and about
Fayette County, where good grass and corn are easily produced.

The so-called hot house or winter lamb, is one of the delicacies of the rich
and finds its best sale in the large eastern markets. There are but comparatively
few winter lamb producers. For some years, Mr. Geo. M. Wilber of Marysville
has been the largest producer in the United States, shipping close to 2,000 some
years. He has a very large flock of ewes, and begins to get his lambs about
Thanksgiving, and ships daily during the season to New York. Mr. J. B. Peelle
of Sabina is another successful specialist in this field.

The swine industry of Ohio is one of its most important live stock products.
Hogs are generally grown all over the state, but more especially in the richer
corn producing sections. Beginning early in the last century, the farmer of
southwestern Ohio devoted much attention to swine, having in mind converting
their corn crops into pork. These men largely stimulated Cincinnati as a pork
packing center. Here among these men, the famous Poland China breed of hogs
was developed and came into its greatest prestige. Among the Shakers hogs
were regarded as of great importance as corn converters, and they promoted the
Poland China vigorously. Many men in Ohio attained note by the character of
Poland Chinas they bred, and the names of Harkrader, Klever, Magie, Duffield,
Young, Irwin and Bonham, were among the most important breeders.. Since
these early days has come a long list of prominent breeders in Ohio, among which
Ed. and J. M. Klever of Bloomingburg, Charles E. Keller of Newark, Watkins &
Broadway, Centerville, A. C. Grieve, Xenia, J. H. Staley, Pataskala, J. M. Linson,
South Solon, Osburn Bros., Newark, J. B. Fernon, Leesburg, L. C. McLaughlin
and many others are notable. No better Poland Chinas are to be found than those
produced in Ohio, and for many years they have had a wide distribution over the
United States. The annual show of Poland Chinas at the Ohio State Fair has
nosuperior in the country, when quality and character is considered. Among the
more notable sires of the breed produced in Ohio, have been Tom Cor win 2nd,
Tecumseh, Ideal Sunshine, High Roller, Thickset, Chief Delight, Chief Tecumseh,
etc.

The introduction of the Duroc-Jersey came with the plainer red hogs of
which the Jersey Red was a pioneer. For many years, a few men in Ohio bred
the Duroc-Jersey, of which Mr. Sam Morton of Camden, was a notable pioneer.
These men adhered to their favorites, and for a long time bred and promoted a
red hog that was of hardy constitution, prolific, and fairly easily fattened, but
was coarse and lacked quality. In the later years the breed found a wider
clientage, and many new men took up this breed as a favorite. With their efforts
came a very intelligent improvement of the Duroc-Jersey, so that today this breed
stands before the public as a different sort from in early days. The efforts of
Messrs. Sam Morton of Camden, Ira Jackson of Dayton, E. S. Kelly of Yellow
Springs, Thos. Johnson of Columbus, W. H. Robbins of Springfield, R. C. Watt
of Cedarville, E. S. Foust, Xenia, and many others gave a new impetus to the
breed. Today the Ohio Duroc-Jersey Swine Association numbers about 200 men,
and a more aggressive organization of the kind does noe exist. The sales of
this breed have brought wonderfully good results, and in Ohio, many animals
have brought $500, or more, Mr. Thomas Johnson of Columbus, paying $3,500 for
Orion Chief, $2,000 for King's Pal, and $1,500 for Instructor, all noted sires and
show boars. The influence of the Ohio Duroc-Jersey breeders is not surpassed

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 27

if equalled by the breeders of any other state, for more really superior hogs of
the breea are produced in Ohio than in any other State. Many herds of the
Poland China have had to give way to the popularity of this favorite.

The Berkshire was first introduced into Ohio in 1835, and its blood played
an important part in the improvement of the Poland China. Many herdsof Berk-
shires came into existence, and the breed received much popularity in the State.
However, it passed through some decline in public favor, although in recent years,
many Berkshires have been established, and the breed is more extensively de-
veloped here than in most of the states. There are at present some of the notable
herds of the country in Ohio, especially those of Sheffield Farm at Glendale,
Tannenbaum Farm at Willoughby, H. D. Helmuth of Millersburg, Alber Fisher
of Orient, Everson & Son at Wellington, J. L. Axline at Pataskala, W. H. Palmer
at Thurston and Lippincott at Lima. Among the noted boars of the breed, Long-
fellow Premier C, Handsome Lee, University Lee, and Matchless Baron Duke
have been owned in recent years in Ohio.

The Chester-White is famous in Ohio, through the great improvements made
by S. H. Todd of Ada, and L. B. Silver of Cleveland, both of which men have
long been very intelligent improvers of this pig, and have brought much special
distinction to the State through their breeding work. The Chester-White is well
distributed in Ohio, and does well here. From here, fine specimens of the breed
have been sent over much of the United States.

The College of Agriculture of the Ohio State University has many fine speci-
mens of live stock, which are primarily for use with the students, as object
lessons on animal form and production. The University owns pure bred specimens
of PerCheron, Clydesdale, Hackney and Morgan horses; of Shorthorn, Aberdeen-
Angus, Jersey, Holstein-Friesian, Guernsey, Ayrshire, Kerry and Devon cattle; of
Merino, Shropshire, Southdown, Cheviot, Oxford and Cotswold sheep; of Berk-
shire, Poland China, Duroc-Jersey, and Large Yorkshire hogs. Each year the
University exhibits stock at the International Live Stock Exposition, and has met
with fair success in competition. On two occasions, we have won grand champion-
ship on pen of barrows, over all breeds, grades and crosses, with Berkshires of
our own breeding, and twice we have won the Berkshire breed championship on
barrow, the last being in 1911. We also have won the breed championship on
Shorthorn, Galloway and Red Polled steers in past years.

No one at all familiar with Ohio, but what must recognize her eminent fit-
ness for live stock production. If one knows of the doings in the live stock world,
then he will also recognize the illustrious part Ohio has played in this work in.
the past, and is today.

Our stockmen need but to push forward to still newer and greater accom-
plishments. An army of young men is passing through the College of Agriculture,
and many of these should come out stimulated to identify themselves with the
great agricultural uplift of the future, and to especially devote themselves to
Ohio's live stock interests. Our breeders of today should encourage them and
support the college literally in its work. There is no better field today than right
here in Ohio, for engaging in the live stock business as breeder or feeder. Here
we have the right conditions from the various points of view, and the man who
believes in himself and in Ohio, with intelligent effort will secure success as a
stockman.

28 ADDRESSES

FINANCING THE FARM.

— By Hon. Myron T. Herrick,

Cleveland, Ohio.

The division of industry that occupies the most important position in rela-
tion to the welfare of all the people, is the cultivation of the soil. Agriculture
is the basic vocation. The stability of national life largely depends on the exist-
ence of a sound agricultural development. The history of the older countries
oi the world shows that there have been recurring movements of the people to
and from the soil. History also teaches that the periods- of greatest prosperity
in those countries have been co-existent with the movements back to the soil, —
away from the centers of population. The rise and fall of many nations and
civilizations can be traced in the growth and decline of agricultural interests.
As these nations grew rich and powerful, the pick of the people, lured by the
glamor of urban life, deserted the country, and the cultivation of the soil was
left to the incompetent and the slothful. Within the cities, luxury at one extreme
and want at the other, gradually undermined the moral, intellectual and physical
fibre of the people. The result was that thest nations, kcking transforming
energy and the stamina for successful resistance, gave way before barbarians
or other nations with a civilization less advanced, but tnore virile. The pressure
of population in the cities of this country is making the struggle for existence,
by a large proportion of the people, severe and uncertain, and destructive of in-
dustrial efficiency and of a proper civic consciousness. Want and misery are
inimical to the success of a democracy. The overcrowding in our cities is pro-,
ducing a large class of people, whose low moral "and intellectual standards make
them unfit for citizenship. It is the existence of this class in increasing numbers
that makes it more and more difficult for us to assimilate the foreigners -that
immigrate ,to this country.

That our cities are devastating the farms is emphasized in the last census
reports. Unless the cities re-people and regenerate the farms, the cities will
suffer for the want of food and for the want of strong men. The brain of the
city, like its food, is produced in the country. There is a growing appreciation of
the fact that the future material and political progress of the United States largely
depends upon turning the trend of population from the cities to the country. It
also is realized that to be permanent and of the greatest utility, this movement
must be accompanied by a very great improvement in the methods of cultivating
the soil, and a very decided increase in the number of farms that are cultivated
by owners.

Since the Civil War we have bent .our energies, with unparalleled success,
to the building up of our "infant industries." It is now time to turn some of the
milk that has stimulated the "infant industries" to the nourishment of senile agri-
culture. We have neglected the farm ; we have emulated England in our race
for commercial supr^emacy. We have not taken heed of the example of France,
Germany and other European countries that 'have recognized the importance of
the equal development of manufacturing and agriculture. The contest with the
old' world for the market for manufactured products, on account of the vast
prizes to be gained,* has drawn away from the land a preponderance of the best
intellect of America, until we now find that the production of foodstuffs in the
United States "is not increasing as rapidly as the population. From 1900 to 1910
the population of the United States increased 21% but the number of farms did
not grow as rapidly. In 1900, the number of farms was 5,737,372, and in 1910,
6,340,357, — an increase of 10^%. For the whole United States this is the lowest

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 29

rate of increase for any decade since 1850. If the number of farms is taken as
a measiir^^, agriculture shows a diminished rate of increase, and in large areas of
the country is practically stationary. The small increase in the number of farms
has not been offset by a growth in the size of farms, as the average number of
acres in farms decreased from 146 in 1900 to 138 in 1910. The increase in the
total acreage devoted to agriculture was only 4.2% in ten years. However, im-
proved land acreage makes a somewhat better showing, — the increase from 1900
to 1910 amounting to 15.2%. Yet this percentage of increase was only about two-
thirds of the growth in population; which shows that the number of acres under
cultivation has not kept pace with the increase in the number of people. The
inadequate increase in the number of farms and in the amount of improved land
has not been compensated for by a per acre increase in the production of staples.
From 1899 to 1909, the average production of oats decreased from 31.9 to 28.6
bushels; the per acre production of wheat increased slightly, — 12.5 bushels in
1899 to 15.4 in 1909; and the per acre production of corn fell from 28.1 to 25.9
in the same "period. Should such a ratio continue, it will be but a few years before
we are dependent on the bounty of other countries for much of our food supply.
We are aghast when we contemplate the possibility of this country, with its vast
domain, losing eight or ten years hence, not only its ability to supply foreign
countries with food, but its enviable position as a self-supporting country. . How-
ever, it is not likely that we shall ever be coi^pelled to beg food from other
nations. The quick comprehension and the ready adaptability of the American
people will prevent such an unfortunate situation, but the responsibility of correct-
ing conditions lies upon us of this generation. The national government, through
the Department of Agriculture, and- the states through their agricultural colleges,
are accomplishing much, but we are not moving fast enough. Some of the older
countries, particularly France and Germany, have been through the same experi-
ence. Years ago they recognized the .imperative need of using scientific methods
in farming, and both France and Germany are now faf in advance of the United
States in the successful application of modern scientific methods of cultivating
the soil. In the United States the average yield of wheat per acre is about 15
bushels ; in Germany it is about 28 bushels ; in France, 20 bushels. The farms
of the United States produce, on the average about 30 bushels of oats per acre ;
those of Germany, 46 bushels.

1. The statistics as to the per acre production of potatoes are peculiarly
striking. In 1909 France produced 190 bushels of potatoes per acre, Germany
226 bushels, Russia 135 bushels, Belgium 286 bushels, — in 1911 the United State§
produced but 80 bushels, of potatoes per acre.

There is absolutely no reason why we should lag behind any of the countries
of Europe in the per acre production of foodstuffs. By the use of proper methods
the volume of the farm products of this country easily can be doubled.

2. In Germany and France, co-operative societies, formed among the agri-
cultural classes, have done much to promote scientific farming and the general
interest of farmers by enabling them to advantageously buy and sell products and
merchandise. In Germany the local societies have united into branch societies,
circuit and district societies and these form the basis of the two general German
Agricultural Organizations — the Imperial Union of Agricultural Societies and the
General Union of Agricultural Societies. In 1905 these two organizations were
united for all administration purposes, and is known as the Imperial Agricultural
Organization. This organization, in 1909 embraced 67 circuit unions, 18,333 local
societies, and a membership of ;i,575,000.

The local societies are divided into 12,584 savings and loan societies, 2,128
co-operative purchasing societies, 1,960 dairy societies and approximately 1.591
societies devoted to various other objects. In 1907 the total assets of the savings

30 ADDRESSES

and loan societies amounted to about $400,000,000, the assets of the co-operative
purchasing societies to $13,000,000, and the value of the merchandise purchased
to $22,500,000. The dairy societies have for their object the selling of dairy
products for the members of the societies. Some idea as to the importance of
these societies can be gained from the fact that the total value of dairy products
amounts to $46,385,649. The dairy societies are typical of those societies belong-
ing to the Imperial Agricultural Organization that have for their purpose the
selling of the products of the land. The development of Agricultural societies in
France has been very similar to that in Germany. It is impossible to overestimate
the advantage of such societies to the agricultural interest of Germany and France.
They constitute the connecting link between the farmer and what he produces
and the large public, that buys and consumes. Similar societies in this country
undoubtedly would add to the independence, contentment and prosperity of those
who cultivate the soil.

The permanent improvement of farming methods, whereby the yield per acre
may be substantially increased, demands two things. Farmers must be made to
appreciate the possibilities of scientific methods, and taught how to use such
methods, and they must be supplied with funds to make the needed changes and
improvements. We can not hope for an increase in the production of foodstuffs
in this country equal to the increase in consumption, unless the deserving tiller
of the soil can be suppHed with the funds he needs, at low rates and for long
periods. It is as necessary for the farmer to have cheap money as it is for the
railroad builder or the manufacturer. The availability of cheap money for loans
on farm -land will make it possible for may farm tenants to buy farms for them-
selves. It will, encourage many others to purchase land and take up farming as
a means of livelihood. At the present time 37% of all the farms of the country
are cultivated by tenants, — an increase of 16% since 1900. The cultivation of
the soil by owners is essential to the highest agricultural development. Tenants
•will not use the same care and skill that owners do. The young man of today
who scans the field of human endeavor will see, in the cultivation of the soil
with the aid of modern science, what was not there thirty or forty years ago.
Profit, plenty and peace will be his portion of he makes agriculture his pro-
fession, and is equipped as well as he must be to make a success in other voca-
tions. Farm life today is immeasurably more attractive than it was twenty, or
even ten, years ago. Improved roads, the telephone, rural free delivery and other
conveniences, to a large extent have done away with the depressing isolation of
country life, and it is now possible for the farmer and his family to take part
in the social life of the community. Of those engaged in industrial pursuits,
less than 5% can ever hope to "own their own jobs and employ themselves," but
of those that look to the land for their living, provided they are well trained and-
work with energy and intelligence, 95% can reasonably hope to be their own
masters.

Experience in France and Germany conclusively proves that the development
of successful scientific farming in large measure depends upon the existence of
facilities whereby land owners can obtain funds on favorable terms to finance
improvements. In France and Germany there are numbers of organizations, uni-
formly successful, that loan money to farmers — particularly to those owning and
cultivating small tracts of land, on long and easy terms. These organizations have
been so successful that they can loan funds to land owners on terms as favorable
a3 those secured by large railroad and industrial corporations in this country.
In this country loans on farm land as security, with few exceptions, have re-
tained their primitive immobile form. The farmer when he needs funds for
improvements, additional stock or new implements only can borrow, if at all,
in his own immediate neighborhood and for short periods. The consequence is

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 31

that, ^iiot infrequently, he is unable to get funds when needed, and usually he is
obliged to pay a rate of interest higher than that to which the nature of the
security he has to offer entitles him. There are in this country no organizations
by which loans on land — the safest of all security, can be mobilized, and access
obtained to the wide stable investment market.

To show what has been accomplished in other countries in this direction,
descriptions follow of the Landschaften Associations in Germany and the Credit
Fonder in France.

The Landschaften Associations are societies of farmers. The members have
the right to issue mortgage bonds based upon the mortgages held by the Asso-
ciation. These bonds are guaranteed by all the members of the Association.
By virtue of such a guarantee the bonds are readily salable upon favorable terms,
throughout the empire, to banks and all classes of investors. By means of these
bonds, and the conditions under which they are issued, the farmers belonging to
the associations can command the money market as readily as great business
corporations or municipalities. Those who join the associations must have their
estates appraised, and they are permitted to make mortgage loans up to one-half
or one-third of the appraised value of their land. The association assumes the
responsibility for the payment of the loan. The association pays the interest and
also the principal, when due, for which it is reimbursed by the borrower. In
order to show the actual working of one of these organizations, I will describe
one that has its headquarters at. Kiel. This institution has the right to acquire
real property, and to issue mortgage bonds payable to the holders. Only those
that own agricultural or wooded lands of a certain earning power or determined
A-alue can become members. As all those that join the association need capital,
the initiation fee is calculated at the rate of 1-10 of 1% of the amount to be
borrowed. Mortgage bonds are issued in denominations of 5,000, 2,000, 1,000, 500
and 200 marks, in four classes, bearing 3%, 3|-%, 4% or 4^% interest. The bonds
are quoted and sold on the financial exchanges and find a ready market. The
Association guarantees the payments of the bonds when due. If the capital of the
Association is not sufficient for the purpose, then the individual members become
jointly liable to an amount not to exceed 5% of the money loaned and not re-
paid. The total amount of the bonds of the Association in circulation must not
be in excess of the total amount of the mortgage claims against its members which
the Association holds. The bonds are redeemed at intervals, the numbers being
drawn by lot. The mortgagor can negotiate a loan through the Association at
3%, 3^-%, 4% or 4J%. He selects a rate according to the circumstances of the
money market. The mortgagor pays into the Association, in addition to the
interest, and until the termination of the loan, i of 1% for amortization, and
1-10 of 1% as a contribution to the cost of administration. If the mortgagor fails
to meet his obligations to the Association, it may demand full payment of the
loan upon six months' notice, and if the payment is not then made, the property
is sold. If property on which a loan has been made decreases in value partial
repayment of the loan is demanded. The surplus receipts of of the Association
go into a reserve fund from which losses are made good. The administration
of the affairs of the Association is under the supervision of the Prussian Minister
of Agriculture, and under the special control of a Royal Commissioner, who is
authorized, at any time, to inspect the books and fund, to attend meetings, and
to call meetings. On January 1, 1908, the bonds of the Landschaftliche Credit
verband, were as follows : *

Marks.

4 per cents '. . . . 7,044,800 $1,676,662.40

3^ per cents 33,481,800 7,968,668.40

3 per cents 1,813,200 431,541.60

32 ADDRESSES

In 1908 the largest loan amounted to 62,600 marks ($14,898.80) and the
smallest 600 marks ($142.80). The average was 13,000 marks ($3,284.40).

The Credit Fonci^r de France established to satisfy an imperative need is
a limited liability company with a capital of 200,000,000 francs, operating under
the supervision of the state. In the beginning (1852) the government granted
the Credit Foncier a. subsidy of ten million francs in order to help it make loans
at a rate advantageous for that time. The subsidy was not renewed, and the
state does not now intervene except occassionally to exercise its control. The
purposes of the Credit Foncier are :

1. Lending money to land owners, counties, communes and public services.

2. To create and negotiate real estate bonds, or mortgage bonds to a value
which cannot exceed the amount of the sums due from its borrowers.

The company is permitted to receive deposits, but the aggregate of the de-
posits must not exceed one hundred million francs. The funds received on de-
posit are employed in discounting commercial bills on condition that they have
two signatures and do not run over three months. The shares of the Credit
Foncier, which are dealt in on the Bourse, are issued at five hundred francs, and
anyone can own them. The stock now receives 6% dividends and sells for about
750 francs a share. The government appoints the governor and two sub-governors.
There must also be three treasurers general among the' 23 members of the council
of administration. These treasurers, as well as other adrninistrators, are appointed
by the general assembly of the company. The general assembly represents all
the stockholders, and is composed of the 200 who own the largest amount of
stock.

The two principal kinds of operations of the Credit Foncier are mortgage
loans and communal loans. The total of these two kinds of operations now
amount to more than four billion francs. So far as the possible adoption of
some of the methods of the Credit Foncier in the United States is concerned, that
part of its operations covering the making of loans to land owners is of the
greatest interest. Our municipalities now have a broad and steady market for
their securities.

The Credit Foncier makes loans to land owners on the following terms :

1. Short time loans, without amortization, for a period of from one to nine
years.

2. Long time loans, with annual amortization, for a period of from ten to
seventy-five years.

The rate of interest on the loans is 4.30% per annum, and the rate is the
same for all kinds of property. Loans are made only on first mortgage security,
and the amount of the loan cannot exceed one-half of the value of the property,
except that loans on wines and timber must not exceed one-third of their vavlue.
When the loan is made for a short period, the borrower pays each year only the
amount of interest due and the principal amount must be paid in full at the end
of the term of the loan — one to nine years. Long time loans are gradually paid
by means of an annuity, which includes the interest and a small fraction of the
principal. As a rule the borrower himself fixes the length of the time that the
loan is to run. The amortization extends over the whole period of the loan, so
that the total of the interest and capital is repaid from a constant yearly annuity.
Consequently, the most of amortization depends on the length of the loan and on
the rate of interest. On a loan running for 75 years at 4.30% interest the annuity
— including interest and amortization, is at the rate. of 4.48% per annum. The
borrower has the right to pay the principal of the loan at any time, and to profit
by the amortization already made. He can also make partial payments and there-
by reduce the amount of the anuity. The land owner, who wishes to build, can
obtain from the Sous Comptoir des Entrepreneus — a society connected with the

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 3^

Credit Foncier, a mortgage credit based on the value of the land and of the
building to be erected. When the building is finished the credit can be converted
into a Credit Foncier loan.

The real estate bonds issued by the Credit Foncier have no fixed maturity^
but are called for payment by lot. Each payment of bonds must be of such an
amount that the bonds remaining in circulation will not exceed the balance of the
principal owed upon the hypotheticated loans. If the government approves, there
can be added to the bonds called for payment certain prizes and premiums. The
funds received from the usual amortization, or anticipated payments must be
used to amortize or redeem bonds, or to make new loans. In general the bonds
bear 3% on the nominal capital, and the cost of the loans to the company, in-
cluding interest and amortization, is about 3.60% which places them on a par with
municipal bonds. At the present time the company is redeeming bonds to the
amount of about 30,000,000 francs per year, but the amount of redemptions can
be increased, if it becomes necessary in order to keep the balance between the
bonds and the loans. The bonds are sold by public subscription. About every
three years the company issues bonds sufficient to yield from 300,000,000 to
350,000,00*^ francs. The bonds are subscribed for by people of small means, and
usually remain in their hands; consequently the quotations of the bonds show
little fluctuation. The company always keeps a few bonds on hand for sale, but
the bulk of them are disposed of by public subscription.

It is not necessary for us here to inaugurate a new and untried scheme of
finance to enable farmers of the United States to borrow at low rates and for
long periods. We can profit by the long and successful experience of other
countries. ' We can take the French and German models and revamp them to-
harmonize with conditions in this country. The principles that underlie the mort-
gage loan organizations in France and Germany are familiar to us here, and we
know that they are economically sound. If those countries could successfull)r
initiate, can we not adopt? '

There are several conditions that must be observed if organizations for the
loaning of funds to land owners in this country are to be successful. The cor-
porations or associations must have a large capital. They must be established
for the single purpose of loaning money to land owners at low rates and for as.
long periods as possible. There should be no profit to promoters in the organiza-
tion of such corporations, and the return to the stockholders must be kept within
very reasonable limits. In other words, the borrowers, and not the stockholders,,
should be the chief beneficiaries of the success of the undertaking. The active
assistance and co-operation of the state or nation must be obtained. The mort-
gages held by the company should be exempt from taxation. Special laws would
be needed and the provision made for thorough examination by state or national
authorities, or both. It might be wise to have some of the executive officers
receive their appointment from the state or nation.

There are many patriotic men of great ability heretofore engaged in the
accumulation of wealth who, realizing, as many of them do, the supreme im-
portance to the lasting welfare of the nation of stimulating and assisting the
movement of population back to the farm, would be willing to give freely of
their time and money to an undertaking of this sort. The old school of public
spirited business men regarded material prosperity as the end of everything, but
of late business men have assumed a somewhat different attitude and it is due to
them that most of the reforms in business and political life have been successful.
Prosperity must be guarded as sacredly as in the times of McKinley, but it i»
now more fully recognized that there are other essentials that must go hand in-
hand with prosperity. Because of their recognition of these things Americar>
business men undoubtedly can be relied upon to assist the development of agri»-

9 AD. BD. AGR.

34 ADDRESSES

culture in this country, not only because it will advance our material prosperity,
but also because it will broaden, strengthen and purify the basis of American
political and economic life.

At the convention of the American Bankers' Association, held in New Or-
leans last month, a committee of seven on agricultural improvement and farm
financing was appointed. This committee will consider thoroughly the subject of
farm financing in relation to conditions in this country, and in its report to the
next convention will make same definite recommendations, which might well em-
brace a plah which could be used as the basis of state or national legislation.

The demand for cheap money for the purposes of agriculture is nation wide,
and the effort to supply it should interest all who appreciate the fundamental
importance of national prosperity and progress.

BOOST OHIO

By Fixing the Roads and Lifting the People Out of the Mud.

By Jesse Taylor,
Secretary The Ohio Good Roads Federation and Editor of Better Roads.

Better roads are being discussed everywhere — in the office, bank, school,
church, woman's clubs, boards of trade, grange meetings, bankers' conventions,
railway meetings, on the streets and along the roads.

Good roads are civilizers.

Good roads are educators.

Good roads pay for themselves.

Good roads are as essential as harbors.

(Good roads are promoters of good health.

<}ood roads convert swamps into homesteads.

Good roads are mile-stones of civilization.

Good roads bind people together in industry, intelligence and patriotism.

Good roads will bring the country to the town with its produce and will
-send the town to the country for pure air and good health.

Good roads will convert barren lands into fertile fields.

Good roads will enhance the value of everything they touch.

Good roads will bring good returns to everything that trav-el them.

Good roads will facilitate and cheapen transportation.

Good roads will bring untold wealth to the producers.

Good roads will save millions to the consumers.

Good roads will be the solution of the rural problem.

Good roads will make country life more attractive than city life.

Good roads will make the consumer's dollar go further and will put into
the farmer's pocket a greater portion of that dollar.

Good roads are indispensable to our growth and progress.

Good roads will make possible the three great links of civilization — the
model home and the model country school.

Good roads mean a higher life for the people of the states upon whom
rest the responsibility of our government and our Christian civilization.

Eyery dollar expended in encouraging road building, every dollar employed
to carry expert advice on road construction into every section of our state is
a distinct contribution to the welfare, comfort and happiness of the people of the
state.

Hell on earth is on a back road with a neighbor landowner who will not

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 35

sign a petition for the construction of a good road.

The vahie of a man's services to society is in proportion to his ability to
work with other men. Try it once on the roads and make better roads and
better men.

Throw away your clubs, stop your knocking and get into the good roads
campaign in Ohio,

Bad roads are the signs of backwardness, indolence and careless citizenship.

Every day a road is bad the users of it and the purchasers of supplies
hauled over it loose money.

Bad roads are responsible to a great degree for driving the young people
from the farm into the cities.

Bad roads empty the benches in the school houses and are largely responsible
for four hundred abandoned church buildings in Ohio.

Bad roads play an important part in what we eat and wear.

Bad roads are an extravagance that no civilized people can afford.

Bad roads keep the farmers at home to read the catalogues of mail order
houses.

Bad roads prevent the farmer from delivering the corn from which he is
expected to realize money with which to pay an account with his local mer-
chant and the note due in bank.

Bad roads have been tried by the farmer, doctor, lawyer, merchant, preacher,
trader, teacher, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the high and the
low, the millionaire and the tramp, the drunk and the sober and the saint and
the sinner, who, although familiar with the history of bad roads of the past
and the waste of untold millions due to bad roads, have just commenced to
realize that the time is at hand for the people of Ohio to demand a change in
road conditions and to pull themselves out of the mud.

Right now is the time to fix the roads and spend less time in cussing the
•middle-man for with good roads we can dodge him and reach the -consumer.

Elbert Hubbard says "Instead of hitching your wagon to a star, suppose
you get in touch with the good roads movement."

I am interested in the question of better roads, am not committed to any
pet scheme, am not interested in the manufacture of road materials or road
machinery and care not who gets the glory so long as the people of Ohio get
the results — better roads.

I am in the better roads campaign with the people to win a victory for
better roads everywhere to be constructde and maintained less and less at the
expense of the abutting land owner and more and more by county, state and na-
tional assistance.

I am opposed to all laws, either existing or proposed, which place all the
burden of the construction and maintenance of public roads upon the farmer and
the abutting land owner.

The highways of the state are for the use and benefit of the people of
the state and are free to inter-state travel which has all been made possible, with
but few exceptions, by direct tax upon the abutting and near-by land owner
who have blazed the way and laid the foundation for a great system of public
highways throughout the states and nation-wide extent.

The state of Ohio has spent millions of dollars in the construction and
maintenance of its canals and but a meager sum "for the improvement of the
wagon roads of the state upon the theory that money spent for canals would
lessen transportation by water and without any consideration whatever of the
much greater demand for cheaper transportation by land.

Now is the time for Ohio to follow the splendid examples set by Cali-
fornia, New York and Pennsylvania" and issue the bonds of the state' for state

36 ADDRESSES

aid in the construction of a complete system of inter-county roads and let future
generations and all property of the state help pay the cost.

The Constitutional Convention now in sesion should submit an amendment
to the present Constitution to permit the issuing of state bonds, for state aid
in road construction, in an amount not to exceed one per cent on the grand
tax duplicate of the state, which, when spread out over all the property of the
state can be paid off, .both principle and interest, at the end of twenty-five years-
at an average per capita cost of fifty-five cents.

In addition to state aid I believe the Congress of the United States has as
much right to appropriate money for either money aid to the states in road con-
struction and maintenance or in the building of great national roads as it has ta
appropriate money for the building of public roads in Alaska, the Canal Zone
and the islands of the sea.

THE SCHOOLS OF OHIO.

• By Hon. Frank Miller^

State School Commissioner.

Mr. Sandles has asked me to say a few words in behalf of the schools of
Ohio. I take it for granted that it is his desire and your desire that I confine
my remarks to the rural schools. Some of you may wonder what I may know
about the country. Well, I will tell the story that you have aften heard from
others, "I was reared on the farm." Not only was I reared on the farm but
my interest in farm work and farm life have never ceased. In fact my neigh-
bors call me the farmer. I can hold the handles of the plow as well as the rest
of you, and I still occasionally take the pitchfork in harvest time and jump onto-
a hay doodle and toss it on the wagon so that the fellow on the other side must
hustle to keep up.

Ohio has not only given birth to many great men who have acquired national
fame but has also given birth to the township centralized school as that term is
now understood. This form of rural school is considered by educators as the
most efficient school for the rural districts and I am proud to be able to say that
it is an Ohio product. ^We have in this State many townships that are under the
supervision of able township superintendents. Here too we find good school work
and the teachers are guided and encouraged to render still more efficient service.
There are many faithful teachers in the townships that are not organized and are
without a superintendent but by earnest endeavors on their part they too are
rendering excellent service.

You may have observed that some poor schools have been reported as exist-
ing in Ohio. Ohio is not by any means the only State in the Union that has
some poor schools, but Ohio has awaked to the importance of having an efficient
school system, not for a part, but for all of her children.

That the very worst conditions have been brought to light is a wholesome
sign of a better future. The citizenship of Ohio will insist upon giving every
boy and girl within the domain of this State an opportunity for an education.
It is my earnest hope that within the next few years these neglected schools will
be regenerated into newer and better schools. We boast of this country being a
land of equal opportunities, then by all means let us get together and make it so.
The revelation of school conditions is a boost because it leads to betterment.
We must keep in mind also the fact that Ohio has some of the best common
schools, and country school buildings to be found anywhere. Ohio has more high
schools than New York and Massachusetts combined, and this is saying a whole
lot for the schools of Ohio. The country boy hears the city boy tell about his.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 37

high school studies. He becomes interested and wants to go to high school him-
self. If he has no high school near home his tendency is to go to the city high
school. There should be a high school near enough so that every country boy
and girl can attend, and Ohio is trying to meet this demand.

At the present time the State each year pays two dollars for every enu-
merated youth in each school district. If this were raised to four dollars per
enumerated youth instead of two, much would be done toward the solution of
this difficult problem. Such a law would be a just law. For instance there are
communities in this State where mining is almost the sole industry. There is
very little property of high value for taxation and consequently their schools must
suffer. They pour out a stream of wealth of coal and iron ore which spreads
over the entire State to furnish the power which turns the factory wheels and
make possible wealth whose benefits they do not reap. It gives railroads business
and permeates all the trades and industries. If the next legislature will allow
four dollars for each enumerated youth it will bestow untold blessings upon the
schools of the poorer districts and those districts which are in distress will be
relieved.

One of the most important measures of a constructive legislation passed last
winter is the Cahill Law which provides for the teaching of agriculture in the
common schools of the rural and village districts of Ohio. In the past the rural
schools were not in touch with the life of their communities. In large part they
were imitations of city schools teaching not country life but city life. The chil--
dren had held up before them ideals taken not from the country but" from the
city. They had held up before them for their ideals great lawyers and doctors,
generals and the great masters of finance without ever pointing out some farmer
who possesses the sterling qualities of true manhood.

Not many weeks ago I opened a text book which had been in use in our
schools and saw on the first page the picture of a lady leading a little boy by the
hand. She was pointing to ' a temple which was standing on a hill. Across the
end of the temple was printed the word knowledge. On that temple was a dome
which had on it the word Fame. I take this picture to mean that the lady was
the goddess of learning and that she was telling that Httle boy that he must
acquire knowledge in order that he may become famous. Then that boy had
held up before him the fame of an Alexander, a Caesar, a Napoleon and men of
that type, heroes of the battlefield, without even referring to the heroes of every-
day life and of peace. Then those same tachers would plead for universal peace
and be answered by what? Another battleship from every one of the great nations
of the earth. The implements of destruction. The implements which bring noth-
ing but misery and distress instead of happiness to the people of this world.
Under the influence of such teaching in the past what could be more natural than
that our boys and girls in the country be restless, and as they grow up to be men
and women they will turn toward the city where they hope to realize those ideals
they have been so faithfully taught during their childhood days.

I have a son in the public school, but I do not want him to be taught that
he must learn his lessons in order that he may become famous. I want the aim
of his teaching to be such that he will become an honest, upright, and useful
citizen. When this is done, I as his father will be satisfied. When such teaching
is found in every school room the public schools will be fulfilling the mission for
which they are intended. House with children in it.

The teaching of agriculture is bringing a new atmosphere into the country
school. The country school is coming in touch with the life and interests of its
community. Boys and girls are beginning to see that in the country there are
great possibilities and that it is the best place in which to live. Mr. Ivins, one
of the supervisors of agricultural education told me that when he was called to

38 ADDRESSES

supervise the schools of Turtlecreek township in Warren County and introduce
agriculture into the schools, he asked the pupils in each school who intended to
remain on the farm to raise their hands. Fifteen percent raised hands
indicating that they intended to remain on the farm. After the subject was
taught for four years, he again asked the same question. Eighty-five percent
indicated that they intended to remain on the farm. This is an example of what
the teaching of agriculture in the schools of Ohio is accomplishing.

The boys and girls are beginning to see that Ohio has great agricultural
possibilities. School work is being more closely related to life-work than ever
before. The new agricultural work is improving country life conditions every-
where. There is fine co-operation where it never before existed. A better under-
standing between teachers and patrons has come about and conditions in Ohio
schools are travelling toward the ideal.

Last winter I placed a few books on elementary agriculture within reach of
my little daughter of eleven years to see what she would do. She had been read-
ing fairy tales but on opening one of the books on agriculture she became so
absorbed that her mind was literally buried in that book for over an hour.
Finally she looked up and with a beaming countenance said, "Papa are we going
to study agriculture in our school?" I said no, my dear, you are not. And she
said with a changed countenance and pleading voice why not it is so interesting.
I am trying to rear my children under country influence as much as I can, be-
cause I believe it is the best influence under which children can grow.

Nature is the most beautiful thing on God's green earth whether it is the
sunset sky with its glowing colors, the fleecy clouds floating in the air or the
flowers and animals of the fields. Have you ever stopped to think that what one
can see in an object depends upon his previous training or occupafion. The
lumberman who goes through a forest sees the great trunks of great trees and
the saw logs they will make. He sees the commercial side of the forest. The
hunter goes through the forest. He sees no saw logs but soon discovers the
hole in the tree trunk which is the den of the raccoon or the other denizens of
the forest. He sees the pleasure side. The botanist who goes through that forest
sees the leaves of the trees, their buds and flowers, and the humble flowers and
vines which grow at his feet. He sees the scientific phase of that forest. Finally
there comes the poet who sees things none of the others have seen. He sees the
finer elements in nature. He sees those things which appeal to our finer sensi-
bilities, bring inspiration, and awaken the emotions in the heart of man that he
may sing the glory of the forest in song and verse. He who has never lived
in country — appreciate literature.

Agriculture is taught today in something like 10,000 elementary schools and
800 high schools in Ohio. This teaching is bringing the boys and girls ih harmony
with their environment. It is leading them to see and appreciate the beauties^
of their surroundings. The child who grows up surrounded by that which is
beautiful is going to develop a beautiful character. There is nothing but what
is good in most plants and animals and the child who grows up in the midst of
these is bound to imbibe some of this quality.

H people from the city would spend their vacation in the country, it would
be far better and enjoyable for their children than to go to the seashore resorts
where everything is artificial and high except the low moan of the sea.

The old forms of brutal punishment which were used when I was a boy
no longer find a place in our school rooms. Such subjects as agriculture create
an interest in our boys and girls, and it is interest which induces good school
work. There is a feeling of friendship between teacher and pupils, and boys
and girls behave without the rod because they wish to do what is right. As
far as the schools are concerned we are in the glowing dawn of a bright era.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 39

Bring up the few schools that need bringing up and we will all be ready to
shout "Hurrah for the schools of Ohio."

It don't pay to growl and grumble and have a grouch all over. The grouch
only makes himself and those about him miserable. Be up and do things. We
have a little realm all in itself. We may not have any mines that produce gold
bricks, gold bricks in more senses than one but we have deposits of iron ore and
coal the backbone of civilization. We have a soil which is rich in its possibili-
ties, and above all we have a sturdy citizenship which is bound to make Ohio
the finest place on earth in which to live.

AN AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF OHIO.

By L. H. Goddard,
Department of Cooperation, Ohio Experiment Station.

A Wheat Experiment and Its Lesson.

Mr. Chairman^ Ladies and Gentlemen :

If permissible I would like first to relate « little personal experience which
happened to me down on the farm in Fayette County a few years before I took up
my present work. A friend of mine, wishing to improve his wheat crop, finally
decided at my suggestion to purchase a few bushels of wheat as seed from the
Experiment Station. The selection -of the variety being left to me, I chose that
which had been rated by the Station at the end of a long series of experiments as
unqualifiedly the best, and did so with perfect assurance as to the ultimate results
of the use of this variety on my friend's farm. To my mind nothing but a
splendid outcome could follow the use of such seed by my friend or anyone else
in 'Ohio, for that matter. How could seed with such a stamp of approval fail in
any way?

You will therefore judge of my pique when I tell you that the first year this
wheat produced only moderately well; in fact, not so well as some of the other
varieties in that neighborhood and indeed no better than the other variety in use
on the farm on which it was seeded. In defense of the variety and of the Experi-
r-ent Station, however, I tried to explain and succeeded in producing conviction
that the comparative failure was due probably to deficiency in preparation of the
seed-bed and perhaps to a certain extent to lack of climatic adjustment, and that
another year with more care used in seeding would tell a different story.

I was correct in assuming that another year would tell a different story.
No man who saw the wheat at threshing time the second fall would question
that. The seed produced the previous year had been used on a selected field
carefully prepared and owing to the different and rather beautiful appear-
ance of the crop as it grew and the fact that it was situated close to the road
where it was observed by many in passing, the threshing results were await-
ed with great expectancy. My friends, the story which the threshing ma-
chine told the watching crowd on threshing day was, that the field which had
been given such care and seeded with this new special variety of wheat, had
produced about two-thirds of a crop and that crop quite largely screenings or
chicken feed.

Such an experience as this is bound to make a very lasting impression on
one's mind. We can read with a certain amount of calmness of unfortunate expe-
riences which are sustained by others, but when such come home to us personally
and in the public manner in which this did to me, the effect is apt to be very

40

ADDRESSES

different. We are apt to keep the matter pretty clearly in mind and if we are
disposed to philosophize, to do a lot of thinking as to the reason why such a
thing could possibly happen.

Experience Begets Caution.

Some of you who have noted the character of the work of the Extension
Department of the Experiment Station, with which I have been connected since

Fig. 1.

•commencing work there in 1904, will now understand why every feature which has
(been taken up by that Department has been encompassed by a great big question
^mark; why we have always introduced everything by means of cooperative expe-
riments; why we have always insisted that negative results in connection with
these experiments were just as valuable to us as positive results, and. why on
almost every occasion we have been so extremely non-committal.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

41

I took up the Experiment Station work in 1904 with the feeling that
perhaps my experience had been unique, and with the hope that with the
opportunity to observe through cooperative experiments and field investi-
gations I would somehow be able to clear up the matter, for at no time then
or since has there ever been the slightest question in my mind as to the
accuracy of the work of the Experiment Station.

Map qfOh/o

"^roc/uction o^fri.shfhfafoes
hcf Townshiios in
•^/^03'^—

Oh/0 'State Boaro/ojf^.^ricufture
<Sca/e ' = sooo hu

Fig. 2.

Experiments in Cooperation with Farmers.

While as just stated, we always announced that negative results in con-
nection with cooperative experiments were just as valuable to us as positive
results, as indeed they were, I must say, however, that the large number of
negative results secured was indeed much of a surprise and soon became a
little wearing on the nerves. In nearly every case we received a few reports
of remarkably positive results from our experiments, showing that they had

42

ADDRESSES-

been of much value to the farmers conducting them, but from perhaps the
majority of them came fiothing but tales of woe. How could such a condi-
tion exist?

At first we were disposed to blame the trouble on the method of conducting
the experiment and accordingly tried a number of methods, as some of you may
know. We had small hand experiments worked out with the greatest of care.
We had small experiments in connection with which machines were used. We

Fig. 3.

had large experiments made under field conditions. In fact, we tried almost every
plan we could devise, not only one year but for several years and yet the results
were unsatisfactory. Varieties or methods of the excellence of which we had not
a doubt would fail comparatively in a large number of cases no matter how we
would conduct the test. We could not blame the result on the carelessness of co-
operators, because we knew from visits at some of their farms that such was not
the case or rather was not the case in enough instances to explain all our trouble.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

4^

EXPERIMENTS ON A SuB-StATION.

In the meantime, referring again to our personal experience with the
variety of wheat, we had occasion to visit one of the Station test farms in
southwestern Ohio where the soil and climatic conditions were much the
same as those on the farm on which the variety had been tried at my sug-
gestion and there we found identically the samft results with that particular

MapofOh/o

a/(/cf/'<y7 0fMa/o/e Syru/o
Jbu 7oty/7<s/?//0'S /n
.zL^/&03'^

Compt/eo/jfrom Records
0/7/0 ySfafe3oo/ro/of^r/cu/fure

Scof/e • = woo^o//.

Fig. 4.

variety as in our own experience, thus indicating that our own farm exper-
ience was normal rather than unique and that perhaps the type of soil and
climate or something else were after all very important factors in the growth
of a crop.

A State-wide Field Study Becomes Necessary.

Finally, with the hope of solving this irritating riddle, we were fairly driven
in IQ-IO to make an elaborate state-wide field study of the farm practice in con-

44

ADDRESSES

nection with one of Ohio's most sensitive crops, — alfalfa. In this study our
Mr. W. M. Cook, who was making it, visited specially in connection with this
investigation 2'93 farms which were located in 49 counties of the state and which
represented fairly well all parts of it. He also visited a number of other farms
incidentally in connection with other investigations.

The lessons learned from this field study which was reported in Circular

Fig. 5.

113 of the Ohio Experiment Station certainly confirmed the wisdom of the
long-standing policy of the Station to extend its field plot work to areas wide-
ly distributed over the state; indeed, pronounces the need of each county
having its own experiment farm, for which a number have already made ar-
rangements and so many more are now making plans. They also pronounc-
-ed another very important fact; that something must be done to enable every
iarmer in the State to know to which of these experiment farms he should

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

4S

turn for information. In other words, we became convinced that, on the
basis of experiments made on any given farm we positively can not predict
with certainty as to what will happen on another farm regarding many things^
especially those related to plant growth, unless we know that the soil, cli-
mate and other conditions limiting or promoting plant growth, are similar
on the two farms.

Mop of Ohio
Proo/uction of Oats

bu 7b\/vnship^ in
Compiled from Records

Ohio State Board of /hfnculture
Sca/e ' = sooo fou

Fig. 6.

An Agricultural Survey.

Doubtless with this conviction in mind Director Thorne decided that a
beginning should be made at once toward the execution of his long-cherish-
ed plan-rthe making of an agricultural survey of the state of Ohio, and, since
the Department of Cooperation had men who were trained in field work
and who were interested in this very problem, that that Department should
be placed in charge of the work. This decision was made in the spring oS

'^^

ADDRESSES

1911, but the past season has been one of reorganization. It has been nec-
essary to work .out plans for immediate action that were suited to funds and
forces available and that would fit in, if possible, with enlarged plans which
might be developed to use more funds in the future.

It was also necessary to avoid casting aside for destruction the unfinished
work which we had been conducting up to that time. Accordingly, it became

Ma/oof Ohi

Comp/kcJjrc
Oh/o^tateBc

Fig. 7.

necessary to turn over for continuance by other Departments of the Experiment
Station a number of lines of work in which our Department was very much
interested ; such for instance as the county fair ^exhibit work and Corn Improve-
ment Association work, both of which are now in charge of Mr. D. W. Galehouse
of the Department of Administration. We feel sure, however, that the farmers
of Ohio will be better served under the new arrangement than they have been
in the past.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

47

What is an Agricultural Survey?

We have already indicated some features that should be considered in such
a movement, yet there are many other things that should be studied ; in fact,
everything should eventually be taken up for analysis that has any bearing on
agricultural production or on rural life. Dean Liberty H. Bailey of Cornell Uni-
versity, has probably given us the best definition of such a survey. On page 81

Ijj Map of Ohio
Proo/uct/on ofTbhacoo

hu Townships in

'JSOQ-^ —

Compl/eo/from Recoro/s
Oh/0 StateBoaro/qfJf^rioulture

Sca/e ' = so 000 /be.

Fig. 8.

of "The State and the Farmer," he writes "A thorough-going study of the exact
agricultural status of every state should now be made. *****
We must have the geographical facts. We are now lacking them. We
talk largely at random. We must discover the factors that determine the pro-
duction of crops and animals in the localities, and the conditions that underlie
and control the farm life. Consideration of these conditions involves study
of local climate; knov^^ledge of the kinds, classification and distribution of the

48

ADDRESSES

soils and the relation of place and altitude to production of crops and live-
stock; determination of the best drainage practices on various soil types ;^.
consideration of the cultural experience and manurial needs as adapted to
the types; inquiry into the practice with all leading crops and products of
the localities; study of ^he possibilities for farm water-power; collation of
community experience. Such a study of a State should be broad and general

Fig. 9.

Map showing appraised valuation of rural property In Ohio. Each dot repre-
sents one hundred thousand dollars valuation in the township in which it is placed.

enough to consider the status of all the agricultural industries in the State,
and it should also take full cognizance of educational and social conditions.
."This constitutes the greatest need of practical farming at the present
day. The agricultural institutions are working out the principles, but they
may not be able to apply these principles to individual farms because they da
not know the exact local conditions. The farmer himself may not know the

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

49

principles, nor even the local facts. The result is a lack of articulation be-
tween the teaching and the practice. Farming is founded on the facts of the
locality; no business can hope for the best success until it has exact know-
ledge of its underlying conditions."

m

Less than 8 8-9 9-10 10-11 Over 11

Scale of Shades — in inches

Fig. 10. Precipitation.

The distribution of precipitation during the spring months, March, April and
May, is shown on this chart. Lines are drawn for each Inch of rain, from 8 Inches
to 11 inches, and the different areas shaded to correspond with the scale at the
bottom of the chart. The least fall is near the Lake and the greatest In the central
counties and near the Ohio river.

This you say is surely an elaborate program. To this we must heartily
agree, but would add that if the work is not conceived in the beginning in its
full breadth and scope the little which we can do while making the start will be
largely wasted on misdirected effort and be lost to the future. And again, that

4 AD. BD. AGR.

50

ADDRESSES

if we did not expect to have the assistance of all the institutions in the state or
out of it whose work bears directly on our agriculture or is related to it, we
would hope to accomplish but little. We believe, however, that to a work as
important as this there is no institution that will not stand ready to contribute

^a

Less than 9 9-10 10-11 11-12 Over 12

Scale of Shades — in inches

Fig. 11. Rainfall.

This chart illustrates the rainfall for the state during the summer months,

June, July and August. The amounts range from slightly below 9 inches to over

12 inches. In general, the southeastern half of the state receives considerably more
rain than the northwestern.

its full part. Certainly, up to the present time we have found none that were not
ready and we anticipate that none such will be found.

The State-wide Survey Should Precede the Detailed Survey.

Before outlining to you the part of the work which we have already
organized, I would pause to state that as a general principle we have deter-

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

51

mined that the reconnaissance, preliminary or state-wide survey should pre-
cede the detailed survey. The reason for this is, first, to enable us to select
areas for the detailed surveys in such a manner that they will be tjrpical of
larger areas; and, second, to enable us to know within what boundaries the

^
^Vt^

Less than 7 7-8 8-9 9-10

Scale of Shades — in inches

Over 10

Fig. 12. Precipitation.

The distribution of the precipitation during the months of September, October
and November in Ohio is quite different from that for the summer, as fs Indicated
In this figure. The total precipitation Is less for this autumn quarter than for any
other, and the least rainfall is in south-central and southeast counties. The amount
of fall varies from somewhat below 6 inches to over 11 Inches.

conclusions of these detailed surveys may be applied. We very much fear
that these state-wide surveys will demonstrate to us that the value of many
of our previous field studies have been seriously affected by unfortunate se-

52

ADDRESSES

lection of the areas in which they were made, but even if this does prove to
be true we shall have the satisfaction of knowing, aftec the state-wide surveys
have been made, where the lessons which we have learned from these de-
tailed studies will apply.

9 N

10^

^^4^iP^I

r-%^^^i<

}

>*J

3»

mm

^ffi

w

'^^

■

V/.Z

Less than 7 7-8 8-9 9-10

Scale of Shades — in inches

Over 10

Fig. 13. Rain and Melted Snow.

The total rain and melted snow during the months of December, January and
February is given in Chart 13. The amounts vary from below 7 to over 10 inches.
The heaviest amounts are along the Ohio river and the least near the western end
of the Lake.

Another very important reason for conducting the state-wide survey first,
is, that if properly conducted such a survey may be of very great immediate
value to the state and yet cost but a moderate fraction as much as would a detailed
survey covering the entire state. For instance, we are convinced that for from*.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

53

twenty to forty thousand dollars and in from two to four years' time we shall
be able to complete a general soil survey of this state that will answer the present
needs of our farmers almost as well as would a detailed survey of the state
that would cost a much larger sum and take a correspondingly longer time; and,

Less than 20 20-30 30-40 40-50

Scale of Shades — in inches

Over 50

Fig. 14. Snow Fall.

In this chart we have shown the distribution of the amount of unmelted snow
that averages to fall each year. Lines are drawn for each difference of 10 inches
and then the areas shaded as in the preceding charts. This shows that the average
snowfall is less than 20 inches in the extreme southern counties, and over 6o inches
over a small area in the northeast. This district of greatest snowfall corresponds
with or is just to the north of ihe highest land between the southern and northern
watersheds. i i'lMM

that if it were decided later to make an accurate detailed survey of the state,
it could be completed for much less money and would be much more valuable
in the light of what had preceded than- had it been undertaken first. In other

54

ADDRESSES

words, we believe that it probably would cost no more to make both the gen-
eral and detailed surveys of the entire state than to make the latter if that had
been undertaken first, and that by making the general survey first the farmers
would receive great benefit at a very much earlier date.

Below 34

^

1

3^

i-36
Scale

3(

of Sha

3-38
des — i

n inch

8-40
es

Ov

er 40

Fig. 15. Annum. Precipitation.

The average annual precipitation for tlie different sections of Ohio is shown
graphically on this chart by means of shaded areas. Lines are drawn for each dif-
ference of 2 inches from 34 inches to 40 inches and areas having the same precipi-
tation are given the same shading. The greatest precipitation is along the Ohio
river, and the least near the western end of Lake Erie. There Is quite a large dis-
trict In the western portion of the state with a rainfall of less than 34 inches.

So far as possible we propose to follow this principle in all the work
which we undertake, although in making the transition from our old work we
have already found it necessary in some cases to get the cart before the horse.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

55

You will realize that it is necessary to suit immediate plans to the immediate
means available and to mold them according to circumstances ; but, having the
goal clearly in mind, the , work will all orient itself into proper shape in due
season.

Statistics Made Interesting.

In the very forefront of this work we feel it to be necessary to study the
•available statistics regarding this state which have a bearing upon our agri-
culture. We realize that to some, statistics and their consideration suggests

Fig. 16. Last Killing Spring Prost.

The average dates of the last killing frosts of spring are indicated on this chart
by lines that are drawn for each 5 days. The latest killing frosts In the spring
occur in the northeastern counties at some distance away from the Lake, and there
they average slightly later than May 15. They average earlier than April 20 along
the Lake and in some southern districts.

at once a dry and well-nigh fruitless task — a work which they are ready to
give over to the cranks and the propagandists. We find, however, that by
analyzing these figures township by township and presenting them graphically
they immediately become interesting and valuable.

Centers of Agricultural Production.

Our first work of this kind, which was begun in 1909 and published the
following spring as Circular 100, was a study of the centers of agricultural

56

ADDRESSES

production of the state, based on the statistical returns of the township assessors
which are turned over by the County Auditors to the State Board of Agricul-
ture. The time has been when I had a feeling that figures secured in this way
were of very limited value. I believe, however, that if you will look at the maps
showing the production of alfalfa, potatoes, wool, maple syrup, apples, oats,
ensilage corn and tobacco (Figs. 1 to 8 inclusive), you will not hesitate to agree

ctlO

Fig. 17. First Killing Autumn Frost.

On this chart lines are drawn to show the average dates of the first killing
frosts in the autumn. The earliest dates are in the northeastern and northwestern
counties, while the latest are along the Lake and in the extreme southwest. Both
of these charts show the influence of the waters of the Lake in preventing damage
from frost along the immediate lake shore. They indicate, however, that this in-
fluence extends but a very short distance inland.

with me that these maps based on the statistics just named show at a glance
where are the centers of production of these crops, and would thus guide one
of our field men or anyone else who was interested, very accurately to the
localities in which these crops are being produced in large quantities. You will
of course understand that each dot on these maps represents a given number
of pounds, bushels, tons, as the case may be, that have been produced of the
crops in question in the township on the map of which the dot has been placed.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

57

"The more dots there are in any township the greater has been the production in
that township.

Please note from these maps that crop boundaries do not follow county
boundaries; that within the same county it is possible to find townships that
produce a very large amount of a given crop and other townships which pro-
duce virtually none of that crop, and therefore, that by taking the township as

Fig. 18. Number of Crop Growing Days.

By taking the number of days between the dates on Charts 16 and 17, the data
are obtained for this Figure 18, or the average number of days in the crop grow-
ing season. The greatest number of days between the average date of the last
killing frost in the spring and the earliest in autumn is 195 at Sandusky, 194 at
Cincinnati, and 193 at Cleveland. The least number of days is 134 in Portage county.
The lines are drawn for each 10 days.

a unit, as we have done, we can outline the crop boundaries much more accurately
than if we had used the county as a unit.

Before passing from these assessors' statistics, allow me to state that within
a few years we hope to have these returns much more valuable even than they
are at present. We believe that when the people see that these figures are being
used thus in detail they will unite with the assessors to make them as valuable
as possible.

58

ADDRESSES

Land Values Studied.

Most if not all of my hearers are doubtless familiar with the fact that a
strenuous effort has been made within the past year to see that the farm land
of Ohio is appraised at its full value. While we presume that in spite of the
efforts of the County Taxation Boards and of the State Tax Commission, some
mistakes have been made, we yet believe that the final figures represent more

J WILLIAMS i '■"'-TON

li — J^^U

Fig. 19. Annual Temperature.

The average annual temperature lines are drawn on this chart for each de-
gree. The coolest sections of the state are in the northeastern and northwestern
districts, while the warmest are in the extreme southern and southwestern counties.
These isothermal lines are very regular in the southern portion of the state, bend-
ing to the north when they cross the valleys and to the south over the uplands.
There is a large area in the west-central and northwestern counties, however, where
the average temperature varies less than 1 ^degree for a distance of over 100 miles,
from Champaign to Ottawa counties. The lowest annual mean temperature is 47.2"
In Portage county, and the highest, 55.5° in Scioto county.

closely than anything else available the real average valuation of the land in
each township of the state. That such figures as these would be of value to us
in this survey work certainly none of you will question. The State Tax Com-
mission has kindly favored us with advance information regarding these appraised
valuations for use in our work. (See Fig. 9).

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

59

The Climate An Important Factor in Agricultural Investigations.

Dean Bailey also says "A study of the local climate ought to be a part
of these preliminary surveys. We are neglecting the climate factor. Cli-
mate is distinctly local. With the soil it determines the farming conditions.
The best agriculture is a careful adjustment to the climate of the district.'*
We in Ohio are fast coming to believe that many of the abnormal results
which have been secured from our cooperative experiments have been due to
abnormal weather conditions. "No t)ne knows better than the farmer the

Fig. 20.

striking effect of abnormal weather — a wet year, a dry year or some other un-
usual kind of a year. It begins to look to us as though entirely too little at-
tention has been paid to weather conditions in the past in arriving at con-
clusion based on the results of field experiments or of field observations.

Certainly, in the making of detailed field studies we should attempt to confine
ourselves if possible to areas in which the weather has been normal; or if this
is not possible, to consider very carefully the extent of abnormalit}^ of the weather
and its influence on the final results.

60

ADDRESSES

You may realize, then, how much it pleased us at the Experiment Station
when we learned that the Ohio Section Director of the U. S, Weather Bureau,
Prof. J, Warren Smith, was willing, with the approval of his chief. Prof. Willis
M. Moore, of Washington, D. C, to become Honorary Climatologist of the
Ohio Experiment Station in order to work the more closely in connection with
■our Agricultural Survey.

Prof. Smith has -already prepared for publication by our institution as
Bulletin 235 a graphically illustrated manuscript regarding the climate of the

Fig. 21.

State and will provide for us from month to month a similar report of the
weather for comparison with the climate in order that we may be able to select
the points in the State where the weather has been reasonably normal. You will
of course understand climate is simply the average of the weather for a long
period of years! Prof. Smith is also making a number of studies of the rela-
tion of certain weather conditions to large or small yields of crops. Every field
study which we make hereafter, so far as the weather can have any effect upon
it, will be made in close co-operation with Prof. Smith and his office.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

61

As quoted from Dean Bailey earlier in this paper, we have been guilty in
the past of talking largely at random. Hereafter we must try to confine our
statements and deductions, so far as possible, to facts. It seems very fortunate^
therefore, that the machinery of this great organization, the Weather Bureau,
is ready to join us in this Survey work. The accompanying maps Figs. 10 to, 19)
inclusive, will indicate some of the more pronounced climatic features of the
State, A number of others will be found in the Bulletin mentioned.

The Shifting of Rural Population.

You certainly will agree with us that in connection with an Agricultural
Survey it is necessary to know whether our rural population is increasing or
decreasing and where these changes are taking place. Fortunately, we have

Fig. 22.

exact figures from the U. S. Census for the years 1890, 1900 and 1910. These
are illustrated in Circular 116, two of the maps of which are reproduced here-
with. Figs. 20 and 21. Each dot on these maps represent one percent of decrease
within the ten-year period preceding the date of the map. A cross in the map
of a township indicates that the figures for that township have for some reason
been indeterminate and therefore have been thrown out.

We would call your attention to the fact that in 70 per cent of the
townships of the state there were actually fewer rural people in 1910 than
in 1900; that in spite of increases by birth to the rural population there was
a net loss in the total number of rural people of the state within that decade
of 112,707; that, averaging this total loss among the 1352 rural townships,
there was an average loss per township in rural population in spite or births^

62

ADDRESSES

of 8.3 persons per year. Of course, as stated above, this loss was confined to
about 70 percent of the townships, which makes it all the greater in the town-
ships in which it did occur. It may be that this decrease in rural population
is wise ; we are not prepared at this time to say ; it is merely our mission in
conducting this work, which we are now undertaking, to gather the facts and
state them so that others as well as ourselves may try to draw conclusions.
Certainly, however, we. should keep this fact constantly in mind in connection
with all our field investigations.

These four statistical studies: centers of agricultural production, taxation
valuation, climatic conditions and population, are sufficient to indicate how we
shall endeavor to use all available statistics and to prove, I hope, that even dry

Fig. 23.

statistics may become very valuable and even interesting if one translates them into
graphical illustrations.

A Study of Agricultural History.

In traveling over the state in years past our field men have noticed many
local agricultural conditions which we feel we shall not be able to trace entirely
either to the climate or to the soil. For instance, why do we find the large
farm area in Fayette, Madison and other nearby counties? Can it be because
that area was settled by Virginians whose ancestors were the landless younger
sons of old England and who came to Virginia with a pronounced appetite for
land? Why do we find tobacco growing in but limited areas of the State? May
not the likes and dislikes and previous training of the settlers of those areas
have something to do with determining their location, rather than or as well

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 63

as the soil and the climate? Had the Yankees of the Western Reserve — Ashta-
bula, Geauga, Portage and other counties settled in Fayette and Madison counties,
would or would not that have been a large farm area? Had they settled in
Montgomery and Darke counties would parts of those counties be a pronounced
center of tobacco production?

With the hope of unraveling these and dozens, yes hundreds, of other
riddles and of helping us to understand better the agricultural conditions of
the state, Mr. W. A. Lloyd of our office is now conducting a general historical
survey of the state which considers the different classes of people, crops, live-
stock and types of farming; the date of introduction of each, the rate of increase
of each; the date of climax of each if reached; the rate and cause of decline of
each if such exists; and the relation of each to the other. To be sure, in the
year or so that he can devote to this project he cannot hope to work it out in
all its detail, but he can secure information that will be of vital importance
and that will point the way accurately to later detailed surveys.

A General Soil Survey.

The need of a soil survey of the State has already been referred to
in this paper. Certainly, no one who has traveled over the state to any
great extent can question the importance of this need. If there are any
who question it I am sure that a few months association with a department of
extension of an agricultural experiment station will convince him of his error.
In 1905, a year after the organization of our Department, the author of this
paper wrote regarding Extension Work in Circular 47 of the Experiment Station
as follows : "The varying climate and soil conditions prevent our formulating
any general conclusions that will apply to the State at large, and therefore pre-
vent the pubHshing of many reports. The best we can do in most cases is to
attempt to answer each in,dividual request with information regarding the section
from which the request has come. This part of our work will be very much
lightened and its value increased many fold as soon as the state is provided with
a coniplete soil classification and preliminary soil survey. Accurate conclusions
may then be drawn for a given soil which will be understood by all well in-
formed farmers in that soil area." This was written more than six years ago
and has been reiterated hundreds of times by the various members of our field
staff who have, in connection with their field work, come face to face with the
absolute necessity of assistance along these lines.

Perhaps it is well, however, that we have waited. I seriously question if
six years ago the man was in existence who could have handled this work as
we now feel it should be handled. At any rate, the man we have in charge of
it in our Department, Dr. George N. Coffey, has been receiving constant training
throughout the entire period, so that now our sister institutions in other S'tates
and the National Bureau of Soils, from which he came to us, say unqualifiedly
that he is the best soil survey man in the country. He assisted in 1900 in making
the first detailed county survey that was ever made by the National Bureau of
Soils in the State of Ohio, and since that time has worked in every state in the
Union east of the Rocky Mountains except two.

Beginning last July, he has been conducting a soil reconnaissance, in
which he visited every county in the state but five, and by means of which
and his former studies he hopes to determine quite largely what types of
soil are to be found in the state. Beginning next spring with the two as-
sistants which we shall be able to provide he will undertake a general soil
survey of the state,* In this he will study the types and sub-types more care-
fully and undertake to locate them in a general way. While he will hope to

fill :^ ^ht.:^ -iL.tX.'. t'.., MrAiltt.tSr : ■- .'•'K ■ • • . ..- . —>•.,. ., . . i'.-uV-:- .

64 ADDRESSES

be able to make an accurate estimate of the percentage of each type or sub-
type which may be found in any given township, he will not undertake to
determine in detail regarding the soil of individual farms. He will, however,
undertake to define these soil types in such a way that every man of agricul-
tural intelligence will be able to recognize and name any type on his or any
other farm in the state. Dr. Coffey, who is to address you tomorrow, will
tell you more in regard to this soil survey work.

* Since the above statement was made a cooperation with the U. S. D. A.
Bureau of _ Soils has been arranged whereby the survey will be completed within
the year 1912.

The State Topographical Survey.

This completes the preparatory or foundation surveys which we have already
launched in the Department of Co-operation. We shall, however, be greatly
assisted by the work of other institutions. Probably the most important of
these is the State Topographic Survey. I wonder if many of our people know
that the State of Ohio, in co-operation with the national government, is carrying
forward at a greater pace than any other state in the Union, a most remark-
able survey of the state, on the basis of which they prepare maps which may be
purchased at 5 ceats per area, about the size of a county, on which are shown
accurately among other things the location of the streams, roads, lanes, farm:
buildings, churches, schoolhouses and, by contour lines, the approximate eleva-
tion of every point in the area. If you will all procure a map of the area in
which you live or of those in which you are interested, we are sure that you will
join us in urging that the state continue its appropriation of .$25,000 per year,
or increase it for that matter, so that the surveys may be entirely completed not
later than 1916. We certainly wish that they were all done now. We need 'them
badly in our work. Mr. C. E. Sherman, who is Professor of the college of
Civil Enginnering of the Ohio State University, is, by appointment of the gov-
ernor, the State Inspector in charge of this work. The water power survey of
the state which we understand Mr. Sherman is arranging to make, will be of
much value to farmers if they awake to the situation in time to see that this
power is conserved to their use. The road survey which has been made by the
State Highway Commission we have also found of special value in our field

A Country Life Survey Needed.

Another class of surveys which we hope to see taken up very shortly are
those which bear on the life which is lived by country people. It has been said,
and we believe wisely, that the most valuable farm product is boys and girls
who will grow into thoughtful, steadfast citizens. We may make the farms of
Ohio profitable, a good place to live from a financial standpoint, but if we do
not make the farm homes good homes and the rural communities good com-
munities in which to raise boys and girls to manhood and womanhood, our work
may well be called a failure. The Rural Life Survey should go hand in hand
with the Farm Practice, Farm Management and Rural Economic Survey. Some
of the work which we have already taken up will have a bearing on these rural
life surveys, but we certainly hope that other institutions will throw the vast
resources of their organizations into the leadership of work of this character
in order that what little we do of it may, under their guidance, be well directed.

The Rural Church Problem.

Recognizing as we do the very great possibilities, perhaps largely unde-
veloped, of the country church as an instrument to solve this rural problem,
especially in evolving rural communities and developing rural leadership, we feef

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 6b

quite fortunate in having been able last September, to make tentative arrange-
ments with a man of national reputation to conduct a church and rural life
survey of the state this coming summer. If it is agreeable to all the church and
other interested organizations, and a conference to determine this has been
called for next Saturday, Dr. Warren H. Wilson, whom many of you heard at
the Rural Life meetings at the National Corn Show last winter will undertake,
with the support of his organization and any others that may be available, to
put in the field next summer a large force of men to determine with exactness
the conditions which exist in rural Ohio.

The records of the State Board of Agriculture show that in more than a
fifth of the townships of the state there are unused churches and that in a much
larger number of townships the church attendance is not so good as it was
10 or 15 years ago. (See Figs. 22 and 23.) This being true, it seems very de-
sirable that we secure the assistance of a religious organization led by a finely
trained minister of administrative ability such as Dr. Wilson, and supported by
all the church and agricultural organizations of the state, to try to learn why
it is true and then to determine the means of turning the tide in the proper
direction. Let us hope that nothing will happen to prevent this church and rural
life survey being started the coming summer and that it will be but the begin-
ning of extensive surveys of this character to be made within our boundaries.

Profitable Farming Fundamental.

But to turn again for a moment to the financial problem of the farm, for
we must all agree that much as a fine rural community is desired, there is no
possibility of developing such unless we have a stable financial condition on which
to found it. Is it going to be necessary to await the completion of all these
surveys before we can begin to be of financial assistance to the farmers? Is
there not something we can do in the meantime? We have no sympathy what-
ever with the pleas of those who would ask that the country boy and girl shall
stay on the farm exclusively for the sake of the farm, the rural community,
the state and the nation. While we would like to see every bright, honest boy
who has been reared on the farm have developed within him such a love for
the farm that he would remain there, surely you will all agree with me that
such boys cannot be expected to stay there unless they are convinced that life
there will be fuller for them, that it will have greater possibilities for them,
than elsewhere; and surely you will all agree further that unless they can see
possibilities of at least a reasonable financial competence there, they will never as
a rule develop that feeling of love for the farm and the rural community which
is necessary to keep them there; that indeed they should not even be expected
to do so. What then, I say, can we do before the completion of these surveys
to help solve the financial difficulties of the farm?

The Present Status of the Work.

In the first place, these surveys are further advanced than may be realized.
The statistical surveys, as you will remember, are many of them ready for use
right now. Indeed, some of them were used as long ago as 1910 in connection
with the state-wide study of alfalfa. Before spring Dr. Coffey will have avail-
able a report of his soil reconnaissance on the basis of which, and with the
advantage of special field instruction by him, field investigators may expect to
work quite accurately on problems in connection with which the soil is to be con-
sidered.

For example, there is no reason whatever why a man should not start at
once on the basis of farmers' experience throughout the state, to determine the
5 ad, bd. agr.

66 ADDRESSES

relation of tile drainage to the different soil types and crop production thereon.
On some soil types drainage may not pay at all, while on others it does pay
remarkably; some may require the tile much closer together, or, on the other
hand, permit them much farther apart than on the average. Having secured
this information an investigator could tell with a reasonable certainty whether
or not and how, it would be profitable to tile-drain any given farm.

Again, on the basis of this soil information and that derived from the climatic
and weather survey which is now available it would be entirely possible for a
field investigator to determine to a reasonable certainty regarding the sections
in which potatoes may be grown to the best advantage and to give very accurate
advice regarding this and the different methods of handling the crop under the
different soil and climatic conditions that obtain in the state. These and dozens
of other farm practice and farm management studies for which we already have
plans, some of which will be mentioned to you by Dr. Coffey in his address
regarding soils tomorrow, will be taken up just as fast as funds and men are
available. ^^

In this connection I would say it is our hope that the other Departments
of the Experiment Station will furnish men to take up agricultural survey
work in connection with problems related to their regular departmental
work. Indeed, we are thoroughly convinced that many of them, as also sim-
ilar Departments of all Experiment Stations, will eventually see the absolute
necessity of doing just such work as this before daring to try to interpret the
results of their experiments to the mass of the people of the state.
But, in the event they fail to do so, we shall not hesitate to go ahead just as
fast as possible.- Within the past week Director Thorne has asked us to con-
duct such an investigation regarding the use of manure, commercial fertiHzers
and lime, and we shall undertake to do so. We have already started a corn
investigation of this character. We feel that there is no reason why the mass
of co-operalive and private experiments which have been made all over the
state, under a hundred different conditions, may not now be studied in the light
of the information which will be available this coming year regarding Ohio's
soil, climate and the history of her agriculture, and conclusions be deduced
therefrom which will be of the greatest value to the general farming public.

A GENERAL SOIL SURVEY OF OHIO.

By George N. Coffey^
Department of Co-operation, Ohio Experiment Station.

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture, and Gentlemen:

It is indeed a pleasure to have the honor of addressing the members of
the State Board of Agriculture, — an organization which, under the leadership
of its pushing, hard-working and efficient Secretary, is doing so much to advance
the cause of agriculture in this good State of ours.

*'A Boost for Ohio.'"

On the front of the program our Secretary suggested that this meeting be
made "a boost for Ohio." We believe in boosting Ohio. All of us ought to do
more of it. But at the same time we should not forget to work, else our
boosting may simply become boasting. We wish to present to you a new line
of work which we are undertaking, one which is essential to the proper conduct

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 67

of many lines of agricultural investigation. And we believe that such work
can be legitimately classed as "a boost for Ohio." We hope that we may at
least be considered as among the men behind the guns when the shots are fired.
In coming here to work with you for the upbuilding of agriculture I do
not come as an entire stranger, for almost the first soil work which I ever did,
aside from that on the farm, was to assist in the making of a soil survey of
Montgomery County, Ohio. Later, when as a member of the Bureau of Soils
of the United States Department of Agriculture, I was given charge of its classi-
fication and correlation work in the entire country, I had occasion to make
several visits to this state. Since taking up my work with the Experiment
Station last July I have been able to see something of every county in the State
except five, and it is our purpose to continue the work until we have taken a
complete inventory of our soil resources. What we have already seen is suffi-
cient to convince any one of the immense resources and agricultural possibilities
of this state.

Great Resources Alone do not Make a State Great.

But did you ever consider, gentlemen, that the possession of great natural
resources in itself has never yet made a state rich and powerful? Were not all
of these advantages, which we now enjoy, here for thousands of years before
Columbus braved the winds and waves of the Atlantic to get a sight of a new
and better land? Prosperity and power come only when a people make use of
the advantages and resources which a beneficent Providence has placed before
them or underneath them. Their proper development, however, requires a great
deal of perseverance, of energy and of downright hard work. Yet, it requires
all of these and more. The energy must be expended along the proper channels
or no good may be accomplished.

I was standing at the depot the other day waiting for a train and was very
much interested in watching a freight engine which was on the other track. It
was standing still, but from it was rushing with a great deal of noise a large vol-
ume of steam. A little later I saw the engineer take hold of the throttle, give it
two or three light pulls, the wheels began to revolve, the engine moved down the
track, carrying with it a long line of heavily laden cars. Apparently no more
energy was being expended than before. Why the difference? Because the
trained hand of the engineer had directed the energy into the channels where
it would produce work instead of going to waste.

Object of ^ Agricultural Organizations.

Only a few years ago the commercial world was startled by the announce-
ment that one of our great corporations was to pay its manager a salary of a
million dollars a year. In agriculture, as well as other lines of business, the
value of trained direction is being appreciated more and more every year. The
recognition of this principle led to the organization of a national Department
of Agriculture, of State Departments of Agriculture, of State Agricultural Col-
leges and Experiment Stations and various other institutions, the object of which
is to find out and advise the farmer as to the lines along which his energy can
be most profitably expended; to help him determine, among other things, how
best to use and not abuse our most valuable resource, — the soil.

A Knowledge of the Soil Necessary.

Since all soils are not alike, are not adapted to the same kind or va-
riety of crop, do not require the same kind of fertilization or cultural treat-
ment, as will be brought out more clearly later, these organizations have been

68 ADDRESSES

greatly hampered in their work by a lack of definite knowledge as to the char-
acter of the soil in the different sections with which they have to do. With-
out such knowledge definite advice is often impossible or, if given, may not
apply. In order, therefore, to furnish this information there has been organ-
ized what is known as the soil survey, the primary object of which is to se-
cure a knowledge of the character and properties of the soil in any given area.
Such a survey is novv being conducted by the Ohio Experiment Station as a
part of the great Agricultural Survey which it is making of this State.

A Soil Reconnaissance.

During the summer we have made a soil reconnaissance of a large part
of the State and have secured much information in regard to the character of
the soil in different sections. This work, however, is preliminary to the making
of a general soil survey, including a map which will show all the larger areas
of the most important soil types of the State. In making this survey we shall
not endeavor to show the location of all the numerous small areas of the
different types, because experience has shown that this is expensive both in re-
gard to time and money. We hope, however, to be able to describe the types
found in each township in the State in such a way that the farmer himself can
recognize them.

Two Questions Asked.

In the conduct of soil survey work there are two questions which we are
asked over and over again; first, "What are you doing?" and second, "What
are you doing it for?" I might add that there is a third question which often
precedes either of the others and that is, "How much do you get for doing it?"
Since you gentlemen are connected with agricultural work in the state, I am
sure that you realize that we do not get enough to make us millionaires and shall
therefore consider it not necessary to discuss further this last question. We
are willing to admit, however, that our salary is a little more than that of the
members of the State Board of Agriculture. The other two questions, I do
want to discuss, and to explain to you in some detail the nature of the work
which we are carrying on, to state some of the benefits which will accrue there-
from. Let us therefore consider first the question of "What are you doing?"
I want you gentlemen to know so that if you see a man with an auger boring
a hole in your field you will understand what he is doing and not think that
he is boring either for gold, oil, or gas, although he may get gold for boring
and may make a lot of gas over what he has done.

The Soil Survey Defined.

.A soil survey consists in examining the soils in the field, in order to de-
termine the different kinds of types, in studying their origin, processes of
formationv and various obvious properties and characteristics, in the writing of
a report describing these different types, and in showing on a map, by means
of color or otherwise, the location of the different soils so far as this is
practicable. In brief, it is taking an inventory of our soil resources.
The soil survey will give us information in regard to the different kinds or
types of soil, just as the Geological Survey has furnished us with a knowledge
of the different geological formations. By means of the soil auger it is possible
to secure a sample of both soil and subsoil down to any desired depth, for the
purpose of studying its various characteristics. In usual practice it is only
necessary to exiamine the soil to a depth of three feet in order to determine
the type to which it belongs, although it is always well to secure all obtainable
information in regard to the character of the material at greater depths. It is

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 69

often possible to get a very good idea of the character of the underlying material
~ty means of road cuts and ditches. If such are not available it may be neces-
sary to make deeper borings by means of extensions to the regular soil auger.

What is the Soil?

In undertaking such a survey it is well to remember that the soil is not
simply broken-down rock. This degenerated rock must have been acted up-
on by life in some form or other; must contain some organic matter -before it
can be considered as a true soil. It is not mere dead, inert matter. It is full
of life and various changes are constantly taking place. It is an independent
natural body, a bio-geological formation, differing essentially from the rocks
which underlie it, although closely related to them. It is the one great forma-
tion in which the organic and inorganic kingdoms meet and derives its distinctive
. character from this union.

The Factors upon which Classification is Based.

Since the soil survey is necessarily conducted in the field, the classification,
which is made, must be based upon those factors, or obvious differences, which
are there detectable, although the field examination should be followed up with
laboratory studies to determine other factors or properties which cannot be de-
cided upon in the field. We will, therefore, review rather briefly some of the
factors or characteristics which we must consider in making a field classifica-
tion or separation of the soil; or in other words, in determining whether the soil
on your farm is like that on your neighbor's farm. In fact, the soil surveyor
uses many of the same evidences of differences in soils that the farmers do.
His more careful training, however, enables *,him to detect differences more
quickly and interpret their meaning more accurately.

One of the most important of these factors is that of origin. In this
term are included not only the kind of rock from which the soil is derived,
together wth the agencies or processes which were concerned in the forma-
tion of this rock, but also the various processes of weathering that change
the underlying formation from mere rock into actual, cultivatable soil. All
of you, especially those who are from the western half of the State, know
that the black soils are found in low places where swampy conditions for-
merly existed. The underlying material .is exactly the same on the higher
areas where the lighter-colored soils occur, the black color being due to an
accumulation of organic mater under poor drainage conditions. Such dif-
ference are often of greater importance than those due to variations in the
character of the underlying rock, and this is one of the principal reasons why
a soil map and a geological map are not the same. Let me see if I can bring
out a. little more clearly just exactly what I mean.

When I was a boy I took part in the debates which were held in connec-
tion with our country school. I recall that one of the most heated discussions
we ever had was upon the subject whether man is more the product of heredity
or environment, and some of us at least thought that we had the question settled
for all time; but it bobs up again every little while, so we must have been mis-
taken. To apply this to soil, I would say, that the differences due to the influ-
ence of the rock represent heredity, while those brought about by the processes
of weathering correspond to environment. We can no more determine the char-
acter of a soil from a study of the rocks alone than we can that of a man from
a study of his ancestors.

70 ADDRESSES

Kind of Underlying Rock an Important Consideration.

We must not fail, however, to consider the kind of rock from which the
soil has been formed, for this has an important influence in determining its
nature. In this state it is especially important to know whether the soil is
derived from limestone or whether it is derived from sandstone and shale.
This is due to the influence which the rock has in determining the
amount of lime which will be found in the soil. Other things being equal
a soil formed from a limestone will always have more lime than one derived
from sandstone and shale. A great many people, however, rfiake the mistake
of assuming that a soil formed from limestone necessarily has a large amount
of lime in it, which is not always the case, especially in the surface soil.
This is due to the fact that lime is very soluble in carbonated rain water and
may be practically all leached out; in fact, so nearly all of it may be removed
through leaching that we may have an acid soil formed from a limestone.

In our studies last summer in the western half of the state, where the glacial
drift is composed very largely of ground-up limestone, we found that the sub-
soil, within three feet of the surface, would often effervesce, when treated with
hydrochloric acid, showing the presence of a large amount of lime. Very seldom,
however, would such effervescence take place within 18 inches of the surface
while the surface soil usually gave an acid reaction. In the eastern half of the
State where the soils are derived very largely from sandstone and shale there
was very seldom any effervescence even in the subsoil, indicating a rather low
lime content. Some limestone layers, however, occur throughout the south-
eastern part of the State and it is necessary to be on the lookout for these as
their influence is shown by an increased productiveness in the soil. In fact, one
must know the character of the underlying rocks in order to understand the
various peculiarities of the soils. . In this part of our work the geological maps
will be of much assistance to us.

How the Soil was Made.

It is also important to understand the processes of formation and the differ-
ences which may have resulted from a variation in these processes. Mention
has already been made of the formation of black soils under swampy conditions.
Those of you who are familiar with the conditions in Brown, Clermont, Hamil-
ton, southwestern Clinton, western Highland or southern Warren counties know
of the "white soils" which are found on the level areas there, as well as in some
other sections of the State. You have doubtless noted that these "white soils"
do not occur where the surface is rolling. Their formation is due to certain
process which have gone on under intermittent wet and dry or stagnant water
conditions. If the surface is not sufficiently level for the water to stand several
days after a rain these processes are not brought about and the "white soil"
is not formed.

The Size of the Soil Particles.

Another very important property of the soil, which must be considered in
making our classification, is that of texture. By this we mean the relative pro-
portion of the particles of various sizes which determine whether the soil shall
be called a sand, a loam, a clay or some intermediate class. The texture is the
most important physical property of the soil because of the important influence
which it has upon the water-holding capacity and cultural properties. Through
constant practice one may become very expert in judging of textural differences.
In order, however, to secure the greatest uniformity in this classification, samples
are collected and mechanical analyses made in the laboratory in order to furnish

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 71

a check on a man's field judgment. We find this necessary because of the differ-
ences in different men as to what constitutes a loam or clay. You gentlemen
may not realize it but this difference is very marked among farmers themselves.
In sections where there are large areas of sand a sandy loam with a clay sub-
soil will be called a clay, but where the surrounding soils are largely heavy clays
the same sandy loam will be termed a sandy soil. This makes some standard
necessary in order that we may know whether we are using these terms with the
same meaning. It is of course necessary to determine the texture of both soil
and subsoil as well as the character of the underlying material. You can readily
understand that it will make a great deal of difference whether the substratum
consists of gravel or clay. In the first case the drainage will be excessive, par-
ticularly where the gravel came near the surface, while in the latter it will be
very poor and especially so where the clay is of an impervious nature.

Color an Important Consideration.

One of the most obvious physical properties of the soil, one which has been
used by practical farmers as an index of its character from time immemorial,
is that of color. "Black soils," "red soils," "gray soils," "brown soils," "white
soils," etc., are terms in very common use. In itself color may be of very
little importance but as an indicator of physical and chemical conditions it is of
the greatest moment. The practical argriculturist will no more class together
soils markedly dissimilar in color than the ethnologist will consider a white man
and a black man as belonging to the same race.

Observations have shown that certain properties of the soil are asso-
ciated with certain color characteristics. A black color has come to be al-
most synonymous to productiveness. If the soil in the level, rather poorly
drained but not swampy places in your fields have turned white it is one of
the best evidences that I know of the need of lime. So far as my rather wide
observations have extended I have never seen these "white soils" formed in the
presence of a large amount of lime. Their occurrence is therefore very strong
evidence of the need of lime not only in the "white soils" but in the other soils
formed from the same character of material. For reasons like this the color
is of the very greatest value to the soil surveyor. By its use it is often pos-
sible to detect chemical differences which the most refined methods of chem-
ical analysis are as yet unable to explain.

Arrangement of the Soil Particles.

One must also consider the structure of the soil, or the arrangement of
the particles of which it is composed. We want to know whether a soil is open
and porous or whether it is compact and impervious, whether it is loose and
granular and easy to cultivate or whether it runs together and is difficult to
work. Such information is necessary in order to know whether a soil here is
similar to that in another place

The Relation of Soil to Native Vegetation.

Since the object of the soil survey work is to secure knowledge which will
help us to understand better the relation of the soil to plant growth, one must not
forget to make a study of the native vegetation and various crops, as this will
often give an indication of differences*which it would not be possible to detect
otherwise. It is sometimes easy to trace the line of separation between two soils
by the difference in the vegetation. The presence of certain trees like the chestnut
and sourwood are indicative of an acid condition of the soil; while a luxuriant

72 ADDRESSES

growth of leguminous plants usually indicates that the soil is not in need of lime.
While the origin, texture, structure, color, amount and condition of organic
matter, native vegetation and crop yields are the most important factors to be
considered in making a survey of the soils, any other- differences which have any
apparent influence upon the growth of plants must not be overlooked.

How THE Soil Survey Work is Performed.

Having in mind these various factors the soil surveyor goes over an area,
examines the soil, determines the different types or kinds and indicates as far as
practicable on his map the location of areas of similar soils. He studies the
peculiarities of each and every type, makes full notes of his observations, so that
when his work is completed we will have a careful description of the various
soils found in the area which he has covered. We hope in the course of a few
years to have such a survey of the entire state of Ohio.

A Knowledge of Soils Fundamental to Intelligent
Agricultural Investigation.

This leads us to a consideration of our second question, "What are you
doing it for?" What will be the value of this work?

It has already been stated that the primary object of a soil survey is to
furnish information in regard to the character of the soil. Is not a knowl-
edge of the soil as fundamentally important to the agriculturist, as a knowl-
edge of drugs is to a physician or a knowledge of rocks to a geologist?
One great need in agricultural work today is a more general recognition of
the individuality of soils, a fuller realization of the true meaning of soil dif-
ferences. Much valuable time and money have been wasted trying to draw
conclusions from experiments conducted upon entirely dissimilar soils. Many
of the contradictory and seemingly inexplicable results obtained by different
investigators, or even by the same investigator, are undoubtedly due to funda-
mental soil differences which would have been evident from a comparative
field examination. It is really amusing sometimes to read the heated dis-
cussions in which scientific men allow themselves to indulge because they do
not secure the same results from similar experiments. If they would only
stop and determine the nature of the soils upon which their experiments
were made they might understand the cause of the difference and be less sur-
prised at the results. Hilgard, than whom this country has never produced
a greater soil investigator, has said, "The history of plat experiments shows
so common and unpardonable neglect on the part of experimenters to ascer-
tain definitely the fundamental, physical and chemical conditions that their
general unsatisfactoriness is easily accounted for on that score alone."* The
failure to recognize that the results secured upon one type of soil do not
necessarily hold true for another, is responsible, in some measure at least,
for the distrust which farmers have often shown toward the work of scien-
tific investigators. You are told that a certain method of cultivation, cer-
tain varieties of crops, certain kinds of fertilizers, etc., will give the best
results. You go home and try these but the yields are not what you expect-
ed. Why? Because the soil, or other conditions, on your farm are entirely
different from that upon which your adviser's experiments were conducted.

Each Soil Type Should be Studied Separately.

It is often possible to learn something of a man's opinion about a ques-
tion by consulting his friends, but it is not safe to depend upon them entire-

* Agricultural Science, Vol. 6, p. 327.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 73

ly for information, else we may be misled. The man himself and he alone
can give definite and positive knowledge in regard to what he thinks. So
with soils. Each type must be questioned separately and individually. The
answer given may then be safely recommended for a similar soil but may
not apply upon one of an entirely different character. This fact has been
clearly recognized by Director Thorne and others and has led to the estab-
lishment of sub-Stations in different parts of the state and also to the enact-
ment of a law permitting each county to have an individual County Test
Farm. And may I add here, gentlemen, that if any of you have anything to
do with selecting one of these farms, you endeavor to ' secure one rep-
resenting the most extensive and important type of soil in the county. If
there are two or more types of about equal extent and an adjoining county
has a test farm upon one of these, put yours on another type, so that the two
will be of mutual benefit. If two or more counties will work together in
this matter it will be possible to have these farms on all the important soil
types in the state. Above all don't accept a farm upon which the soil is so
mixed that it is impossible to secure an area large and uniform enough for
experimental purposes.

But there are some people who do not appreciate the truth of some of
the statements which have just been made. They do not realize that the differ-
ence in the soil has very much to do with the variety of a crop, for example,
vhich will do the best on your farm. It is well, therefore, that we look into
this question and see what evidence there is to support these statements.

Plants Adapt themselves to their Environment.

Everyone admits the great influence of environment upcJn both animals and
plants. In fact, this influence is so important that one of the great philosophers
has defined life as a correspondence with environment. We all recognize that
we cannot do our best work when out of harmony with our surroundings. This
is as true of plants as of men.

In the Year Book of the Department of Agriculture for 1908 Professor
Woods, who is now Director of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station,
says, that "As far as they are able plants vary and adjust themselves to their
environment. Under natural conditions only those survive which can modify their
habits of growth so as to make a successful resistance to destructive influences
and propagate their kind. The rest die. The longer a species or variety grows
under a given set of conditions the better each generation bcomes adapted to grow
and reproduce under these conditions. * * * Selected seed of crops grown un-
der severe limiting conditions will as a rule give good results the first year when
grown under conditions less severe. The second generation, however, begins to
vary and break up, and unless careful attention is practiced the crop soon becomes
very unsatisfactory. * * * The great importance of selecting and growing seed
under the conditions under which the future crop must be grown is now apparent.
Careful experiments and the experience of careful growers have abundantly dem-
onstrated the truth of these facts presented. Seed breeders and growers especially
must give attention to these points."

Plants Should be Assoilated as well as Acclimated.

While the influence of environment upon the growth of plants is now
generally admitted, many fail to realize that this environment consists of
two parts: an above-ground or climatic environment and an underground or
soil environment. Although the influence of climate upon the growth and
distribution of plants has long been recognized, the effect of a change from

74 ADDRESSES

one kind of soil to another has been given much less consideration. We all
Wnow that we cannot grow oranges, pineapples, bananas or cotton in Ohio
and that buckwheat, rye, oats and some other crops will not do well in trop-
\cal regions, but how many of us realize the important change in the soil en-
vironment to which we are asking a plant to adapt itself when we take it
from a deep sand, for example, and place it on a heavy clay?

After a discussion of this subject with a gentleman who is recognized
as one of the pioneers and leaders in plant breeding, he said "I have known
^or a long time that you must keep a plant within the same environment, else
the good results secured from breeding would be lost, but I never had it con-
nected up so closely with soils before." Now I would not seek to minimize
the importance of climatic environment, but I do wish to emphasize the in-
fluence of the soil environment because it seems to me that the part it plays
is not fully appreciated. We all recognize that it is necessary for a plant
to become acclimated, but how many of us realize that it is necessary for it
to become associated also, if I may coin this expression.

Different Soils are Adapted to Different Crops.

That some soils are better adapted to certain crops than other soils is being
more and more appreciated every year. The selection of the peat and muck soils
for the production of celery and onions gives one of the best examples, which we
have in this State of the special adaption of a particular kind of soil to certain
crops. Attempts to grow sugar beets on the Wooster soil have been a failure, but
on the dark, heavy soil of the county test farm at Paulding are proving very suc-
cessful. Other examples, which I need not mention here, will doubtless occur to
all of you.

Our knowledge of the adaption of soils to particular crops or varieties is
as yet incomplete and is doubtless resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars
to the farmers of the State. Such knowledge, however, cannot be obtained until
we know what kind of soil we have in different parts of the State and have made
a study of the crops best suited to them.

Crop Varieties in their Relation to Soil Types.

Not only are different soils adapted to different crops but they are also
suited to different varieties of the same crop.

There is no place where the influence of the soil can be studied so satisfac-
torily as in the greenhouse, for here temperature, moisture and fertilization are
under control and can be manipulated to suit the will of the experimenter, but
fundamental soil differences cannot be entirely eliminated by any amount of fer-
tilization or manipulation. Other factors being under control, the influence of
the soil can be definitely determined. Some florists have found it utterly
impossible to compete with other growers in the production of certain varieties
of violets, for example, although they may be more successful with other varieties.
No satisfactory explanation has been offered to account for this except that it
is due to some inherent quality in the soil which makes it impossible to duplicate
the results upon any other than the one used.

A Lesson from a Study of Corn Varieties.

For several years the Experiment Station has been carrying on corn
variety tests in cooperation with members of the Ohio Corn Improvement
Association and other farmers. In these tests the check plats were always
home grown seed. All the leading varieties grown in the State were included

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 75

in the tests, although the same varieties were not always grown on the same
field. By taking the average of all the varieties, where the seed was grown
elsewhere than on the farm, and comparing this with the average of the
checks, which were planted with home-grown seed, it is possible to get
some idea of the influence of or adaptation to local conditions. An average
of 165 different tests located in all parts of the State, gave a yield of 1.7 bush-
els in favor of the checks or home-grown seed. When we consider that there
were, according to the Year Book of the United States Department of Agri-
culture, 3,960,000 acres of corn in Ohio in 1910, we can easily see that a dif-
ference in yield of only 1.7 bushels means several million dollars to the
farmers of this State. No clalim of absolute accuracy is made for these fig-
ures, but they enable us to appreciate the importance of the adaptation of
varieties to local conditions, among which the soil is probably the most im-
portant.

An Illinois Wheat Experiment.

Bulletin 121 of the Illinois Experiment Station reports the results of
variety tests of wheat. These were conducted in three sections of the state,
— northern, central and southern. The first two were located on a black
prairie silt loam of marked fertility; the last upon a white, very acid silt loam
of much lower agricultural value. As a result of three years' trial it is stated
that the Turkey Red variety stood first or among the very best upon the
black prairie soil, not only in Illinois but also in Iowa. However, upon the
light-colored soil this variety yielded 5.2 bushels per acre less than the Ful-
caster, a variety which had been grown on this soil for a number of years.
If these wheat variety tests had been conducted upon the "black soils" alone
and the Turkey Red, which proved to be the best yielding variety on these
soils, had been distributed to the farmers, situated upon the "white soils" in
southern Illinois, it would have resulted in the loss to them of approximately
one-third of their wheat crop; as the Turkey Red gave a yield of 11. 4 bushels
compared with an average of 16.6 for the Fulcaster. This experiment brings
out very forcibly the necessity for testing out the variety upon the soil upon
which it is to be sown.

It is very interesting to note in this connection that the Turkey Red wheat,
which gave the largest yield at the Illinois Experiment Station, is one of the
very poorest yielders on the Ohio Experiment Farm at Wooster. -This variety
has also been tried in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and has proved one of
the lowest yielders in both states. The only soils in this State upon which this
variety has given anything like a satisfactory yield are the black soils, which are
not very different from those in Illinois.

The Close Relation between the Tobacco Crop and the Soil.

None of our great crops has been so highly speciahzed as tobacco. The
demands of the trade have forced 'this upon the farmers. Tobacco does not go
upon the market simply as tobacco, but as smoking, chewing, filler and wrapper
tobacco. In other words, the quality of the leaf determines the' use to which
it will be put and this in turn depends very largely upon the character of the
soil. Bright yellow tobacco, which is used for smoking and cigarettes, cannot
be produced upon a heavy-textured soil and a single trial will be sufficient to
convince the most unconvincible farmer. It is soon discovered that the leaf
has become too thick and dark for this purpose. No such trade conditions,
however, exist in regard to wheat, cotton, corn, and oats. The principal .
thing vv^ith these crops is quantity rather than quality and the farmers generally

76 ADDRESSES

(and I think I might safely say many of those who call themselves scientists
instead of farmers) have not appreciated the importance of securing the variety
adapted to their particular soils.

A Misguided Benefactor.

A few years ago a prominent banker in this State saw an account of a
variety of wheat which the Kansas Experiment Station had found to produce very
much larger yields than other varieties. Being desirous of helping the farmers in
his section he secured 25 bushels of this wheat at $2.00 per bushel and distributed
it among his farmer friends, but reaped a harvest of disappointment as the wheat
proved much inferior to home varieties. The black soils, which are more like
those in Kansas than any others in this State, where the only ones upon which the
yield was at all satisfactory. By the soil survey we want to help eliminate such mis-
takes as this; we want to show public spirited citizens like this banker the lines
along which their enthusiasm can be expended to advantage.

Similar illustrations could be supplied almost indefinitely, but these call
attention to the necessity of considering the soil factor in all variety or crop
adaptation studied. For if a variety, which is developed in a certain environ-
ment, will not do best when placed in different surroundings and if the soil
constitutes an essential part of this environment, then the change of a plant
from one soil to another may negative the good effects of years of patient
breeding. A knowledge of the character of the soil in different parts of the
State, therefore, becomes an essential and necessary corollary to a study of
variety adaptations. Such knowledge will be especially valuable in the plant-
ing of apples and other crops where years must elapse before returns are
secured and where a mistake means great loss of both time and money.

Soil Types and the Livestock Industry.

In Bulletin 222* of the Ohio Experiment Station is published the "results
of a study of the mineral nutrients in blue grass, from which it appears that
some blue-grass pastures in Ohio contains twice as high percentages of the mineral
nutrients as others, these differences being due to differences in the soils upon
which the grasses were grown. It is also shown that the content of blue-grass in
mineral nutrients may be very greatly increased by the use of fertilizers. There
is every reason to beHeve that the grass on a soil which is rich in lime and
phosphorus is a better food and will produce more bone especially, and also more
muscle and more milk, than grass grown on unfertile soils." In a recent bulletin of
the West Virginia Experiment Station* it is stated that "The success or failure
of any poultry enterprise depends to a large extent upon the character of the
soil upon which the poultry plant is located, for if the soil is too heavy and
tenacious there is a tendency for disease germs to accumulate to such an extent
that after a time the fowls become unthrifty and unprofitable." It would seem,
therefore, that a knowledge of the soil will be of much value to the raiser of
stock or other animals as well as of plants.

Different Soils Require Different Systems of Soil Management.

We have seen that the kind or variety of crop which a farmer can most
profitably grow depends to a certain extent at least upon the character of the soil.
It is just as necessary to consider these differences in connection with the meth-
ods of soil management which should be adopted. Whether to plow deep or

*Summary of Bulletin 222 as given by Director Thorne in the Thirteenth
Annual Report Ohio Ex. Sta. p. xxiii.

* Bulletin 135, West Virginia Experiment Station.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. //

shallow, in the fall or in the spring, whether to turn under the clover crop or
cut it for hay, whether to apply the manure in the fall or in the spring, and
various other problems, depend to a very large extent upon the character of the
soil.

At the meeting of the American Society of Agronomy at Columbus last fall
Dr. Lipman, Director of the New Jersey Experiment Station, said that it was a
common practice among the farmers in certain sections of New Jersey to apply
the manure in the spring instead of hauling it out on the fields as fast as made,
the method pronounced best by practically all the experiment stations. An exam-
ination of the soils in the localities where this practice is common showed them
to be of a very sandy nature and leachy character and if the manure had been
hauled out in the fall a very large percentage of the fertility would have leached
out before it was needed by the crop the next season. On heavy soils such leaching
would not take place. This illustrates the necessity of adapting the methods of
soil management to the particular soil.

Profitable and Unprofitable Fertilization.

As our soils are becoming more and more depleted by exhaustive methods of
farming, the question of fertilization is becoming one of greater and greater im-
portance. All soils, however, do not respond equally to the same kind of fertil-
izers. Some need lime, some do not; some need phosphorus (most of our Ohio
soils probably do), some may not; many may not need potash, some undoubtedly
do; some need nitrogen, others have an abundance of this element.

At Wooster it is only necessary for one to observe the plots in order to see
the beneficial effect of lime upon this soil. At Germantown, however. Director
Thorne states * "that if lime has produced any effect thus far it has been to re-
duce the yield, but the work has not yet been continued long enough to afford con-
clusive evidence on this point. At Carpenter the effect of lime is less evident
than on the Wooster and Strongsville soils." Most farmers know that the applica-
tion of lime to a heavy clay makes it more porous and easily worked, while, under
the same treatment, a sand becomes more compact and retentive of moisture.

As an average of two five-year rotations, consisting of corn, oats, wheat,
clover and timothy, at Wooster and Strongsville, an application of 20 pounds
of phosphorus, 108 pounds of potassium and 114 pounds of nitrogen gave a
net profit of $7.36 per acre at Wooster and a loss of $2.01 at Strongsville. An
application of the same amount of phosphorus and potassium on another plot,
but 'jd instead of 114 pounds of nitrogen, gave a net profit of $12.04 per acre
at Wooster and of $1.64 at Strongsville. In a three-year rotation of corn,
wheat and; clover an application of 16 1-2 pounds of potash and of 25 1-3 pounds-
of nitrogen per acre, gave a net loss of 8 cents per acre at Germantown but a
gain of $1.07 per acre at Carpenter. An application of 6 2-3 pounds of nitro-
gen, 30 pounds of phosphorus, 33 pounds of potassium and 1000 pounds of
lime gave a net loss of 54 cents per acre at Germantown and a gain of $3.06
per acre at Carpenter. These results show that the application of a certain
kind of fertilizer may prove profitable on one soil and unprofitable on an-
other. A knowledge of the character of the soil is therefore necessary be-
fore anyone can advise most intelligently in regard to the use of fertilizers.

Why Doctors Disagree.

New York and Massachusetts have been carrying on experiments with fer-
tilzers on apple orchards for a number of years. As a result of the New York
experiments it is stated *'That the fertilizers have had no sensible effect upon the-

* Bulletin 182, p. 180, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station.

78 ADDRESSES

yield of fruit in this experiment." In Bulletin 100 of the Pennsylvania State
College and Agricultural Experiment Station is given the data in regard to
the Massachusetts experiment furnished by the Director of the Massachusetts
Experiment Station. It is here stated that "in every respect the treated plots have
proven superior to the untreated." A forthcoming report of the Ohio Experiment
Station will show that "the increase in fruit production of the mulched and fer-
tilized plots, as compared with those receiving no fertiHzation, has ranged from
200 to 1000 per cent, within eighteen months from the time of the first applica-
,tion." One of our agricultural papers recently called attention to the different
conclusions reached by the first two experiments stations and raised the question
as to what the farmer is to do when authorities disagree. The soil upon which the
experiments were conducted are not the same and it seems to me that this fur-
nished the reason why such entirely different results were secured. The farmer,
therefore, must know which of the soils is like, or most like, that upon his
own farm before he can tell which experiments to follow. A soil survey will fur-
nish this information.

Why Chemical Analysis is Unsatisfactory.

The failure to recognize the importance of the differences in soil is one of
the probable reasons why no more satisfactory results have been secured from
chemical analyses. Chemists have tried to establish a standard that would apply
to all soils. Is this not too much like trying to produce a medicine that would
cure all diseases? We know that moisture in the soil is just as essential for the
growth of plants as the presence of phosphorus or potassium or nitrogen, but it is
not possible to establish a standard or optimum amount which will apply to all soils.
An amount which would give the largest growth to a plant on a sand would not be
sufficient to prevent its death on a heavy clay. Since this is true in regard to moist-
ure, may not be true in regard to other compounds also, although in a less
marked degree? The interpretation of the chemical analyses of soils in the past
ha?s been undertaken with practically no regard to the differences which are very
obvious in the field. The analysis of a sand has been compared with that of a
clay, although the two are about as unlike as two soils can be. It is very much to
me as if a man were to secure samples of a great many different kinds of grain,
analyze them and then endeavor to interpret their composition without first ascer-
taining whether he was analyzing corn, wheat, oats, rye or barley.

The Cart before the Horse.

A little more than three years ago I was invited to give a talk upon some
phase of soil work before the students of one of our largest and most progressive
universities. In the course of the address I tried to emphasize the importance of
the study of soils in the field. When I had finished the professor who had charge
of the soil work in that state said to me "You have taken exactly the opposite
view in regard to the study of soils from that along which we have been work-
ing. We have thought it best to collect samples from different sections of the
state, analyze them and study them in the laboratory, using the information there
obtained as an aid in reaching the proper basis on which to separate and classify
the soils. You would classify them upon obvious field differences and use the
laboratory as a means of explaining those differences which cannot be explained
from the field study alone, and the more I think about the matter the more I am
inclined to believe that you are right." I might add that the legislature of that
state is now appropriating $10,000 a year for the conduct of a soil survey.

* Bulletin No. 339, page 154, New York Agricultural Experiment Station.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 79

The causes of the differences in the crop producing power of our soils
is certainly one of the most important, if not the most important, problems
with which our soil investigators have to deal. xA.fter many years of patient
investigation there are many things relating to this great problem about
which we know practically nothing. The classifying and mapping of the var-
ious types, together with a study of the conditions and processes under which
they have been formed, will furnish essential and invaluable data for the con-
duct of laboratory investigation. The field is Nature's great laboratory and
a study of her methods cannot fail to offer many valuable suggestions and in
some cases the only means of solving her problems. The field observation
or experiment can be used as check upon and as an aid in the interpretation
of laboratory investigations and as stated by Dr. Wheeler, Director of the
Rhode Island Station, "is a safe and necessary anchor with which to keep
the laboratory experimenter from being dashed against the rock of pure
speculation."* It is only through a combination of field and laboratory stud-
ies that an understanding of many of these fundamental and puzzling prob-
lems can be reached.

The Soil Survey a Fundamental Part of the Agricultural Survey.

The Experiment Station is now conducting an Agricultural Survey of this
Sti|te. It is not necessary for me at this time to explain in detail the character
of this work, as this has already been done by Professor Goddard, who knows a
great deal more about the subjest than I do. I will state briefly, however,
that it will embrace a historical study of the different classes of people, crops,
livestock and types of farming; the date of introduction, the rate of increase and
cause of the decline of each, if such exists. A circular has been issued showing
the centers of rural population, and the townships in which increases and decreases
have occurred. Another circular gives the centers of agricultural production, the
average yield per acre and shows the townships which produce the most wheat,
the most corn, the most oats, the most tobacco, the most alfalfa and other data.
A study of the reason for these differences will be made and a knowledge of the
soil is an essential factor in all such investigations.

Studies of the farm practice problems relating to selected individual crops
or enterprises will be taken up. Such a study of alfalfa has already been made,
and it was found that the character of the soil is one of the principal factors in
determining whether this crop can be grown successfully.

Farm Management Surveys for the purpose of securing all possible
information regarding investment, expenses, incomes, enterprises, rotations,
types of farming, etc., connected with each farm within an area, which has
been selected as typical of larger areas, are being made; more definite infor-
mation as to the exact cost of the production of farm crops is being secured;
studies and reports dealing with the methods of farm practice used on suc-
cessful farms in the state are being undertaken. All of these studies are of
great importance and will be of much value to the farmers of the State, but
you farmers must know whether the soil on the farms upon which such stud-
ies are conducted is similar to your own before you can be sure that it will
be best for you to adopt the methods found to be most profitable on some
other farm. By a determination and careful description of the soil types of
the State we expect to make it possible for every intelligent farmer to know
what type or types of soil he has on his place and thus be in a position to
use to best advantage the large amount of valuable data which is being se-
cured relating to various kinds of agriculture.

* Proceedings of the American Society of Agronomy, Vol. I, p. 44.

80 ADDRESSES

What the Soil Survey Hopes to Accomplish.

There is nothing more vital to the well-being of a nation than agriculture and
nothing more vital to agriculture than the soil. Since this is true can there be
anything of greater importance than a thorough knowledge of the properties and
peculiarities of the numerous types of soils, together with an understanding of the
kinds and varieties of crops, the methods of soil management, the system of rota-
tion and farm management, the kind and amount of fertilization, best suited to
each individual type.

Don't understand me to claim, gentlemen, that the soil survey will in
itself answer all of these questions. We do believe that it is fundamental
work in that it will furnish the basis for the various lines of investigation
v\rhich are necessary to secure this information, and is therefore absolutely
essential to a proper solution of these problems. All these studies must be
made from the standpoint of the individual soil type if the best results are
to be secured.

It is not possible for the Experiment Station to conduct experiments
on every farm in the State. Such a course is entirely impracticable and un-
necessary. We do believe, however, that studies should be made on all the
important soil types so that we may know just what is best for each of these.

With a central experiment station, sub-stations, county test farms, cooperative
experiments with the farmers, and studies of the practices on individual farms
a great deal of data, pertaining to the requirements of each particular soil, can be
rapidly secured. In fact, a large amount of material has already been acquired.

With the knowledge and careful description of the soils, which will be secured
through the soil survey, we will be able, to determine pretty accurately what type
of soil occurs on any farm and thus be in a position to give much more definite
and positive advice than is now possible. We hope some day to be able to write
a prescription to fit your particular conditions, but we must know what those con-
ditions are before this can be done. One of the most important of these local
conditions is the soil and a knowledge of this is, therefore, an essential step in
the different lines of investigation which may make this possible. This knowl-
edge we expect to secure through the soil survey which we are just beginning.
When this survey, and the various lines of investigation with which it is proposed
to follow it up and of which it forms the basis are completed, we believe there
will have been accomplished something which will be of inestimable value to the
farmers of this State, a work which will help Ohio to keep in the very forefront
of agricultural production.

POSSIBLE CROP YIELDS IN OHIO.

By C. E. Thorne.
Director Experiment Station, Wooster, 0.

Ohiojs growing annually about 35 bushels of corn and about 14^^ bushels of
wheat per acre. This yield of wheat is less than half of that produced in England
and but little more than half the yield of France and Germany. Those countries
started 200 years ago with a yield smaller than the present yield of Ohio. Even
fifty years ago the yield in those countries was not so very much greater than the
present Ohio yield, but it has been brought up within the last half century to the
present figures largely through the application of scientific methods to the culti-

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

81

vation of the soil. That there is no good reason for the present low yield in
Ohio has been abundantly proven by the work which is in progress at the Exper-
riment Station.

In selecting land for this Station one farm was chosen which had been in cul-
tivation for three-fourths of a century, the last twenty-five years of that time under
tenant husbandry. The farm buildings consisted of a large stone house and an
excellent barn, such buildings as made Wayne county famous 25 years ago, and
which bore evidence to the fact that the land when first brought under cultiva-
tion had responded liberally to treatment; but the land itself, as shown when the
Station made its purchase, had been brought down to a very low state of pro-
ductiveness. Part of this land was an old timothy meadow, which had been
cropped and mown until little was left but weeds, and part a wheat stubble
which apparently had a similar history. On this land we located art experiment
in the cultivation of corn, oc"3, wheat, clover and timothy in a 5-year rotation,
five tracts of land being laid out in tenth-acre plots, each crop being grown every
season. In the first table accompanying is shown the arrangement of some of
these plots and their average yield per acre for the last 8 years, the experiment
having been in progress for 18 years.

TABLE I — Eight-year Average Yields of Crops Grown in 5- year Rotation
Yields and Values Per Acre.

Plot 10
Untreated

Plot 11
Fertilized

Plot IQ
Fertilized

Plot 13
Untreated

Corn — bushels

Oats — bushels

Wheat — bushels

Clover — pounds hay .
Timothy — • pounds h-ay

25.9
32.3
13.0

2090.

3074.

Average annual value

Average annual cost of fertilizer,

Average annual net value

Average annual net gain

$11.22'

Plot 16
Untreated

49.8
50.7
31.1

3986.

4543.

$20.78

4.70

16.08

4.88

Plot 17
Fertilized

40.5
48.5
31.2

4061.

4492.

27.1
31.9
12.9

2241.

3058.

$20.63

6.10

14.53

3.20

$11.33

Plot m
Manured

Plot 19
Untreated

Corn — bushels

Oats — bushels

Wheat — bushels

Clover — pounds hay .,
Timothy — pounds hay

Average annual value

Average annual cost of fertilizer.

Average annual net value

Average annual net gain

Net gain per ton of manure

25.2
31.0
12.0

2046.

2921.

50.4
54.0
28.4

4000.

4274.

58.9
46.8
30.2

5077.

5164.

28.4
31.9
13.7

2207.

3117.

$10.72

$20.38

3.50

16.88

6.16

$22.65

1.60

21.05

9.43

3.44

$11.62

The plots in these experiments are 16 feet wide by 272 feet long and are
separated by paths two feet wide. Every third plot has been left continuously
unfertilized and unmanured from the beginning of the experiment; otherwise all
have had the same treatment as to drainage and cultivation. The upper part

6* AD. BD. AGR.

82 ADDRESSES

of the table shows the yields of Plots 10, 11, 12 and 13, Nos. 10 and 1<* being
unfertilized while Nos. 11 and 12 receive annually a large application of <i com-
plete commercial fertilizer, made up of nitrate of soda, acid phosphate and
muriate of potash, the fertilizers being distributed over the three cereal crops,
while the clover and timothy follow without any treatment. The total cost of
the treatment on Plot 11 is $23.50 for each five-year rotation, and that on Plot
12 is $30.50, the increased cost on Plot 12 being due to the use of a larger
quantity of nitrate of soda. These applications would be equivalent to an annual
expenditure of $4.70 for each of the five years on Plot 11, and $6.10 annually
on Plot 12. If we estimate corn at one-half dollar per bushel, oats at one-third
of a dollar, wheat at 90 cents and hay at $8.00 per ton, and throw in the extra
produce of stover and straw to balance the extra labor of applying the fertilizer
and harvesting the additional crops produced, the total annual value of the five
crops of the rotation produced on Plot 10 would amount to $11.22 per acre,
and that on Plot 13 to $11.33, while the values on Plots 11 and 12 would amount
to $20.78 and $20.63 respectively. Deducting from these the cost of the fertilizer,
we have a net value of $16.08 on Plot 11, and $14.53 on Plot 12. Subtracting
from these the value of the produce grown on the unfertilized plots alongside,
we have a net annual gain of $4.88 on Plot 11, and $3.20 on Plot 12.

The experiment indicates that we have used nitrogen excessively on Plot
12, and in order to study this point further we have four more plots, 16, 17, 18
and 19. Plots 16 and 19, like 10 and 13, have been left continuously unfertilized,
while 17 receives a fertilizer carrying half the quantity of nitrogen given to Plot
11 and about 50% more phosphorus, and 18 receives for every 5-year period 16
tons of open yard manure — 8 tons each on corn and wheat. The outcome is that
for the 8 years under consideration the value of the crops grown on Plot 16
has amounted to $10.72, and on Plot 13, to $11.62, while those grown on Plot 17
have amounted to $20.38, or only 40 cents less than on Plot 11, and the manured
plot has yielded an average value of $22.65. The fertilizers applied to Plot 17
have cost $3.50 annually, leaving a net value of $16.88, or a net gain over the
unfertilized plot of $6.16; that is, this combination of fertilizing materials applied
to Plot 17, at a cost of $17.50 for every 5-year period, or $3.50 annually, has been
paid for in the increase of crop with an average profit over and above its cost
of more than $6.00. Taking the manured plot and deducting $1.60 to balance the
extra labor of hauling and distributing the manure over and above the cost of
applying the fertilizer, we have a net gain per acre each year of $9.43, or a total
tiet gain of $46.00 for the 5-year period, to pay for 16 tons of manure, which
amounts to nearly $3.50 for each ton of manure.

The yields on the unfertilized plots in this experiment, for the period under
review, have been for corn less by about ten bushels per acre, and for wheat
less by about five bushels than the yields over Wayne county, thus showing that
the land under experiment is not above the average of Wayne county in natural
fertility; while the fertilized and manured yields in this test have been about 15
bushels per acre for corn and nearly as many bushels for wheat above the average
yields of the county. It will be seen therefore that on this very thin land we
have been able to bring up the yields of wheat to figures equal to the European
yields I have mentioned, and to do this by methods which have left a net gain
over and above the cost of treatment sufficient to pay a good rental on the land..
^ As I have stated, the manure used in this experiment has been open-yard
manure, which has been exposed to the weather for from 4 to 6 months before
applying to the land. We have believed from the start that such manure had
lost much of its value, but we wished to see what could be done with the ordi-
nary barnyard manure of the average Ohio farm. Another experiment, however,
is in progress at the Station, in which we are endeavoring to learn something as

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

83

to the loss which manure suffers when exposed in the open barnyard. This ex-
periment is on the same farm as the one just described, and is conducted on the
same general plan. In this experiment only three crops are grown in rotation —
corn, wheat and clover — and the manure is all applied to the clover sod during
the winter and spring, and plowed under for corn, the manure being used uni-
formly at the rate of 8 tons per acre. Plots 14 and 17 in this test have been
continuously unmanured, while Plot 15 has received manure which has lain in the
barnyard during winter, exposed to the weather, and has been hauled out and
spread on the land in April, and Plot 16 has received manure which has been
taken directly from the barn to the field, and dur-ing later years spread early in
the winter and allowed to lie until spring when all is plowed under together.

TABLE 2 — FoURTEEN-YEAR AvERAGE YiELDS OF CrOPS GrOWN in 3-YEAR ROTATION,

Yields and Values Per Acre.

Plot 14
Untreated.

Plot 15
Manured.

Plot 16
Manured.

Plot 17
Untreated.

C"'rn . bushels

30.5
10.7
2165.

50.6
20.1
30^0.

57.7-
211.6
3769.

35.9

W'^e-t, bushels

11.2

CiO , er, pounds hay

2437

Average annual value

$ia.io

$18.54
7.36
2.75

$21.13
9.55
3.20

$10.58

Averacje annual gain per acre

Averse e annual gain per ton manure..

Plot 4
Untreated.

Plot 5
Manured.

Plot 6
Manured.

Plot 7
Untreated.

Corn bushels

45.3
10.3
2295.

66.0
20.4
3236.

67.5
20.6
3557.

52.3

Wheat bushels

10.1

Clover pounds hay

2292.

$11.33

$23.17

11.04

4.13

$2'5.00

13.35

5.00

$10.86

Average annual gain per acre

Average annual gain per ton manure..

Table 2 gives some of the results of this test, and shows that in this test
the untreated yields have been practically the same as in the one previously
described. The total annual value on Plot 14 has amounted to $11.19, while that
on Plot 17, also unmanured, has amounted to $12.58, thus showing a slightly
greater irregularity between the untreated pbts than in the other experiment.
Compared with these values the crops grown on Plot 15 under yard manure have
given an average value of $18.54, and those on Plot 16 under fresh manure, of
$21.13, leaving an annual gain per acre for the yard manure of $7.35, and for the
fresh manure of $9.55, or $2.75 for each ton of yard manure, and $3.20 for each
ton of fresh manure. On Plots 5 and 6 in this test the same quantities of the
same kinds of manure have been used, with the difference that this manure has
been dusted with acid phosphate before application to the land, using the phos-
phate at the rate of 40 pounds to the ton of manure, the phosphate being thor-
oughly mixed with the manure before tlie latter has been applied to the land.

Plots 4 and 7, it will be observed, have yielded a value of $11.33, and $10.85,
or practically $11 per acre; while Plot 5 has given a total value of $23.17 and

34 ADDRESSES

Plot 6 of $25. After deducting the cost of the phosphate the net gain per acre
in this case has been $4.13 for each ton of yard manure, and $5.00 for each ton
of fresh manure, using the valuations previously employed.

These experiments have been made on small plots of land and the question
has been raised whether it would be possible to obtain such yields on large fields.
In order to test this matter an experiment was begun eight years ago on four
ten-acre fields which have been growing corn, oats, wheat and clover in a 4-year
rotation over the same period as the fertilizer experiment first described. The
soil lies on the same formation, and probably originally with almost identical
natural fertility, but the farm on which this experiment is located had been
better handled than the other, and it came to us in a somewhat higher condition.

In the treatment of these fields we have aimed to combine the lessons
learned from the small plots, and our system has been to apply to the clover sod
during fall and winter a dressing of about 8 to 10 tons of manure per acre, the
manure being reenforced by phosphate during accumulation, the phosphate being
used either in the form of acid phosphate, or raw phosphate rock, at the rate of
about 40 pounds per ton of manure, or one pound per 1,000-pound animal per
day. The manure has been plowed under in the spring and the land dressed with
lime, our experiments having shown that the use of lime on this land is abso-
lutely necessary to the growth of clover as well as to the best yields of other
crops. The lime has been used at the rate of one ton of quicklime or two tons
of ground limestone per acre, the ground limestone being used during recent
years. The oats has received no treatment, but the wheat has received 400
pounds per acre of a fertilizer similar in composition to the one used on Plot
17 in the experiment first described. The outcome has been an 8-year average
yield of corn of 77 bushels per acre, followed by 60 bushels of oats, 36 bushels of
wheat and nearly three tons and a half of clover hay, yields probably greater than
would have been attained had the land been treated like that on the first farm, by
about 47 bushels of corn, 28 of oats, 23 of wheat and two and one-third tons of
hay. The annual value of this increase has amounted to $18 per acre, the cost of
liming and fertilizing has amounted to $3.50 annually, or $14 for every four-
year rotation. The net gain per acre has therefore been over $14, after paying
for the lime and fertilizer, a gain equivalent to more than $5.00 for each ton of
manure. This outcome shows that we have been able to secure very materially
better results on these 10-acre fields than we have reached on the small plots
in our special tests, and the reason is simply this — that in our plot work each
plot is set to answer one question only, whereas in this field work we have com-
bined the answers from a multitude of plots and put them into practice in general
field culture.

I wish to call special attention to the fact that in this field work our 8-year
average of wheat is far ahead of that of the general average of any of the
European countries named. This average has been attained on land that is not
above the average of the county in which the farm is located, in natural fertility,
and I believe there is no sound reason why an average closely approaching this
may not be attained over a large portion of Ohio. Of course this yield is
obtained on land that has been thoroughly drained and subjected to systematic
rotation of crops, as well as to a treatment planned and executed in the light of
modern science; but the methods by which it has been obtained are applicable
to every farm in Ohio, and capable of being employed by every farmer, and
there are farmers over the state who are beginning to put these methods into
practice.

ANNUAL MEETING OHIO STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 85

As I have already said, each of the acres which is giving us 30 bushels of
corn and 10 to 13 bushels of wheat is receiving just as much labor in the way of
drainage and cultivation, and just as much seed, as the acre which is giving us
77 bushels of corn and 36 bushels of wheat. The only difference between the two
is in the manuring and fertilizing; or in other words, the only difference is in
the amount of intelligent thought given to the work.

.1 --^^ -^

/

yC 6151

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