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Title: The Story of the Soil
Author: Cyril G. Hopkins
Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext# 4527]
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THE STORY OF THE SOIL
From the Basis Of Absolute Science and Real Life
BY CYRIL G. HOPKINS
Author of "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture"
BOSTON
1911
TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
Truth is better than fiction; and this true story of the soil is
written in co-operation with the Press of America and in competition
with popular fiction.
The scenes described exist; the references given can all be found
and verified; and the data quoted are exact, although some of the
story dates antedate the scientific data.
As a rule the names employed are substitutes, but the general
localities are as specified.
If the Story of the Soil should ever fall into the hands of any
individual who suspects that he has contributed to its information,
the author begs that he will accept as belonging to himself every
gracious attribute and take it for granted that anything of opposite
savor was due to autosuggestion.
CYRIL G. HOPKINS.
University of Illinois, Urbana.
CHAPTER I
THE OLD SOUTH
PERCY JOHNSTON stood waiting on the broad veranda of an old-style
Southern home, on a bright November day in 1903. He had just come
from Blue Mound Station, three miles away, with suit-case in hand.
"Would it be possible for me to secure room and board here for a few
days?" he inquired of the elderly woman who answered his knock.
"Would it be possible?" she repeated, apparently asking herself the
question, while she scanned the face of her visitor with kindly eyes
that seemed to look beneath the surface.
"I beg your pardon, my name is Johnston,--Percy Johnston--" he said
with some embarrassment and hesitation, realizing from her speech
and manner that he was not addressing a servant.
"No pardon is needed for that name," she interrupted; "Johnston is a
name we're mighty proud of here in the South."
"But I am from the West," he said.
"We're proud of the West, too; and you should feel right welcome
here, for this is 'Westover,'" waving her hand toward the inroad
fields surrounding the old mansion house. "I am Mrs. West, or at
least I used to be. Perhaps the title better belongs to my son's
wife at the present time; while I am mother, grandma, and
great-grandmother.
"Yes, Sir, you will be very welcome to share our home for a few days
if you wish; and we'll take you as a boarder. We used to entertain
my husband's friends from Richmond,--and from Washington, too,
before the sixties; but since then we have grown poor, and of late
years we take some summer boarders. They have all returned to the
city, however, the last of them having left only yesterday; so you
can have as many rooms as you like.
"Adelaide!" she called.
A rugged girl of seventeen entered the hall from a rear room.
"This is my granddaughter, Adelaide, Mr. Johnston."
Percy looked into her eyes for an instant; then her lashes dropped.
He remembered afterward that they were like her grandmother's, and
he found himself repeating, "The eye is the window of the soul."
"My Dear, will you ask Wilkes to show Mr. Johnston to the southwest
room, and to put a fire in the grate and warm water in the pitcher?"
"Thank you, that will not be necessary," said Percy. "I wish to see
and learn as much as possible of the country hereabout, and
particularly of the farm lands; and, if I may leave my suit-case to
be sent to my room when convenient, I shall take a walk,--perhaps a
long walk. When should I be back to supper."
"At six or half past. My son Charles has gone to Montplain, but he
will be home for dinner. He knows the lands all about here and will
be glad, I am sure, to give you any information possible."
With rapid strides Percy followed the private lane to the open
fields of Westover.
"Is he a cowboy, Grandma?" asked Adelaide, in a tone which did not
suggest a very high regard for cowboys. "Anyway," she continued,
detecting a shade of disapproval in the grandmother's face, "he has
a cowboy's hat, but he doesn't wear buckskin trousers or spurs."
Percy's hat was a relic of college life. Two years before he had
completed the agricultural course at one of the state universities
in the corn belt. Somewhat above the average in size, well
proportioned, accustomed to the heaviest farm work, and trained in
football at college, he was a sturdy young giant,--" strong as an ox
and quick as lightning," in the exaggerated language of his football
admirers
CHAPTER II
FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT
PERCY JOHNSTON'S grandfather had gone west from "York State" and
secured from the federal government a 160-acre "Claim" of the rich
corn belt land. His father had received through inheritance only 40
acres of this; and, marrying his choice from the choir of the local
Lutheran congregation, he had farmed his forty and an adjoining
eighty acres, "rented on shares," for only three years, when he was
taken with pneumonia from exposure and overwork, and died within a
week.
Percy was scarcely a year old when his father was laid in the grave;
but to the sorrowing mother he was all that life held dear.
Existence seemed possible to her only because she could bestow upon
him her double affection, and because the double duties which she
took upon herself completely occupied her time.
She was not in immediate financial need, for her husband had been
able to put some money in the bank during the last year, after
having paid for his "outfit;" the forty-acre farm was free from
debt, but under the law it must remain the joint property of mother
and child for twenty years.
Wisely or unwisely she rejected every opportunity presented that
would have given Percy a stepfather. As daughter and wife she had
learned much of the art of agriculture, and, after some consultation
with a neighbor who seemed to be successful, she made her own plans.
In her make up, sentiment was balanced with sense. Even as a young
wife she had sometimes driven the mower or the self-binder to
"help-out," and she had found pleasure and health in such hours of
out-door life. "I can work and not overwork," she said to her
friends; and in any case the crops seemed to grow better under the
eye of the mistress.
Some years she employed a neighbor boy or girl, and always hired
such other help as she needed. Prices were sometimes low and crops
were not always good; and only widowed mothers can know the full
story of her labor, love and sacrifice. With Percy's help he was
sent to school and finally to the university, choosing for himself
the agricultural college, much to the surprise and disappointment of
his devoted mother.
"Why," she asked, "why should my son go to college to study
agriculture? Have you not studied farming in the practical school of
experience all your life? Surely we have done as much as could be
done on our own little farm; and you have also had the benefit of
the longer experience of our best farmers hereabout, and of the
accumulated wisdom of our ancestors. Oh, I had hoped and truly
believed that you would become interested in engineering, or in
medicine, or may be in the law. I cannot understand why you should
think of going to college to study farming. Surely you already know
more than the college professors do about agriculture."
Percy's mother had too much good sense to have raised a spoiled boy.
He had been taught to work and to think for himself. She loved her
boy far better than her own life,--loved as only a widowed mother
can who has risked her life for him, and who has given to him all
her thought and all her energy from the best twenty years of her own
life; but she had never let herself enjoy that kind of selfishness
which prompts a mother to do for her child what he should be taught
to do for himself. Despite his natural love of sport and the severe
trials he had often brought to her patience and perseverance during
his boyhood days, he had reached a development with the advance of
youth that satisfied her high ideal. His love and appreciation and
tender care for her repaid her every day, she told herself, for all
the years of watching, working, waiting. Never before had he
withstood her positive wish and final judgment.
And yet it was she who had told him that he alone must choose his
life work and his college course in preparation for that work; but,
after the years of toil, she had not dreamed that he would choose
the farm life.
"My darling boy," she continued, "it leads to nothing. This little
farm is poorer to-day than it was when your dear father and I came
here to live and labor. To be sure, the lower field still grows as
good or better crops than ever; but I can remember when that field
was so wet and swampy that it could not be cultivated, and it was in
the work of ditching and tiling that field," she sobbed, "that your
father took the sickness that caused his death."
Tears were in Percy's eyes as he put his arm about his mother and
wiped her tears away.
"But I must tell you what I know to be the truth," she went on
quickly. "The older fields that your grandfather cultivated are less
productive now than when he received them from our generous
government. Indeed, it was your father's plan to continue to farm
here only for a few years longer until he could save enough to
enable him, with what we could have gotten from the sale of our own
forty, to go farther west and purchase a large farm of virgin soil.
He realized, my Son, that even that part of his father's farm that
was first put under cultivation was becoming distinctly reduced in
productiveness. He remembered, too, the stories often repeated by
your grandfather of the run-down condition of the once exceedingly
fertile soils of the Mohawk Valley and other parts of New York
State.
"And you know, Percy, there were many Dutch farmers settled in New
York. They were probably the best farmers among all who came to
America from the Old World. I have heard your grandfather explain
their use of crop rotation, and they understood well the value of
clover and farm fertilizers. But with all of their skill and
knowledge, the land grew poor, and now the very farm upon which
Grandpa was born is not worth as much as the actual cost of the farm
buildings. I hope you will consider all of this. The farm life is so
unpromising for you, and there are such great opportunities for
success in other lines. Still I feel that you must decide this
question for yourself my Son, but tell me why you would choose the
life and work of a farmer?"
CHAPTER III
LINCOLN S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE
PERCY had listened without interrupting, grieved at her
disappointment, and open to any reasoning that might change his
mind.
"Mother dearest," he said, "it was a year ago that you said I would
have only till this fail to decide upon my college course and that
it should be a special preparation for my life work. I have given
much thought to it. You said that I should choose for myself, and I
have not consulted much with others, but I have tried to consider
the matter from different points of view.
"You know the Christmas present you gave me of the Lincoln books?"
"Yes, I know, and you have read them so much. I could not get you
many books, but I knew there could be nothing better for my boy to
read than the thoughts of that noble man. But, Percy dear, Lincoln
was a lawyer, and he rose from the lowest walk in life to the
highest position in the country, and with much less preparation than
my own boy will have. Suppose he had remained a farmer! Surely no
such success could ever have been reached. I am not so foolish as to
have any such high hopes for you. Percy; but if you can only put
yourself in the way of opportunity; and make such preparation as you
can to fill with credit some position of responsibility that may be
offered you! I had truly hoped that your study of Lincoln's life
would influence yours. To me Lincoln was the noblest of all the
noble men of our history, and I doubt not of all history, save Him
who came to redeem the world."
Percy stepped to his little homemade bookcase and took a volume from
the Lincoln set.
"May I read you some words of Lincoln?" he asked.
"Oh yes," she answered wonderingly.
"On September 30th, 1859," said Percy, "Lincoln gave an address at
Milwaukee, before the State Agricultural Society of Wisconsin, and
of all the addresses of Lincoln it seems to me that this is the
greatest, because it deals with the greatest material problem of the
United States. I think I have scarcely heard a public address in
which the speaker has not dwelt upon the fact that the farmer must
feed and clothe the world; and it seems to me that the missionaries
always speak of the famines and starvation of so many people in
India and other old countries. Do you remember the lecture by the
medical missionary? Well, would it not he better to send
agricultural missionaries to India and China to teach those people
how to raise crops?
"I have read and reread this address more than any other in the
Lincoln set. Let me read you some of the paragraphs I have marked.
"After making some introductory remarks about the value of
agricultural fairs, Lincoln began his address as follows:
"'I presume I am not expected to employ the time assigned me in the
mere flattery of the farmers as a class. My opinion of them is that,
in proportion to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than
other people. In the nature of things they are more numerous than
any other class; and I believe there are really more attempts at
flattering them than any other, the reason of which I cannot
perceive, unless it be that they can cast more votes than any other.
On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause of
suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort a politician and
in no sort a farmer, to address you.
"'But farmers being the most numerous class, it follows that their
interest is the largest interest. It also follows that that interest
is most worthy of all to be cherished and cultivated--that if there
be inevitable conflict between that interest and any other, that
other should yield.
"'Again, I suppose that it is not expected of me to impart to you
much specific information on agriculture. You have no reason to
believe, and do not believe, that I possess it; if that were what
you seek in this address, any one of your own number or class would
be more able to furnish it. You, perhaps, do expect me to give some
general interest to the occasion, and to make some general
suggestions on practical matters. I shall attempt nothing more. And
in such suggestions by me, quite likely very little will be new to
you, and a large part of the rest will be possibly already known to
be erroneous.
"'My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect of greater
thoroughness in all the departments of agriculture than now prevails
in the Northwest--perhaps I might say in America. To speak entirely
within bounds, it is known that fifty bushels of wheat, or one
hundred bushels of Indian corn, can be produced from an acre.'"
Percy paused: "You know, Mother, that our corn has averaged some
less than fifty bushels per acre for the last five years, and, as
you say, the lower field has been much better than the old land, and
I think you are quite right in your belief that as an average the
land is growing poorer, although we cultivate better than we used to
do, and our seed corn is of the best variety and saved with much
care. But let me read further:
"'Less than a year ago I saw it stated that a man, by extraordinary
care and labor, had produced of wheat what was equal to two hundred
bushels from an acre. But take fifty of wheat, and one hundred of
corn, to be the possibility, and compare it with the actual crops of
the country. Many years ago I saw it stated, in a patent office
report, that eighteen bushels was the average crop throughout the
United States; and this year an intelligent farmer of Illinois
assured me that he did not believe the land harvested in that State
this season had yielded more than an average of eight bushels to the
acre; much was cut, and then abandoned as not worth threshing, and
much was abandoned as not worth cutting."'
"I know it is true," said the mother, "that wheat was once very much
grown in Central and Northern Illinois, but 1859 must have been an
unusually poor year, for it was grown for twenty years after that,
although it finally failed so completely that its cultivation has
been practically abandoned in those sections for nearly twenty
years. However, the chinch bugs were a very important factor in
discouraging wheat growing and the land has been very good for corn,
especially since the tile-drainage was put in; but on the whole is
it not as I told you?"
"But note these statements," said Percy, turning again to the book:
"'It is true that heretofore we have had better crops with no better
cultivation, but I believe that it is also true that the soil has
never been pushed up to one-half of its capacity.
"'What would be the effect upon the farming interest to push the
soil up to something near its full capacity?'"
"But what can he mean," said the mother. "How can anyone do better
than we have done? We change our crops, and sow clover with the
oats, and return as much as we can to the land. But let me hear
further what Lincoln said:"
"Yes, Mother, this is what he said:
"'Unquestionably it will take more labor to produce fifty bushels of
wheat from an acre than it will to produce ten bushels from the same
acre; but will it take more labor to produce fifty bushels from one
acre than from five? Unquestionably thorough cultivation will
require more labor to the acre; but will it require more to the
bushel? If it should require just as much to the bushel, there are
some probable, and several certain, advantages in favor of the
thorough practice. It is probable it would develop those unknown
causes which of late years have cut down our crops below their
former average. It is almost certain, I think, that by deeper
plowing, analysis of the soils, experiments with manures and
varieties of seeds, observance of seasons, and the like, these
causes would be discovered and remedied. It is certain that thorough
cultivation would spare half, or more than half, the cost of land,
simply because the same produce would be got from half, or from less
than half, the quantity of land. This proposition is self-evident,
and can be made no plainer by repetitions or illustrations. The cost
of land is a great item, even in new countries, and it constantly
grows greater and greater, in comparison with other items, as the
country grows older.'"
Percy paused and said: "If I understand correctly these words of
Lincoln, the land need not become poor. But I do not know why land
becomes poor. I do not know what the soil contains, nor do I know
what corn is made of. We plow the ground and plant the seed and
cultivate and harvest the crop, but I do not know what the corn
crop, or any crop, takes from the soil. I want to learn how to
analyze the soil and crop and to find out, if possible, why soils
become poor, in order, as Lincoln suggests, that the cause may be
discovered and remedied."
"It may be that the college professors could teach you in that way,"
said the mother, "but you know the farm life is so full of work and
so empty of mental culture."
"I used to think so too," said Percy, "but I fear we have worked too
much with our hands and too little with our minds; that we have done
much work in blindness as to the actual causes that control our crop
yields; and that we have not found the mental culture that may be
found in the farm life. Let me read again. These are Lincolns words:
"'No other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable
and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as
agriculture. I know nothing so pleasant to the mind as the discovery
of anything that is at once new and valuable--nothing that so
lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery.
And how vast and how varied a field is agriculture for such
discovery! The mind, already trained to thought in the country
school, or higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaustless
source of enjoyment. Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce
two where there was but one is both a profit and a pleasure. And not
grass alone. but soils, seeds, and seasons--hedges, ditches, and
fences--draining, droughts, and irrigation--plowing, hoeing, and
harrowing--reaping, mowing, and threshing--saving crops, pests of
crops, diseases of crops, and what will prevent or cure
them--implements, utensils, and machines, their relative merits, and
how to improve them--hogs, horses, and cattle--sheep, goats and
poultry--trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and flowers--the thousand
things of which these are specimens--each a world of study within
itself.
"'In all this book learning is available. A capacity and taste for
reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by
others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved
problems. And not only so; it gives a relish and facility for
successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. The rudiments of science
are available, and highly available. Some knowledge of botany
assists in dealing with the vegetable world--with all growing crops.
Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection and
application of manures, and in numerous other ways. The mechanical
branches of natural philosophy are ready help in almost everything,
but especially in reference to implements and machinery.
"'The thought recurs that education--cultivated thought--can best be
combined with agricultural labor, on the principle of thorough work;
that careless, half-performed, slovenly work makes no place for such
combination; and thorough work, again, renders sufficient the
smallest quantity of ground to each man; and this, again, conforms
to what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and more devoted
to the arts of peace than heretofore. Population must increase
rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most
valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable
subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community whose every
member possesses this art, can ever be the victim of oppression in
any of its forms. Such community will be alike independent of
crowned kings, money kings, and land kings.'"
CHAPTER IV
LIFE'S CHOICE
PERCY read these words as though they were his own; and perhaps we
may say they were his own, for, as Emerson says: "Thought is the
property of him who can entertain it."
The mother listened, first with wonder; then with deepened interest,
which changed to admiration for the language and for her son, who
seemed to be filled with the spirit which had led Lincoln to see the
problems and the possibilities of the farm life in a light that was
wholly new.
"Surely those are noble thoughts," she said, "from a noble and wise
man. I shall only hope that you will find some opportunity to make
the best possible of your life. We have such a small farm, and the
land hereabout is all so high in price that to enlarge the farm
seems almost hopeless. In part because of this difficulty it had
seemed to me that greater opportunities might be open for you in
other lines. Don't you feel that you will be greatly handicapped in
the beginning?"
"Perhaps," said Percy, "in some ways; but not in other ways. We hear
on every hand that this is an age of specialists, that the most
successful man cannot take time to prepare himself well for many
different lines of work; that he must make the best possible
preparation in some one line for which he may have special talent or
special interest; and then endeavor to go farther in that line than
any one has gone before. When I first wrote to the State University
I asked how long a time would likely be required for me to complete
all the subjects that are taught there, and the registrar replied
that, if I could carry heavy work every year, I might hope to take
all the courses now offered in about seventy years. In considering
this point of preparation for future work, it has seemed to me that
if I leave the farm life and devote myself to law or to engineering,
I must in large measure sacrifice about ten years of valuable
experience in practical agriculture. I have learned enough about
farming so that I can manage almost as well as the neighbors; and
without this knowledge, gathered, as you say, in the school of
experience, I can see that serious mistakes would often be made.
"You know that Doctor Miller bought the Bronson farm two years ago.
Well, he has been giving some directions himself concerning its
management. He has had no experience in farming, and last year,
after he had the new barn built, he directed his men to put the
sheaf oats in the barn so they would be safe from the weather. He
did not understand that oats must stand in the shock for two or
three weeks to become thoroughly "cured" before they can safely be
even stacked out of doors; and the result was that his entire oat
crop rotted in the barn.
"People who have lived always in the city sometimes express the most
amusing opinions of farm conditions so well understood even by a
ten-year-old country boy. I recently overheard two traveling men
remarking about the differences which they could plainly observe
between the corn crops in different fields as they rode past in the
train.
"'Some fields have twice as good corn as other adjoining fields,'
one remarked. 'How do you account for the difference,' asked the
other. 'oh, I suppose the one farmer was too stingy of his seed,'
was the reply.
"I am convinced that there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of
valuable facts that have been acquired through experience and
observation by the average farm boy of eighteen or twenty years that
would be of little or no value to him in most other occupations; and
in this respect I should be handicapped if I leave the farm life and
begin wholly at the bottom in some other profession. Perhaps
agriculture is not a profession, but I think it should be if the
highest success is to be attained."
"I surely hope you will be successful, Percy, and your reasoning
sounds all right; but other occupations seem to lead to greater
wealth than farming."
"I very much doubt," replied Percy, "if there is any other
occupation that is so uniformly successful as farming, in the truest
sense. It provides constant employment, a good living, and a
comfortable home for nearly all who engage in it; and as a rule they
have made no such preparation as is required for most other lines of
work.
"But there is still another side to the farm life, Mother dear, or
to any life for that matter. Your own life has taught me that to
work for the love of others is a motive which directs the noblest
lives. If agricultural missionaries are needed in India, they are
also needed in parts of our own country where farm lands that were
once productive are now greatly depleted and in some cases even
abandoned for farming; and. if the older lands of the corn belt are
already showing a decrease in productive power, we need the
missionary even here. If I can learn how to make land richer and
richer and lead others to follow such a system, I should find much
satisfaction in the effort."
CHAPTER V
WORN OUT FARMS
"WELL, you found some mighty poor land, I reckon," was the greeting
Percy received from Grandma West as he returned from his walk over
Westover and some neighboring farms.
"I found some land that produces very poor crops," he replied, "but
I don't know yet whether I should say that the land is poor."
"Well, I know it's about as poor as poor can be; but it was not
always poor, I can tell you. When I was a girl, if this farm did not
produce five or six thousands bushels of wheat, we thought it a poor
crop; but now, if we get five or six hundred bushels, we think we
are doing pretty well. My husband's father paid sixty-eight dollars
an acre for some of this land, and it was worth more than that a few
years later and, mind you, in those days wheat was worth less and
niggers a mighty sight more than they are nowadays; but, somehow,
the land has just grown poor. We don't know how. We have worked
hard, and we have kept as much stock as we could, but we could never
produce enough fertilizer on the farm to go very far on a thousand
acres.
"Yes, Sir, we have just about a thousand acres here and we still own
it,--and with no mortgage on it, I'm mighty glad to say. But, laws,
the land is poor, and you can get all the land you want about here
for ten dollars an acre. There comes Charles, now. He can tell you
all about this country for more than twenty miles, I reckon.
"Wilkes!" A negro servant answered the call, and took the horse as
Charles West stopped at the side gate.
"Wilkes was born here in slave times, nigh sixty years ago," she
continued. "He is three years older than my son Charles. He has
remained with us ever since the war, except for a few months when he
went away one time just to see for sure that he was free and _could
_go. But he came back mighty homesick and he'll want to stay here
till he dies, I reckon.
"Charles, this is Mr. Johnston, Percy Johnston, as he says; but he
thinks he is no kin of General Joe or Albert Sidney. He's been
looking at the land hereabout, but I don't think he'll want any of
it after seeing the kind of crops we raise."
With this introduction, the mother disappeared within the house, and
Charles took her seat on the vine-covered veranda.
"I feel that I owe an apology to you, Sir," said Percy, "for
presenting myself here with bag and baggage, and asking to share the
hospitality of your home, with no previous arrangements having been
made; but by chance I met your friend, Doctor Goddard, on the train,
and, in answer to my inquiry as to whom I could go to for correct
information concerning the history and present condition and value
of farm lands in this section of the country, he advised me to stop
off at Blue Mound Station and consult with you. Had I known that you
were to be in Montplain to-day, of course I should have gone
directly there. Your mother very graciously consented to receive me
as a belated summer boarder, a kindness which I greatly appreciate,
I assure you.
"My mother and I have a small farm in Illinois,--so small that it
would be lost in such an estate as Westover, but the price of land
is very high in the West at the present time; and I am really
considering the question of selling our little forty-acre farm and
purchasing two or three hundred acres in the East or South. My
thought is that I might secure a farm that was once good land, but
that has been run down to such an extent that it can be bought for
perhaps ten or twenty dollars an acre. I should want the land to be
nearly level so that it would not be difficult to prevent damage
from surface washing. I should prefer, of course, to purchase where
there is a good road and not more than five miles from a railway
station.
"If I secure such a farm, it would be my purpose to restore its
fertility. If possible I should want to make the land at least as
productive as it ever was, even in its virgin state."
"Well, Sir," said Mr. West, "if you could accomplish your purpose
and ultimately show a balance on the right side of the ledger, it
would be a work of very great value to this country. There will be
no difficulty in securing such land as you want with location and
price to suit you; but I think that you should know in advance that
older men than you have purchased farms hereabout with very similar
intentions, but with the ultimate result that they have lost more,
financially, than we who are native to the soil; for, while we were
once well-to-do and are now poor, we still own our land,
impoverished as it is. However, the farm still furnishes us a
comfortable living, supplemented, to be sure, with some income from
other sources.
"I am very willing to give as much information as I can regarding
our lands and the agricultural conditions and common practices,
although I fear that this knowledge will discourage you from making
any investments in our worn-out farms. If you still decide to make
the trial, I surely hope you will be successful, for we need such an
object lesson above all else.
"I assume that you will wish to locate near a town of considerable
size, in order that you can haul manures from town, and perhaps some
feed also; and have a good market for your milk and other products."
"No, Sir," said Percy, "I should prefer not to engage in dairying,
and I do not wish to make use of fertilizer made from my neighbors'
crops. We have some object lessons of that kind in my own state; and
I have no doubt that some can be found in this state who feed all
they produce on their own land and perhaps even larger amounts of
feed purchased from their neighbors, or hauled from town, and who,
in addition to using all of the farm fertilizer thus produced, haul
considerable amounts of such materials from the livery stables in
town. With much hard work, with a good market for the products of
the dairy and truck garden, and with business skill in purchasing
feed from their neighbors when prices are low, such men succeed as
individuals; but do they furnish an object lesson which could be
followed by the general farmer?"
"I had not looked at the matter from that point of view," said Mr.
West, "but it is plain to see that on the whole there can be only a
small percentage of such farmers; and in reality they are a
detriment to their neighbors who permit their own hay and grain to
be hauled off from their farms; but certainly these are the methods
followed by our most successful farmers, and these are they who live
on the fat of the land."
"Are they farmers or are they manufacturers?" asked Percy. "It seems
to me that, in large measure, their business is to manufacture a
finished product from the raw materials produced upon other farms,
either in the immediate neighborhood or in the newer regions of the
West. As you know, much of our surplus produce from the farms of the
corn belt is shipped into the eastern and southern states, there to
be used as food for man and beast, not only in the cities, but also
to a considerable extent in the country. Instead of living on the
fat of the land, such manufacturers live in the country at the
expense of special city customers who may have fat jobs and are able
to pay fancy prices for country produce made by the impoverishment
of many farms. In most cases, if such a 'successful farmer' were
compelled to pay average prices for what he buys and allowed to
receive only average prices for what he sells, his fat would have
plenty of lean streaks."
CHAPTER VI
THE MUSICALE
DINNER was served at the family table, with Mr. West at the head and
his mother at the foot.
"The eye is the window of the soul," thought Percy, as he met the
glance of Adelaide sitting opposite. Certain he was that he had
never before looked into such alluring eyes.
Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and yet at times she was
both. With the other children she was a child that still loved to
romp and play with the rest, free as a bird. Her mother, a
sweet-faced woman, some years her husband's junior, made sisters of
all her daughters, the more naturally perhaps, because the
grandmother was still so active and so interested in all phases of
homemaking that she seemed mother to them all. Adelaide's two older
sisters were married and her brother Charles, also older than
herself, by three years, was a senior in college. Adelaide had just
finished her course in the Academy where the long service of a
maiden aunt as a teacher had secured certain appreciated privileges,
without which it is doubtful if both Charles and Adelaide could have
been sent away to school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the
eight-year old baby brother with two sisters between comprised the
younger members of the family.
Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school, also occupied a
place at the table. The evening meal was disposed of without delay,
for there was something of greater importance to follow. A musicale
in the near-by country church had been in preparation and Percy
heartily accepted an invitation to accompany the family to the
evening's entertainment. Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. West
and the grandmother, for all the children had walked the distance
before the carriage arrived.
Without having specialized in music, nevertheless Percy had improved
the frequent opportunities he had had, especially while at the
university, and he had learned to appreciate quality in the musical
world. Consequently he was not a little surprised and greatly
pleased to sit and listen to a class of music that he had never
before heard rendered in country places; but, as he listened for
Adelaide's singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself
wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly revealed the
soul.
"It seemed like the old times," said the grandmother, with something
like a sigh, as she took her place in the carriage. "If our land was
only like it used to be! but it's become so mighty poor our children
can't have many advantages these days. The Harcourt's and Staunton's
whom you met are descendants of ancestors once well known in this
state."
"It seems to me that the land need not have grown poor," said
Percy. "If the land was once productive, its fertility ought to be
maintained by the return of the essential materials removed in crops
or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need not become poor; but
of course I know too little about this land to suggest at the
present time what method could best be adopted for its improvement."
"We can tell you what the best method is," she quickly replied.
"Just put on plenty of ordinary farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don't
have enough to cover fifty acres a year."
For a time each seemed lost in thought, or listening to the husband
and wife who sat in the front seat quietly talking of the evening's
performances. Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned as
belonging to persons to whom he had been presented at the church. It
gradually dawned upon him that he had spent the evening with the
aristocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Culture, refinement, and
poverty were the chief characteristics of the people who had been
assembled.
"It need not have been," he repeated to himself; "surely, it need
not have been, "and then he wondered if these were not much sadder
words than the oft repeated "it might have been."
"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. West?" he questioned.
"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't quite understand."
"Excuse me," said Percy, "but in the West it is so common to ask
people where they are from. You know the West is settled with people
from all sections of the East, and many from Europe and from Canada,
and I thought your ancestors may have moved here from some other
state, as from Pennsylvania for example, where my mother's people
once lived."
"Let me advise you, Young Man," said the grandmother briskly, and in
a tone that reminded Percy of the twinkle he had at times noticed in
her eyes when she seemed young again--"Let me advise you never to
ask a Virginian if he was born in Pennsylvania. That's more than
most Virginians can stand. Once a Virginian, always a
Virginian,--both now, hereafter, and hitherto. It's mighty hard to
find a Virginian who came from anywhere except from the royal blood
of England; although some may condescend to acknowledge kinship to
the Scottish royalty."
The grandmother's voice was raised to a pitch which commanded the
attention of the other members in the carriage and a hearty laugh
followed her jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy's temporary
embarrassment.
"Well," she continued, "to answer your question: my husband and my
children are direct descendants of Colonel Charles West, a brother
of Lord Delaware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry goes back
to Henry the Second, of England, and to David the First, of
Scotland; and my granddaughter is the great-granddaughter of Patrick
Henry. So now you know where _we _came from," and she laughed again
like a girl. "Yes," she added, "we have a family tree six feet from
branch to branch, but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it
is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live with the past
when the summer boarders are here."
As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the children's voices
could be heard in the rear; for Mr. West had been living over again
his younger days with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had
taken its own time.
CHAPTER VII
A BIT OF HISTORY
"NOW, I shall be at home to-day and glad to assist you in any way
possible," announced Mr. West at the breakfast table.
"That is very kind of you," Percy replied. "I want especially to
learn some of the things you know about the soils of Westover. Can
you show me the best land and the poorest land on the estate?"
"I think I can." said Mr. West. "We have some land that has not
grown a crop in fifty years, and we have other land that still
produces a very fair crop if properly rotated."
"And what rotation do you practice?"
"Well, the system we have finally settled into and have followed for
many years is to plow up the run-out pasture land and plant to corn.
The second year we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed
down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay from the land for
two years, and afterward we use the field for pasture for six or
eight years, or until finally it produces only weeds and foul grass.
Then we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and again plow
the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are the principal products sold
from the farm."
"In this way," said Percy, "you grow one crop of corn on the same
field about once in ten or twelve years."
"Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two, crops of small
grain. We usually have about seventy-five acres of corn, nearly a
hundred acres of small grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than
hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres of pasture
land, besides about two hundred acres of timber land which has not
been cultivated for many years."
"Was the timber land that we see about here formerly cultivated?"
asked Percy.
"Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation when I was a boy,
although some had been allowed to go back to timber even before I
was born. On our own farm we have some timber land that, so far as I
have been able to learn, was never under cultivation; and the
character of the trees is different on that land. There you will
find original pine, but on the worn-out land the 'old-field' pine
are found. They are practically worthless, while the original pine
makes very valuable lumber.
"With our system of rotation we keep about all of our farm under
control; but the smaller farms were necessarily cropped more
continuously to support the family, and they became so unproductive
that many of them have been completely abandoned for agricultural
purposes; and even some of the large plantations were poorly
managed, one part having been cropped continuously until too poor to
pay for cropping, while the remainder was allowed to grow up in
scrub brush and 'old-field' pine; and, of course, the expense of
clearing such land is about as much as the net value of the crops
that could be grown until it again becomes too poor for cropping."
"Then the recleared lands are not as productive as when they were
first cleared from the virgin forest?"
"Oh, by no means. In the virgin state these lands grew bountiful
crops almost continuously for a hundred years or more. Virginia was
famed at home and abroad for her virgin fertility. Great crops of
corn, wheat, and tobacco were grown. Tobacco was a valuable export
crop, and there were many Virginians whose mothers came to America
with passage paid for in tobacco. History records, you may remember,
that it was the custom for a time to permit a young man to pay into
a general store house a hundred pounds of tobacco,--and this was
later increased to one hundred fifty pounds,--to be used in payment
of passage for young women who were thus enabled to come to America;
and there was a very distinct understanding that only those who had
come forth with the tobacco were eligible as suitors for the hand of
any 'imported' maiden. As a matter of fact some such arrangement as
this was almost a necessity," said Mr. West, as he noted Adelaide's
almost incredulous look. "Among the first settlers in Virginia,
young men greatly predominated; and in the main the people in the
home country were themselves in poverty. Under the hereditary laws
of England the father's estate and title became the possession of
his eldest son; and in large measure the other children of the
family were thrown absolutely upon their own resources, so that
many, even with royal blood in their veins, were very glad to
embrace any opportunity offered to seek a new home in this land of
virgin richness.
"Of course," he continued, smilingly and in direct answer to
Adelaide's inquiring look, "those young women were in no sense bound
to accept the attention or the offer of any man; but naturally most
of them did become the wives of those who were able to offer them a
husband's love and a home with more of life's comforts perhaps than
they had ever known before. They were at perfect liberty, however,
to remain in the enjoyment of single blessedness if they chose, and
I doubt not," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "that some of
them had no other choice."
CHAPTER VIII
WESTOVER
WITH an auger in his hand, by means of which a hole could be quickly
bored into the soil to a depth of three or four feet, Percy joined
Mr. West for the tramp over the plantation.
In general the estate called Westover consists of undulating upland.
A small stream crosses one corner of the farm bordered by some
twenty acres of bottom land which is subject to frequent overflow,
and used only for permanent pasture. Several draws or small valleys
are tributary to the stream valley, thus furnishing excellent
surface drainage for the entire farm. In some places the sides of
these valleys are quite sloping and subject to moderate erosion when
not protected by vegetation. Above and between these slopes the
upland is nearly level. As they came upon one of these level areas,
grown up with small forest trees, Mr. West stopped and said:
"Now right here is probably as poor a piece of land as there is on
the farm. This land will positively not grow a crop worth harvesting
unless it is well fertilized."
"If we were in the Illinois corn belt," replied Percy, "I should
expect to find the land in this position to be the most productive
on the farm. Our level uplands are now valued at from one hundred
fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. A farm of one hundred eighty
acres, five miles from town, sold for two hundred and fourteen
dollars an acre a few days before I started east."
"Well," said Mr. West, "this may have been good land once, but if so
it was before my time. Of course most of our uplands here have been
cropped for upwards of two hundred years; and about all that has
ever been done to keep up the fertility of the soil has been to
rotate the crops. To be sure, the farm manure has always been used
as far as it would go, but the supply is really very small compared
to the need for it."
"Do you think that the proper rotation of crops would maintain the
fertility of the soil?" asked Percy.
"No, I have tried too many rotations to think that, but I suppose it
is a help in that direction, don't you?"
"I would say that crop rotation may help to maintain the supply of
some important constituents of a fertile soil, but it will certainly
hasten the depletion of some other equally essential constituents."
"Well, that's a new idea to me. I may not quite grasp your meaning;
but first tell me about these tests you are making."
When they stopped on the area of poor land as designated by Mr.
West, Percy had turned his auger into the earth and drawn out a
sample of moist soil, which he molded into the form of a ball. He
broke this in two, inserted a piece of blue paper, and pressed it
firmly together. He then laid the ball of soil aside, secured
another sample with the auger, and formed it into a cake with a
hollow in the upper surface. He took from his pocket a slender box
or tube of light wood, removed the screw cap, and drew out a
glass-stoppered bottle.
"This bottle contains hydrochloric acid," said Percy. "It is often
incorrectly called 'muriatic acid.' It consists of two elements,
hydrogen and chlorin, from which its name is derived. But you are
perhaps already familiar with the chemical elements."
"Well, I heard lectures at William and Mary for four years, and they
included some chemistry as it was then taught; but they certainly
did not include the application of chemistry to agriculture, and I
am greatly interested to know the meaning of these tests you are
making here on our own farm under my own eyes. You may take it for
granted that I know absolutely nothing of such use of chemistry as
you are evidently turning to some practical value."
"Any other farmer can make these tests as well as I can," said
Percy. "This bottle of acid cost me fifteen cents and it can be
duplicated for the same price at almost any drug store. The acid is
very concentrated, in fact about as strong as can easily be
produced, but it need not be especially pure. Some care should be
taken not to get it on the clothing or on the fingers, although it
is not at all dangerous to handle, but it tends to burn the fingers
unless soon removed, either by washing with water or by rubbing it
off with the moist soil."
"I use this acid to test the soil for the presence or absence of
limestone. Ordinary limestone consists of calcium carbonate. Here,
again the chemical name alone is sufficient to indicate the elements
that compose this compound. It is only necessary to keep in mind the
fact that the ending _-ate_ on the common chemical names signifies
the presence of oxygen Thus calcium carbon_ate_ is composed of the
three primary elements, calcium, carbon and oxygen.
"Of course the chemical element is the simplest form of matter. An
element is a primary substance which cannot be divided into two or
more substances All known matter consists of about eighty of these
primary elements; and, as a matter of fact, most of these are of
rare occurence--many of them much more rare than the element gold.
"About ninety-eight per cent. of the soil consists of eight elements
united in various compounds or combinations; and only ten elements
are essential for the growth and full development of corn or other
plants. If any one of these ten elements is lacking, it is
impossible to produce a kernel of corn, a grain of wheat, or a leaf
of clover; and in the main the supply is under the farmer's own
control. But we can discuss this matter more fully later. Let us see
what we have here."
Percy poured a few drops of the hydrochloric acid into the hollow of
the cake of soil.
"What should it do?" asked Mr. West.
"If the soil contains any limestone, the acid should produce
foaming, or effervescence," replied Percy; "but it is very evident
that this soil contains no limestone. You see the hydrochloric acid
has power to decompose calcium carbonate with the formation of
carbonic acid and calcium chlorid, a kind of salt that is used to
make a brine that won't freeze in the artificial ice plants. The
carbonic acid, if produced at once decomposes into water and carbon
dioxid. Now, the liberated carbon dioxid is a gas and the rapid
generation or evolution of this gas constitutes the bubbling or
foaming we are looking for; but since there is no appearance of
foaming we know that this soil contains no limestone."
"Then you have already found that those three elements,--calcium,
carbon, and oxygen, you called them, I think--you find that those
elements are all lacking in this soil."
"No, this test does not prove that," said Percy. "It only proves
that they are not present as limestone. Calcium may be present in
other compounds, especially in silicates, which are the most
abundant compounds in the soil and in the earth's crust; and, as
indicated by the ending _-ate, _oxygen is contained in calcium
silicate as well as in calcium carbonate."
"I see; the subject is much more complicated than I thought."
"Somewhat, perhaps," Percy replied; "but yet it is quite simple and
very easily understood, if we only keep in mind a few well
established facts. Certainly the essential science of soil fertility
is much less complicated than many of the political questions of the
day, such as the gold standard or free-silver basis, the tariff
issues, and reciprocity advantages, regarding which most farmers are
fairly well informed,--at least to such an extent that they can
argue these questions for hours."
"I think you are quite right in that," said Mr. West. "Of course, it
is important that every citizen entitled to the privilege of voting
in a democracy like ours should be able to exercise his franchise
intelligently; but the citizen who is responsible for the management
of farm lands ought surely to be at least as well informed
concerning the principles which underlie the maintenance of soil
fertility; provided, of course, that such knowledge is within his
reach; and from what you say I am beginning to believe that such is
the case. At any rate this simple test seems to show conclusively
that this soil contains no limestone, and it is common knowledge
that limestone soils are good soils."
Percy took up the ball of soil containing the slip of blue paper,
broke it in two again, and it was seen that the paper had changed in
color from blue to red
"There's a change, for certain," said Mr. West, "that has some
meaning to you I suppose."
"This is litmus paper," said Percy. "It is prepared by moistening
specially prepared paper with a solution of a coloring matter called
litmus, and the paper is then dried. This coloring matter has the
property of turning blue in the presence of alkali and red in the
presence of acid. The blue paper is prepared with a trace of alkali,
and the red paper with a trace of acid. If more than a trace were
present the litmus paper would not be sufficiently sensitive for the
test.
"This little bottle containing two dozen slips of paper cost me five
cents, and it can be obtained at most drug stores.
"Alkali and acid are exactly opposite terms, like hot and cold. The
one neutralizes the other. This test with litmus paper is a test for
soil acidity, and the fact that the moisture of the soil has turned
the litmus from blue to red shows that this soil is acid, or sour.
The soil moisture contained enough acid to neutralize the trace of
alkali contained in the blue paper and to change the paper to a
distinctly light red color; and the fact that the paper remains red
even after drying, shows that the soil contains fixed acids or acid
salts, and not merely carbonic acid, which if present would
completely volatilize as the paper dries.
"Now, these two tests are in harmony. The one shows the absence of
limestone, and the other shows the presence of acidity, and
consequently the need of limestone to correct or neutralize the
acidity, for limestone itself is an alkali."
"But limestone soils are not alkali soils, are they?" asked Mr.
West.
"Not in the sense of containing injurious alkali, like sodium
carbonate, the compound which is found in the 'black alkali' lands
of the arid regions of the far West; but chemically considered
limestone is truly an alkali; and, as such, it has power to
neutralze this soil acidity."
"Is the acidity harmful to the crops?"
"It is not particularly harmful to the common crops of the grass
family, such as wheat, corn, oats, and timothy; but some of the most
valuable crops for soil improvement will not thrive on acid soils.
This is especially true of clover and alfalfa."
"That is certainly correct for clover so far as this kind of soil is
concerned," said Mr. West. "Clover never amounts to much on this
kind of land, except where heavily fertilized. When fertilized it
usually grows well. Does the farm fertilizer neutralize the acid?"
"Only to a small extent. It is true that farm manures contain very
appreciable amounts of lime and some other alkaline, or basic,
substances, but in addition to this, and perhaps of greater
importance, is the fact that such fertilizer has power to feed the
clover crop as well as other crops. In other words it furnishes the
essential materials of which these crops are made. In addition to
this the decaying organic matter has power to liberate some plant
food from the soil which would not otherwise be made available
although to that extent the farm manure serves as a soil stimulant,
this action tending not toward soil enrichment but toward the
further depletion of the store of fertility still remaining in the
soil."
"This seems a complicated problem," said Mr. West, "but may I now
show you some of our more productive land?"
"As soon as I collect a sample of this," replied Percy, and to Mr.
West's surprise he proceeded to bore about twenty holes in the space
of two or three acres. The borings were taken to a depth of about
seven inches, and after being thoroughly mixed together an average
sample of the lot was placed in a small bag bearing a number which
Percy recorded in his note book together with a description of the
land.
"I wish to have an analysis made of this sample," remarked Percy, as
they resumed their walk.
"But I thought you had analyzed this soil," was the reply.
"Oh, I only tested for limestone and acidity," explained Percy. "I
wish to have exact determinations made of the nitrogen and
phosphorus, and perhaps of the potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
All of these are absolutely essential for the growth of every
agricultural plant; and any one of them may be deficient in the
soil, although" the last three are not so likely to be as the other
two."
"How long will it take to make this analysis?" was asked.
"About a week or ten days. Perhaps I shall collect two or three
other samples and send them all together to an analytical chemist.
It is the only way to secure positive knowledge in advance as to
what these soils contain. In other words, by this means we can take
an absolute invoice of the stock of fertility in the soil, just as
truly as the merchant can take an invoice of the stock of goods
carried on his shelves."
"So far as we are concerned, this would not be an invoice in
advance," remarked Mr. West, with a shade of sadness in his voice.
"If we knew the contents of the crops that have been sold from this
farm during the two centuries past, we would have a fairly good
invoice, I fear, of what the virgin soil contained; but can you
compare the invoice of the soil with that of the merchant's goods?"
"Quite fairly so," Percy replied. "The plant food content of the
plowed soil of an acre of normal land means nearly, if not quite, as
much in the making of definite plans for a system of permanent
agriculture, as the merchant's invoice means in the future plans of
his business.
"It should not be assumed that the analysis of the soil will give
information the application of which will always assure an abundant
crop the following season. In comparison, it may also be said,
however, that the merchant's invoice of January the first may have
no relation to the sales from his store on January the second. Now,
the year with the farmer is as a day with the merchant. The farmer
harvests his crop but once a year; while the merchant plants and
harvests every day, or at least every week. But I would say that the
invoice of the soil is worth as much to the farmer for the next year
as the merchant's invoice is to him for the next month.
"It should be remembered, however, that both must look forward, and
plans must be made by the merchant for several months, and by the
farmer for several years. Your twelve-year rotation is a very good
example of the kind of future planning the successful farmer must
do. On the other hand, some of your neighbors, who have not
practiced some such system of rotation now have 'old-field' pine on
land long since abandoned, and soil too poor to cultivate on land
long cropped continuously."
"This is a kind soil," remarked Mr. West, as he paused on a gently
undulating part of the field.
"That is a new use of the word to me," said Percy. "Just what do you
mean by a 'kind' soil?"
"Well, if we apply manure here it will show in the crop for many
years. It is easy to build this soil up with manure; but, of course,
we have too little to treat it right."
"The soil is almost neutral," said Percy, testing with litmus and
acid. "Does clover grow on this soil?"
"Very little, except where we put manure."
Another composite sample of the soil was collected, and they walked
on.
"Now, here," said Mr. West, "is about the most productive upland on
the farm."
"Is that possible?" asked Percy, the question being directed more to
himself than to his host.
"That is according to my observation for about fifty years," he
replied. "Where we spread the farm fertilizer over this old pasture
land and plow it under for corn, we often harvest a crop of eight
barrels to the acre, while the average of the field will not be more
than five barrels.--A barrel of corn with us is five bushels."
They had stopped on one of the steepest slopes in the field.
"These hillsides would be considered the poorest land on the farm if
we were in the corn belt," said Percy, "but I think I understand the
difference. Your level uplands when once depleted remain depleted,
because the soil that was plowed two hundred years ago is the same
soil that is plowed to-day; but these slopes lose surface soil by
erosion at least as rapidly as the mineral plant food is removed by
cropping; and to that extent they afford the conditions for a
permanent system of agriculture of low grade, unless, of course, the
erosion is more rapid than the disintegration of the underlying bed
rock, which I note is showing in some outcrops in the gullies.
"I want some samples here," he continued, and at once proceeded to
collect a composite sample of the surface soil and another of the
sub-soil.
"In the main this soil is slightly acid," said Percy, after several
tests, with the hydrochloric acid and the litmus paper; "although
occasionally there are traces of limestone present. The mass of soil
seems to be faintly acid, but here and there are little pieces of
limestone which still produce some localized benefit, and probably
prevent the development of more marked acidity throughout the soil
mass.
"If I can get to an express office this afternoon," he continued, "I
shall be glad to forward these four composite samples to an
analyst."
"If you wouldn't mind riding to Montplain with Adelaide when she
goes for her music lesson this afternoon, it would be very
convenient," said Mr. West.
"With your daughter's permission that would suit me very well," he
replied. "I shall be glad to spend one or two days more in this
vicinity, and then I wish to visit other sections for a week or two,
after which I would be glad to stop here again on my return trip and
probably I shall have the report of the chemist concerning these
samples."
CHAPTER IX
THE BLACK PERIL
AS Percy stepped out of the house in the early afternoon upon the
announcement from Wilkes that "De ca'age is ready," he noted that
the "ca'age" was the two-seated family carriage and that Adelaide
had already taken her place in the front seat, as driver, with her
music roll and another bundle tucked in by her side. Her glance at
Percy and at the rear seat was also sufficient to indicate his
place.
"This does not seem right to me, Miss West," said Percy. "Unless you
prefer to drive I shall be very glad to do so and let you occupy
this more comfortable seat."
"No thank you," she replied, in a tone that left no room for
argument. "I often drive our guests to and from the station, and I
much prefer this seat."
The rear seat was roomy and low, so that Percy could scarcely see
the road ahead even by sitting on the opposite side from the driver.
Aside from an occasional commonplace remark both the driver and the
passenger were allowed to use the time for meditation.
While Adelaide was already an experienced horsewoman, she was rarely
permitted to drive the colts to the village, although she enjoyed
riding the more spirited horses, or driving with her brother in the
"buck board."
A mile from the village the road wound through a wooded valley, and
then climbed the opposite slope, passing the railway station a
quarter of a mile from town and the "depot hotel" near by. Here
Percy left the carriage with the bags of soil, it being arranged
that he would be waiting at the hotel when Adelaide returned from
the village.
Adelaide's "hour" was from four to five, and being the last pupil
for the day, the teacher was not prompt to close.
"I did not realize the days were becoming so short," said Miss
Konster as she opened the door. "I'm sorry you have so far to
drive."
"Oh, I don't mind," said Adelaide, "I know the way home well enough.
You see I have the double carriage, for I brought a guest to the
depot as usual, although he is to return with me, and is probably
very tired of waiting at the 'depot hotel.'"
It was nearly dark as Percy took his place in the rear seat,
Adelaide having again declined to yield her position as driver, and
now she had more packages nearly filling the seat beside her.
The team leisurely took the homeward way and nothing more was said
except an occasional word of encouragement to the horses. They
passed the lowest point in the valley and began to ascend the gentle
slope, when the carriage suddenly stopped, and Adelaide uttered a
muffled scream. "Come, Honey, said a masculine voice."
As Percy half rose to his feet, he saw that a negro had grasped
Adelaide in an effort to drag her from the carriage. A blow from
Percy staggered the brute and he released his hold of Adelaide, but,
as he saw Percy jump from the carriage on the opposite side, he
paused.
"De's a man heah. Knock him, Geo'ge," he yelled, as he turned to
again grapple with Adelaide
"Coward," cried Adelaide, as she saw Percy jump from the carriage
and dart up the road. Facing this black brute, she was standing
alone now with one hand on the back of the seat. As the negro sprang
at her the second time he uttered a scream like the cry of a beast
and fell sprawling on his face. Almost at the same moment his
companion was fairly lifted from his feet and came down headlong
beside the carriage.
"Look out for the horses," called Percy, as he drove the heels of
his heavy shoes into the moaning mass on the ground.
"Lie there, you brute," he cried, "don't you dare to move."
"I have the lines," said Adelaide hoarsely, "but can't I do
something more?"
"No. they're both down," he answered. "Wait a minute."
He found himself between the negroes lying with their faces to the
ground. Instantly he grasped each by the wrist and with an inward
twist he brought forth cried for mercy. It was a trick he had
learned in college, that, by drawing the arm behind the back and
twisting, a boy could control a strong man.
"Can't I help you?" Adelaide called again, and Percy saw that she
was out of the carriage and standing near.
"Will the horses stand?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, they're quiet now."
"Then take the tie rope and tie their feet together. Use the slip
knot just as you do for the hitching post," he directed. "If they
dare to move I can wrench their arms out in this position. Right
there at the ankles. Tie them tight and as closely together as you
can. Wrap it twice around if it's long enough."
Adelaide tied one end of the rope around the ankle of one negro and
wrapped the other end around the ankle of the other, drawing their
feet together and fastening the ends of the rope with a double
hitch, which she knew well how to make.
Percy gave the rope a kick to tighten it.
"Now get onto your feet and I'll march you to town," he ordered,
adding pressure to the twist upon their wrists and drawing them back
upon their knees Thus assisted, they struggled to their feet.
"I am afraid you will have to drive home alone, Miss West," began
Percy, when Adelaide interrupted with:
"No, no, if you are going back to town, I will follow you. I can
easily turn the team and I will keep close behind."
Thus tied together, Percy almost ran his prisoners toward the
village, still holding each firmly by the wrist. As they reached the
"depot hotel," he called for assistance, and several men quickly
appeared.
Percy made a brief report of the attack as they moved on to the town
house, where the villians were placed in shackles and left in charge
of the marshall.
"Will you drive, please, Mr. Johnston?" asked Adelaide as he stepped
to the carriage; for Adelaide had followed almost to the door of the
jail house.
"Yes, please," he replied, taking the seat beside her.
"I hope you will pardon my calling you a coward, I felt so
desperate, and it seemed to me for the moment that you were leaving
me." Adelaide's voice still had an excited tremor to it.
"I heard you say 'coward,'" said Percy, "but I didn't realize that
you referred to me. I saw the two brutes almost at the same time,
the one who attacked you and the other on the same side near the
horses' heads. I struck the one as best I could from my position,
and as he yelled and the horses reared, I ran up the slope ahead of
the team and came down at the other brute with a blow in the neck,
but I was surprised to find them both sprawling on the ground; and
under the street lights I saw that one of them had an eye
frightfully jammed. I am sure I struck neither of them in the eye."
Adelaide made no reply, but she knew now that the piercing, beastly
cry from the negro reaching for her was brought forth because the
heel of her shoe had entered the socket of the brute's eye.
"You're mighty nigh too late for supper, said grandma West, as they
stopped at the side gate. Adelaide hurried to her father who took
her in his arms as he saw how she trembled.
"My child!" he said.
Yes, child she was as she relaxed from the tension of the last hour
and related the experience of the evening.
"I cannot express our gratitude to you, Sir," said Mr. West: "I am
glad you landed the devils in jail."
"I am only thankful I was there when it happened," replied Percy. "I
am sure no man could have done less. I have promised to return to
town in the morning to serve as legal witness in the case. I hope
your daughter need not be called upon for that."
"Probably that will not be necessary," Mr. West replied.
CHAPTER X
THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN
THE others had retired but Percy and his host continued their
conversation far into the night.
"There are almost as great variations among the negroes as among
white people," Mr. West was saying. "To a man like Wilkes who was
born and raised here on the farm, I would entrust the protection of
my wife and children as readily as to any white man. He has been
educated, so to speak, to a sense of duty and honor; and negroes of
his class have almost never been known to violate a trust. Of course
there are bad niggers, but as a rule such negroes have grown up
under conditions that would develop the evil in any race of men.
"During the Secession it was the most common thing for the men to go
to war and leave their defenseless women and children wholly in the
care of their slaves; and, even though the federal soldiers were
fighting to free the slaves and their masters to keep them in
slavery, rarely did a negro fail to remain faithful to his trust.
They hid from the northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and
corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valuables; and in
most cases were ready to suffer themselves before they would reveal
the hidden property. To be sure there were masters who abused their
slaves, and some of these were naturally ready to desert at the
first opportunity; but in the main the slave owner was more kind to
his human property than the considerate soldier was to his horse,
and the negro as a race is appreciative of kindness."
"I suppose the depreciation in soil fertility and crop yields dates
largely from the freeing of the slaves does it not?" asked Percy.
"Well, that was one factor, but not the most potential factor. Much
land in the south had been abandoned agriculturally long before the
war, and much land in New York and New England has been abandoned
since the war. The freeing of the negroes produced much less effect
in the economic conditions of the south than many have supposed. The
great injury to the South from the war was due to the war itself and
not to the freeing of slaves. In the main it cost no more to hire
the negro after the war than it cost to feed and clothe him before;
and the humane slave owner had little difficulty in getting plenty
of negro help after the war. Very commonly his own slaves remained
with him and were treated as servants, not particularly differently
than they had been treated as slaves. Of course there were some
brutal slave holders, just as there are brutal horse owners, and
such men suffered very much from the loss of slave labor.
"The southern people have no regrets for the freeing of the slaves.
Probably it was the best thing that ever happened to us; and the
South would have less regret for the war itself, except that our
recovery from it was greatly delayed by the reconstruction policy
which was followed after the war. The immediate enfranchisement of
the negro, especially in those sections where this resulted in
placing all the power of the local government in the hands of the
negro, was a worse blow to the South than the war itself.
"It is believed that this would not have been done if Lincoln had
lived. Lincoln was always the President of all the people of the
United States, and his death was a far greater loss to the South
than to the North. To place the power to govern the intelligent
white of the South absolutely in the hands of their former ignorant
slaves was undoubtedly the most abominable political blunder
recorded in history; and even this was intensified by the
unprincipled white-skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon
our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called
reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the history of
modern civilization."
"I quite agree with you," said Percy, "and so far as I know them the
soldiers of the northern armies also agree with you. Several of my
own relatives fought to free the negro slave; but none of them
fought to enslave their white brothers of the South by putting them
absolutely under negro government. And yet there is one possible
justification for that abominable reconstruction policy. It may have
averted a subsequent war which might have lasted not for four years,
but for forty years. Even if this be true, perhaps there is no
credit in the policy for any man who helped to enforce it, but you
will grant that there were two important results from those bitter
years of reconstruction:
"First, the negro learned with certainty at once and forever that he
was a free man.
"Second, he at once acquired a degree of independence effectually
preventing the development of a situation throughout the South, in
which the negro, though nominally free, would have remained
virtually a slave, a situation which, if once established, might
have required a subsequent war of many years for its complete
eradication. Even under the conditions which have prevailed, there
have been isolated instances of peonage in the southern states since
the war; and if the education and gradual enfranchisement of the
negro had been left wholly in the hands of their former masters,
from the immediate close of the war, I can conceive of conditions
under which slavery would essentially have been continued."
"Such a possibility is, of course, conceivable," said Mr. West, "and
we must all admit that there were some slave holders who would have
taken advantage of any such opportunity; but had Lincoln lived the
terms made would probably have been such that the South would have
felt in honor bound to enforce them. Probably the enfranchisement
would have been based upon some sort of qualification such as the
southern states have very generally adopted in subsequent years; but
the idea of social equality of slave and master was so repulsive to
the white people of the South that it could not be tolerated under
any sort of government."
"This question of social equality," remarked Percy, "has probably
been the cause of more misunderstanding between the North and the
South than all other questions relating to the negro problem. I have
rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who did not have it
firmly fixed in his mind that the common idea of the northern people
is that the negro race should be made the social equal of the white
race. This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have read it in
southern newspapers; and I have found it in books written by
southern authors; but, Mr. West, I have never yet heard that idea
advanced by a man or woman of the North.
"Of course there have been visionary theorists or 'cranks' in all
ages, and there must have been some basis for this almost universal
erroneous opinion in the South that the people of the North
advocated social equality or social intercourse between the white
and colored races; and yet nothing could be farther from the truth.
In all my life in the North, I think I have never seen a colored
person dining with a white man. This does not prove that there are
no such occurrences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely
rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the South I have seen
a white woman bring her colored maid or nurse, to the dining car and
sit at the same table with herself and husband. Of course there is
no suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in this, but
there is a much closer relationship than is common or would be
allowed in the North."
"That may be true," said Mr. West, "and there was in slave times a
very intimate relationship between the negro nurses and the white
children of the South. Some of our people are ready to take offense
at the suggestion that we talk negro dialect, and perhaps we would
all prefer to say that the negroes have learned to talk as we talk;
but the truth is that the negroes were brought to America chiefly as
adults; and, as is usually the case when adult people learn a new
language, they modified ours because their own African language did
not contain all of the sounds of the English tongue. Similarly we
hear and recognize the other nationalities when they learn to speak
English. Thus we have the Irish brogue, the German brogue, and the
French brogue, or dialect.
"The negro children learned to speak the dialect as spoken by their
own parents; and as a very general rule the white children learned
to talk as their negro nurses talked. So far as there is a southern
dialect it is due to the modification of our language by the negro."
"You have mentioned several things," said Percy, "that are much to
the credit of the negro who has had a fair chance to be trained
along right lines; and I think the modficaton of our language which
his presence has brought about in the South is not without some
credit. It is generally agreed that the most pleasing English we
hear is that of the Southern orator.
"Referring to social conditions, the most marked difference which I
have noticed between the North and South, and really, it seems to
me, the only difference of importance, is that the South has
separate schools for white and colored, whereas in the North the
school is not looked upon as a social institution.
"As a rule no more objection is raised to white and colored children
sitting on separate seats in the same school room than to their
sitting on separate seats in the same street car. The school is
regarded as a place for work, where each has his own work to do,
much the same as in the shop or factory where both white and colored
are employed. The expense of the single school system is, of course,
much less than where separate schools are maintained; and perhaps an
equally important point is that in the single system the same moral
standards are held up by the teachers for both white and colored
children."
"That point is worthy of consideration," said Mr. West. "It is very
certain that a class of negroes has grown up in these more recent
years that was practically unknown in slave times when white men
were more largely responsible for their moral training. The vile
wretches who made the attack this evening probably never received
any moral training. It is conceivable that the moral influence of
the white children over the negroes in the same school might exert a
lasting benefit, even aside from the influence of the teacher; and
the relationship of the school room could not be any real
disadvantage to the white child. But this could only be brought
about where white teachers were employed. Some such arrangement
would doubtless have been made had the mind of Lincoln directed the
general policy of reconstruction; but it is doubtful now if the
negro teacher will ever be wholly replaced, although time has
wrought greater changes in political lines since the black years of
the reconstruction."
"Yes," said Percy, "and those changes which have been brought about
in the South have the full sympathy and approval of the great
majority of the Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful if
the North will be able to completely banish such a source of vice
and corruption as the open saloon until limitation is placed upon
the franchise by an educational qualification."
CHAPTER XI
JUDGMENT IS COME
THE goddess of sleep seemed to have deserted Westover. Adelaide lay
in her mother's arms, either awake and restless or in fitful sleep
from which she frequently awoke with a muffled scream or a physical
contortion. Once, as she nestled closer, her mother heard her
murmur: "You must pardon me."
Percy, from the southwest room, was sure he heard horses feet at the
side gate. The murmur of low voices reached his ear, and then he
recognized that horsemen were riding away.
The house was astir at early dawn; and as soon as breakfast was over
Mr. West had the colts hitched to the "buckboard" and he drove with
Percy to Montplain.
"I think your testimony will not be needed this morning," said Mr.
West, "but it may be needed later, and it is well that you should
report to the officers at any rate, since you promised to be there
this morning."
Percy pointed out the place where the attack had been made, and he
looked for a stump of a small tree or for any other object upon
which the negro could have fallen with such force as to mash his
eye; but he saw nothing.
As soon as they reached the village, Mr. West drove directly to the
town house; and there two black bodies were seen hanging from the
limb of an old tree in the courthouse yard. Percy noted that his
companion showed no sign of surprise; and, after the first shock of
his complete realization of the work of the night, he looked calmly
upon the scene. They had stopped almost under the tree.
"Are these the brutes who made the attack and whom you captured and
delivered to the officer?" asked Mr. West.
"They are," he replied.
"In your opinion have they received justice?"
"Yes, Sir," Percy replied, "but I fear without due process of law."
"Let me tell you, Sir, there is no law on the statutes under which
justice could be meted out to these devils for the nameless crime
which ends in death by murder or by suicide of the helpless victim,
a crime which these wretches committed only in their black
hearts--thanks to you, Sir."
As he spoke, the town marshall approached followed by the negro
pastor of the local church and a few of his followers. Silently they
lowered the bodies to the ground, placed them upon improvised
stretchers, and carried them to the potters field outside the
village, where rough coffins and graves were ready to receive them.
As Mr. West and Percy returned to Westover they discussed the lands
which in the main were lying abandoned on either side of the road.
"Here," said Mr. West, as he paused on the brow of a sloping
hillside, "was as near to Westover as the Union army came. The
position of the breastworks may still be seen. The Southern army lay
across the valley yonder. These two trees are sprouts from an old
stump of a tree that was shot away. About seventeen hundred
confederate dead were buried in trenches in the valley, but they
were later removed. The federal dead were carried away as the Union
army retreated. We never learned their number. For three days
Westover was made headquarters of the confederate officers, and my
mother worked day and night to prepare food for them."
They stopped at Westover for a few moments, Percy remaining in the
"buckboard" while Mr. West reported to his family what they had seen
in Montplain.
"Our report," said Mr. West, "hideous and horrible as it is, will
help to restore the child to calm and quiet. To speak frankly, Sir,
occurrences of this sort, sometimes with the worst results, are
sufficiently frequent in the South so that we constantly feel the
added weight or burden whenever the sister, wife, or daughter is
left without adequate protection."
The remaining hours of the morning were devoted to a drive over the
country surrounding Westover; and Mr. West consented to Adelaide's
request that she be allowed to drive Percy to the station at
Montplain, where he was to take the afternoon train for Richmond.
She chose the "buckboard" but insisted upon driving.
They talked of their school and college days, of the books they had
read, of anything in fact except of the experiences of the past
twenty-four hours. Even when they entered the valley no shadow
crossed Adelaide's face; but as they neared the station her voice
changed, and as Percy looked into her winsome, frankly upturned
face, she said:
"Have I truly been pardoned for my cruel words last evening? I am
sure you were as manly and noble as any man could have been."
"And I am sure you were the bravest little woman I have ever known,"
replied Percy, "and I admire you the more for calling me a coward
when you thought I was running away; so there is nothing to pardon I
am sure."
She gave him her hand as a child at parting, but he thought as he
looked into her eyes that he saw the soul of a woman.
CHAPTER XII
THE RESTORATION
PERCY carried with him a most interesting and attractive circular of
information concerning the rapid restoration of the farm lands of the
South. It also stated that further information could be secured from a
certain real estate agent in Richmond, who was found to be still in his
office when Percy arrived in the city late in the afternoon.
The agent was delighted to receive a call from the Western man, and
assured him that he would gladly show him several plantations not far
from the city which could be purchased at very reasonable prices. Indeed
he could have his choice of these old southern homesteads for the very
low price of forty dollars an acre. A map of an adjoining county showed
the exact location of several such farms, some of which were of great
historical interest. At what time in the morning could he be ready to be
shown one of these rare bargains?
"What treatment do these lands require to restore their productiveness?"
asked Percy.
"No treatment at all, Sir, except the adoption of your western methods
of farming and your system of crop rotation. I tell you the results are
marvelous when western farmers get hold of these famous old plantations.
Just good farming and a change of crops, that's all they need."
"Does clover grow well?" asked Percy. "We grow that a good deal in the
West."
"Oh, yes, clover will grow very well, indeed, but cowpeas is a much
better crop than clover. Our best farmers prefer the cowpea; and after a
crop of cowpeas, you can raise large crops of any kind."
"Of course you know of those who have been successful in restoring some
of these old farms," Percy suggested.
"Oh, yes, Sir, many of them, and they are making money hand over fist,
and their lands are increasing in value, and no doubt will continue to
increase just as your western lands have done. Yes, Sir, the greatest
opportunity for investment in land is right here and now, and these old
plantations are being snapped up very rapidly."
"I shall be glad to know of some of these successful farmers who are
using the improved methods. Will you name one, just as an example, and
tell me about what he has done to restore his land?"
"Well," said the agent, "There's T. O. Thornton, for example. Mr.
Thornton bought an old plantation of a thousand acres only six years ago
at a cost of six dollars an acre. He has been growing cowpeas in
rotation with other crops; and, as I say, he is making money hand over
fist. A few months ago he refused to consider fifty dollars an acre for
his land, but still there are some of these old plantations left that
can be bought for forty dollars, because the people don't really know
what they are worth. However, our lands are all much higher than they
were a few years ago."
"Where does Mr. Thornton live?" asked Percy.
"Oh, he lives at Blairville, nearly a hundred miles from Richmond. Yes,
he lives on his farm near Blairville. I tell you he's making good all
right, but I don't know of any land for sale in that section."
"I think I will go out to Blairville to see Mr. Thornton's farm," said
Percy. "Do you know when the trains run?"
"Well, I'm sorry to say that the train service is very poor to
Blairvile. There is only one train a day that reaches Blairville in
daylight, and that leaves Richmond very early in the morning."
"That is all right," said Percy, "it will probably get me there in time
so that I shall be sure to find Mr. Thornton at home. I thank you very
much, Sir. Perhaps I shall be able to see you again when I return from
Blairville."
"When you return from Blairville is about the most uncertain thing in
the world. As I said, the train service is mighty poor to Blairville,
and it's still poorer, you'll find, when you want to leave Blairville.
Why, a traveling man told me he had been on the road for fifteen years,
and he swore he had spent seven of 'em at Blairville waiting for trains.
Better take my advice and look over some of the fine old plantations
right here in the next county and then you can take all the rest of the
month if you wish getting in and out of Blairville."
About eight o'clock the following morning Percy might have been seen
walking along the railroad which ran through Mr. Thornton's farm about
two miles from Blairvile. He saw a well beaten path which led from the
railroad to a nearby cottage and a knock brought to the door a negro
woman followed by several children.
"Can you tell me where Mr. Thornton's farm is?" he inquired.
"Yes, Suh," she replied. "This is Mistah Tho'nton's place, right heah,
Suh. Leastways, it was his place; but we done bought twenty acahs of it
heah, wheah we live, 'cept tain all paid fo' yit. Mistah Tho'nton lives
in the big house over theah 'bout half a mile."
"May I ask what you have to pay for land here?"
"Oh, we have to pay ten dollahs an acah, cause we can't pay cash. My ol'
man he wo'ks on the railroad section and we just pay Mistah Tho'nton foh
dollahs every month. My chil'n wo'k in the ga'den and tend that acah
patch o' co'n."
"Do you fertilize the corn?"
"Yes, Suh. We can't grow nothin' heah without fe'tilizah. We got two
hundred pounds fo' three dollahs last spring and planted it with the
co'n."
As Percy turned in at Mr. Thornton's gate he saw a white man and two
negroes working at the barn. "Pardon me, but is this Mr. Thornton?"
asked Percy as he approached.
"That is my name."
"Well, my name is Johnston. I am especially interested in learning all I
can about the farm lands in this section and the best methods of
farming. I live in Illinois, and have thought some of selling our little
farm out there and buying a larger one here in the East where the land
is much cheaper than with us. A real estate agent in Richmond has told
me something of the progress you are making in the improvement of your
large farm. I hope you will not let me interfere with your work, Sir."
"Oh, this work is not much. I've had a little lumber sawed at a mill
which is running just now over beyond my farm, and I am trying to put a
shed up here over part of the barn yard so we can save more of the
manure. I shall be very glad to give you any information I can either
about my own farming or about the farm lands in this section."
"You have about a thousand acres in your farm I was told."
"Yes, we still have some over nine hundred acres in the place, but we
are farming only about two hundred acres, including the meadow and
pasture land. The other seven hundred acres are not fenced, and, as you
will see, the land is mostly grown up to scrub trees."
"Your corn appears to be a very good crop. About how many acres of corn
do you have this year?"
"I have only fourteen acres. That is all I could cover with manure, and
it is hardly worth trying to raise corn without manure."
"Do you use any commercial fertilizer?"
"Well, I've been using some bone meal. I've no use for the ordinary
complete commercial fertilizer. It sometimes helps a little for one
year; but it seems to leave the land poorer than ever. Bone meal lasts
longer and doesn't seem to hurt the land. I see from the agricultural
papers that some of the experiment stations report good results from the
use of fine-ground raw rock phosphate; but they advise using it in
connection with organic matter, such as manure or clover plowed under. I
am planning to get some and mix it with the manure here under this shed.
Do you use commercial fertilizers in Illinois?"
"Not to speak of, but some of our farmers are beginning to use the raw
phosphate. Our experiment station has found that our most extensive soil
types are not rich in phosphorus, and has republished for our benefit
the reports from the Maryland and Ohio experiment stations showing that
the fine-ground natural rock phosphate appears to be the most economical
form to be used and that it is likely to prove much more profitable in
the long run, although it may not give very marked results the first
year or two. May I ask what products you sell from your farm, Mr.
Thornton?"
"I sell cream. I have a special trade in Richmond, and I ship my cream
direct to the city. I also sell a few hogs and some wheat. I usually put
wheat after corn, and have fourteen acres of wheat seeded between the
corn shocks over there. Sometimes I don't get the wheat seeded, and then
I put the land in cowpeas. I usually raise about twenty-five acres of
cowpeas, and the rest of the cleared land I use for meadow and pasture.
I usually sow timothy after cowpeas, and I like to break up as much old
pasture land for corn as I can put manure on."
"I was told that you had been offered fifty dollars an acre for your
farm, Mr. Thornton, but that you would not consider the offer."
Mr. Thornton laughed heartily at this remark.
"That must have come from the Richmond land agent," he said. "Someone
else was telling me that story a short time ago. The fact is one of
those real estate agents was out here last spring and he asked me if I
would consider an offer of fifty dollars an acre for our land. I told
him that I didn't think that I would as long as any one who wishes to
buy can get all the land he wants in this section for five or ten
dollars an acre. That's as near as I came to having an offer of fifty
dollars an acre for this land. The land adjoining me on the south is is
for sale, and I am sure you could buy that farm of about seven hundred
acres for four dollars an acre after they get the timber off. Some of
the land has not been cropped for a hundred years, I guess; and there
are a few trees on it that are big enough for light saw-stuff. A man has
bought the timber that is worth cutting, and he is running a saw over
there now; but he'll get out all that's good for anything in a few
months."
"May I ask how long you have been farming here, Mr. Thornton?"
"Twelve years on this farm," he replied. "You see this estate was left
to my wife and her sister who still lives with us. We were married
twelve years ago and I have been working ever since to make a living for
us on this old worn-out farm. Of course I have made some little
improvements about the barns, but we've sold a little land too. The
railroad company wanted about an acre down where that little stream
crosses, for a water supply, and I got twelve hundred dollars for that."
"Now, I've already taken too much of your time," said Percy. "I thank
you for your kindness in giving me so much information. If there is no
objection I shall be glad to take a walk about over your farm and the
adjoining land, and perhaps I can see you again for a few moments when I
return."
"Certainly," Mr. Thornton replied. "There is no objection whatsoever. We
are going to Blairville this morning, but we shall be back before noon
and I shall be glad to see you then. I fear you have been given some
misinformation by the real estate agents. Some of them, by the way, are
Northern men who came down here and bought land and when they found they
could not make a living on it, they sold it to other land hunters, and I
suppose that they made so much in the deal that they stayed right here
as real estate agents. They are great advertisers; but I reckon our
Southern real estate men can just about keep even. The agent who was out
here last spring told me he showed one Northern man a farm for $12 an
acre and he was afraid to buy. Then he took him into another county and
showed him a poorer farm for $45 and he bought that at once.
"The road there runs out through the fields. Our land runs back to the
other public road and beyond that is the farm I told you of where the
saw mill is running. I've got some pretty good cowpeas you'll pass by. I
haven't got them off the racks yet."
Percy found the cowpea hay piled in large shocks over tripods made of
short stout poles which served to keep the hay off the ground to some
extent, and this permitted the cowpeas to be cured in larger piles and
with less danger of loss from molding.
"I find that the soil on your farm and on the other farm is very
generally acid," said Percy a few hours later when Mr. Thornton asked
what he thought of the condititons of farming. "Have you used any lime
for improving the soil?"
"Yes, I tried it about ten years ago, and it helped some, but not enough
to make it pay. I put ten barrels on about three acres. I thought it
helped the corn and wheat a little, and it showed right to the line
where I put cowpeas on the land, but I don't think it paid, and it's
mighty disagreeable stuff to handle."
"Do you remember how much it cost?" Percy asked.
"Yes, Sir. The regular price was a dollar a barrel, but by taking ten
barrels I got the ton for eight dollars; but I'd rather have eight
dollars' worth of bone meal."
"I think the lime would be a great help to clover," said Percy.
"Yes, that might be. They tell me that they used to grow lots of clover
here; but it played out completely, and nobody sows clover now, except
occasionally on an old feed lot which is rich enough to grow anything.
It takes mighty good land to grow clover; but cowpeas are better for us.
They do pretty well for this old land, only the seed costs too much, and
they make a sight of work, and they're mighty hard to get cured. You see
they aren't ready for hay till the hot weather is mostly past. If we
could handle them in June and July, as we do timothy we'd have no
trouble; but we don't get cowpeas planted till June, and September is a
poor time for haying."
"It seems to me that clover is a much more satisfactory crop," said
Percy. "One can sow clover with oats in the spring, or on wheat land in
the late winter, and there is no more trouble with it until it is ready
for haying about fifteen months later, unless the land is weedy or the
clover makes such a growth the first fall that we must clip it to
prevent either the weeds or the clover from seeding. This means that
when you are planting your ground for cowpeas the next year after wheat
or oats, we are just ready to begin harvesting our clover hay; and
besides the regular hay crop we usually have some growth the fall before
which is left on the land as a fertilizer, and then we get a second crop
of clover which we save either for hay or seed. Even after the seed crop
is harvested there is usually some later fall growth, and some let the
clover stand till it grows some more the next spring and then plow it
under for corn."
"I can see that clover would be much better than cowpeas if we could
grow it; but, as I said, it's played out here. Our land simply won't
grow it any more. Not having to plow for clover would save a great deal
of the work we must do for our cowpeas."
"Some of our farmers follow a three-year rotation and plow the ground
only once in three years," said Percy. "They plow the ground for corn,
disk it the next spring when oats and clover are seeded, and then leave
the land in clover the next year. In that way they regularly harvest
four crops, including the two clover crops, from only one plowing; and
in exceptional seasons I have known an extra crop of clover hay to be
harvested in the late fall on the land where the oats were grown.
"In regard to the lime question," Percy continued, "I wonder if you know
of the work the Pennsylvania Experiment Station has been doing with the
use of ground limestone in comparison with burned lime."
"No, I never heard of ground limestone being used. I supposed it had to
be burned. I should think it would be very expensive to grind
limestone."
"No, it costs much less to grind it than to burn it," Percy replied.
"Mills are used for grinding rock in cement manufacture, and the rock
phosphate and bone meal must all be ground before using them either for
direct application or for the manufacture of acidulated fertilizers; and
limestone is not so hard to grind as some other rocks. Furthermore it
does not need to be so very finely ground. If fine enough so that it
will pass through a sieve with ten meshes to the inch it does very well.
That you see would be a hundred meshes to the square inch; and, of
course, a great deal of it will be much finer than that. In fact the
ground limestone used in the Pennsylvania experiments was only fine
enough so that about ninety per cent. of it would pass a sieve with ten
meshes to the inch, and yet the limestone gave decidedly better results
than the burned lime, and it is not nearly so disagreeable to handle.
Besides this, the ground limestone is much less expensive. It can be
obtained at most points in Illinois for about a dollar and fifty cents a
ton."
"A dollar and fifty cents a ton!" exclaimed Mr. Thornton. "Well, that is
cheap, but how about the freight and the barrels and bags? Freight is a
big item with us."
"The dollar and fifty cents includes the freight," was the reply.
"Includes the cost and the freight both?"
"Yes, and the Illinois farmers have it shipped in bulk, so there is no
expense for barrels or bags. Of course the supplies of both coal and
limestone are very abundant, and with a well-equipped plant the actual
cost of grinding does not exceed twenty-five cents a ton. The original
cost of the material ground and on board cars at the works varies from
about sixty cents to one dollar a ton, and this leaves a very fair
margin of profit.
"The men who furnish the ground limestone realize that very large
quantities of it are needed if the soils of Illinois are to be kept
fertile, and they also realize that the ultimate prosperity of the
country depends upon agricultural prosperity. Their far-sightedness and
patriotism combine to lead them to try to sell carloads of limestone
instead of tons of burned lime. As a matter of fact five or ten dollars
profit on a car of limestone, the use of which in large quantities is
thus made possible in systems of positive soil improvement, is very much
better for all concerned than a profit of half that much on a single ton
of burned lime which is used as a soil stimulant in systems of soil
exhaustion."
"It is certainly true," said Mr. Thornton, "that all other great
industries depend upon agriculture, directly or indirectly. I have
thought of it many times. It seems to me that fishing is about the only
exception of importance."
Mr. Thornton requested that Percy remain for lunch in order that they
might return to the field to let him see the soil acidity tests made.
CHAPTER XIII
WHY PERCY WENT TO COLLEGE
"I AM interested to know where you learned these things about acid
soils and lime and limestone," said Mr. Thornton.
"Mostly in the agricultural college," replied Percy, "but much of
the information really comes from the investigations that are
conducted by the experiment stations. For example, the best
information the world affords concerning the comparative value of
burned lime and ground limestone is furnished by the Pennsylvania
Agricultural Experiment Station. Those experiments have been carried
on continuously since 1882, and the results of twenty years' careful
investigations have recently been published. A four-year rotation of
crops was practiced, including corn, oats, wheat, and hay, the hay
being clover and timothy mixed. With every crop the limestone has
given better results than the burned lime. In fact the burned lime
seems to have produced injurious results of late years, and the
analysis of the soil shows that there has been large loss of humus
and nitrogen where the burned lime has been used, the actual loss
being equivalent to the destruction of more than two tons of farm
manure per acre per annum."
"Well, we surely need this information," said Mr. Thornton. "I have
always supposed that the teachers in the agricultural college knew
little or nothing of practical farming."
"I did not go to college to learn practical farming, if we mean by
that the common practice of agriculture," replied Percy. "I already
knew what we call practical farming; that is, how to do the ordinary
farm work, including such operations as plowing, planting,
cultivating, and harvesting; but it seems to me, Mr. Thornton, that
this sort of practical farming has resulted in practical ruin for
most of these Eastern lands. The fact is there is a side to
agriculture that I knew almost nothing about as a so-called
practical farmer, and I am coming to believe that what we commonly
call practical farming is often the most impractical
farming,--certainly this is true if it ultimately results in
depleted and abandoned lands. The truly practical farmer is the man
who knows not only how to do, but also what to do and why he does
it. The Simplon railroad tunnel connecting Switzerland with Italy is
twelve miles long,--the longest in the world. It was dug from the
two ends, but under the mountain, six miles from either end, the two
holes came together exactly, within a limit of error of less than
six inches, and made one continuous tunnel twelve miles long. Now,
this was not all accomplished by the practical men who knew how to
handle a spade in digging a ditch. The work was controlled by
science, and it was known in advance what the results would be. I do
not mean that it was known how hard the digging would be, nor how
much trouble would be caused by caving or by water; but it was known
that if the practical work was done, the final outcome would be
successful.
"I think it is even more important that we understand enough of the
sciences which underlie the practice of agriculture so we may know
in advance that when the practical farm work is done the soil will
be richer and better rather than poorer and less productive because
of our impractical farming.
"As I said, I did not go to the agricultural college to learn the
practice or art of farming; I went to learn the science of
agriculture; but, as a matter of fact, I found the college professor
knew about as much of practical agriculture as I did and a great
deal of science that I did not know. I found that the Dean of the
college, who is also Director of the Experiment Station, had been
born and raised on the farm, had done all kinds of farm work, the
same as other farm boys, had gone through an agricultural college,
and after his graduation had returned to the farm and remained there
for ten years doing his own work with his own hands. He has had as
much actual farm experience as you have had, Mr. Thornton, and ten
years more than I have had. He was finally called from the farm to
become an assistant in the college from which he was graduated, and
in a few years he was advanced to head professor in agriculture.
About ten years ago he was made dean and director of the
agricultural college and experiment station in my own state; and I
have been told that he will not recommend any one for a responsible
position in an agricultural college unless he has had both farm
experience and scientific training. He and most of his associates
are owners of farms and would return to them again if they did not
feel that they are of more service to agriculture as teachers and
investigators."
"I am very glad to know about this," said Mr. Thornton. "Certainly
your opinion, based upon such knowledge as you have of your own
college, is worth more than all the common talk I have ever heard
from those who never saw an agricultural college. I wish you would
tell me something more in regard to what crops are made of and about
the methods of making land better even while we are taking crops
from it every year."
CHAPTER XIV
A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE
"THE subject is somewhat complicated," Percy replied, "yet it
involves no more difficult problems than have been solved in many
other lines. The chief trouble is that we have done too little
thinking about our own real problems. Even in the country schools we
have learned something of banking and various other lines of
business, something of the history and politics of this and other
countries, something of the great achievements in war, in discovery
and exploration, in art, literature, and invention; but we have not
learned what our soils contain nor what our crops require. Not one
farmer in a hundred knows what chemical elements are absolutely
required for the production of our agricultural plants, and one may
work hard on the farm from four o'clock in the morning till nine
o'clock at night for forty years and still not learn what corn is
made of.
"All agricultural plants are composed of ten chemical elements, and
the growth of any crop is absolutely dependent upon the supply of
these plant food elements. If the supply of any one of these plant
food elements is limited, the crop yield will also be limited. The
grain and grass crops, such as corn, oats, wheat, and timothy, also
the root crops and potatoes, secure two elements from the air, one
from water, and seven from the soil.
"The supply of some elements is constantly renewed by natural
processes, and iron, one of the ten, is contained in all normal
soils in absolutely inexhaustible amount; while other elements
become deficient and the supply must be renewed by man, or crop
yields decrease and farming becomes unprofitable.
"Matter is absolutely indestructible. It may change its form, but
not a pound of material substance can be destroyed. Matter moves in
cycles, and the key to the problem of successful permanent
agriculture is the circulation of plant food. While some elements
have a natural cycle which is amply sufficient to meet all
requirements for these elements as plant food, other elements have
no such cycle, and it is the chief business of the farmer to make
these elements circulate.
"Take carbon, for example. This element is well represented by hard
coal. Soft coal and charcoal are chiefly carbon. The diamond is pure
crystallized carbon, and charcoal made from pure sugar is pure,
uncrystallized carbon. This can easily be made by heating a lump of
sugar on a red hot stove until only a black coal remains. Now these
different solid materials represent carbon in the elemental form or
free state. But carbon may unite with other elements to form
chemical compounds, and these may be solids, liquids, gases.
"Thus carbon and sulfur are both solid elements, one black and the
other yellow, as generally found. If these two elements are mixed
together under ordinary conditions no change occurs. The result is
simply a mixture of carbon and sulfur. But, if this mixture is
heated in a retort which excludes the air, the carbon and sulfur
unite into a chemical compound called carbon disulfid. This compound
is neither black, yellow, nor solid; but it is a colorless, limpid
liquid; and yet it contains absolutely nothing except carbon and
sulfur."
"That seems strange," remarked Mr. Thornton. "Yes, but similar
changes are going on about us all the time," replied Percy. "We put
ten pounds of solid black coal in the stove and an hour later we
find nothing there, except a few ounces of ashes which represent the
impurities in the coal."
"Well, the coal is burned up and destroyed, is it not?"
"The carbon is burned and changed, but not destroyed. In this case,
the heat has caused the carbon to unite with the element oxygen
which exists in the air in the form of a gas, and a chemical
compound is formed which we call carbon dioxid. This compound is a
colorless gas. This element oxygen enters the vent of the stove and
the compound carbon dioxid passes off through the chimney. If there
is any smoke, it is due to small particles of unburned carbon or
other colored substances.
"As a rule more or less sulfur is contained in coal, wood, and other
organic matter, and this also is burned to sulfur dioxid and carried
into the air, from which it is brought back to the soil in rain in
ample amounts to supply all of the sulfur required by plants.
"Everywhere over the earth the atmosphere contains some carbon
dioxid and this compound furnishes all agricultural plants their
necessary supply of both carbon and oxygen. In other words, these
are the two elements that plants secure from the air. The gas,
carbon dioxid, passes into the plant through the breathing pores on
the under side of the leaves. These are microscopic openings but
very numerous. A square inch of a corn leaf may have a hundred
thousand breathing pores."
"Now, as we go on, I am especially anxious to get at this question
of supply and demand," said Mr. Thornton. "I think I understand
about iron and sulfur, and also that these two elements, carbon and
oxygen, are both contained in the air in the compound called carbon
dioxid, and that this must supply our crops with those two elements
of plant food. I'd like to know about the supply. How much is there
in the air and how much do the crops require?"
"As you know," said Percy, "the atmospheric pressure is about
fifteen pounds to the square inch."
"Yes, I've heard that, I know."
"Well, that means, of course, that there are fifteen pounds of air
resting on every square inch of the earth's surface; in other words,
that a column of air one inch square and as high as the air goes,
perhaps fifty miles or more, weighs fifteen pounds."
"Yes, that is very clear."
"There is only one pound of carbon in ten thousand pounds of
ordinary country air. Now, there are one hundred and sixty square
rods in an acre, and since there are twelve inches in a foot and
sixteen and one-half feet in a rod, it is easy to compute that there
are nearly a hundred million pounds of air on an acre, and that the
carbon in this amounts to only five tons. A three-ton crop of corn
or hay contains one and one-fourth tons of the element carbon; so
that the total amount of the carbon in the air over an acre of land
is sufficient for only four such crops; while a single crop of corn
yielding a hundred bushels to the acre, such as we often raise in
Illinois on old feed-lots or other pieces of well treated land would
require half of the total supply of carbon contained in the air over
an acre. However, the largest crop of corn ever grown, of which
there is an established authentic record, was not raised in
Illinois, but in the state of South Carolina, in the county of
Marlborough, in the year 1898, by Z. J. Drake; and, according to the
authentic report of the official committee that measured the land
and saw the crop harvested and weighed, and awarded Drake a prize of
five hundred dollars given by the Orange Judd Publishing
Company,--according to this very creditable evidence, that acre of
land yielded 239 bushels of thoroughly aid-dried corn; and such a
crop, Mr. Thornton, would require as much carbon as the total amount
contained in the air over an acre of land."
"Well, that is astonishing! Then there must be some other source of
supply besides the air."
"There is no other direct source from which plants secure carbon;
but of course the air is in constant motion. Only one-fourth of the
earth's surface is land, and perhaps only one-fourth of this land is
cropped, and the average crop is about one-fourth of three tons; so
that the total present supply of carbon in the air would be
sufficient for about two hundred and fifty years. But as a matter of
fact the supply is permanently maintained by the carbon cycle. Thus
the carbon of coal that is burned in the stove returns to the air in
carbon dioxid; and all combustion of coal and wood, grass and weeds,
and all other vegetable matter returns carbon to the atmosphere. All
decay of organic matter, as in the fermentation of manure in the
pile and the rotting of vegetable matter in the soil, is a form of
slow combustion and carbon dioxid is the chief produce of such
decay. Sometimes an appreciable amount of heat is developed, as in
the steaming pile of stable refuse lying in the barnyard, while the
heat evolved in the soil is too quickly disseminated to be apparent.
"In addition to all this, every animal exhales carbon dioxid. The
body heat and the animal force or energy are supplied by the
combustion of organic food within the body, and here, too, carbon
dioxid is the chief product of combustion.
"Thus, as a general average, the amount of carbon removed from the
atmosphere by growing plants is no greater than the amount returned
to the air by these various forms of combustion or decay. In like
manner the supply of combined oxygen is maintained, both carbon and
oxygen being furnished to the plant m the carbon dioxid.
"As a matter of fact, the air consists very largely of oxygen and
nitrogen, both in the free state, but in this form these elements
cannot be utilized in the growth of agricultural plants. The only
apparent exception to this is in case of legume crops, such as
clover, alfalfa, peas, beans, and vetch, which have power to utilize
the free nitrogen by means of their symbiotic relationship with
certain nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live, or may live, in
tubercles on their roots.
"Carbon and oxygen constitute about ninety per cent. of the dry
matter of ordinary farm crops, and with the addition of hydrogen
very important plant constituents are produced; such as starch,
sugar, fiber, or cellulose, which constitute the carbohydrate group.
As the name indicates, this group contains carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, the last two being present in the same proportion as in
water.
"Water is composed of the two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, both of
which are gases in the free state. Water is taken into the plant
through the roots and decomposed in the leaves in contact with the
carbon dioxid under the influence of sunlight and the life
principle. The oxygen from the water and part of that from the
carbon dioxid is given off into the air through the breathing pores,
while the carbon, hydrogen, and part of the oxygen, unite to form
the carbohydrates. These three elements constitute about ninety-five
per cent. of our farm crops, and yet every one of the other seven
plant food elements is just as essential to the growth and full
development of the plant as are these three."
"Then so long as we have air above and moisture below, our crops
will not lack for carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Is that the summing
up of the matter?"
"Yes, Sir," Percy replied.
"And those three elements make up ninety-five per cent. of our farm
crops. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Sir, as an average."
"Well, now it seems to me, if nature thus provides ninety-five per
cent. of all we need, we ought to find some way of furnishing the
other five per cent. It makes me think of the young wife who told
her husband she could live on bread and water, with his love, and he
told her that if she would furnish the bread he'd skirmish around
and get the water. But, say, did that South Carolina man use any
fertilizer for that immense crop of corn?"
"Some fertilizer, yes. He applied manure and fertilizer from
February till June. In all he applied 1000 bushels (about 30 tons)
of farm manure, 600 bushels of whole cotton seed, 900 pounds of
cotton seed meal, 900 pounds of kainit, 1100 pounds of guano, 200
pounds of bone meal, 200 pounds of acid phosphate, and 400 pounds of
sodium nitrate."
"I would also like to know the facts about this nitrogen business,"
said Mr. Thornton. "I've understood that one could get some of it
from the air, and I would much rather get it that way than to buy it
from the fertilizer agent at twenty cents a pound. Cowpeas don't
seem to help much, and we don't have the cotton seed, and we never
have sufficient manure to cover much land."
"It is a remarkable fact," said Percy, "that of the ten essential
elements of plant food, nitrogen is the most abundant, measured by
crop requirements, and at the same time the most expensive. The air
above an acre of land contains enough carbon for a hundred bushels
of corn per acre for two years, and enough nitrogen for five hundred
thousand years; and yet the nitrogen in commercial fertilizers costs
from fifteen to twenty cents a pound. At commercial prices for
nitrogen, every man who owns an acre of land is a millionaire.
"You mean he has millions in the air," amended Mr. Thornton.
"Yes, that is the better way to put it," Percy admitted, "but the
fact is he can not only get this nitrogen for nothing by means of
legume crops, but he is paid for getting it, because those crops are
profitable to raise for their own value. Clover, alfalfa, cowpeas,
and soy beans are all profitable crops, and they all have power to
use the free nitrogen of the air.
"There are a few important facts to be kept in mind regarding
nitrogen:
"A fifty-bushel crop of corn takes 75 pounds of nitrogen from the
soil. Of this amount about 50 pounds are in the grain, 24 pounds are
in the stalks, and 1 pound in the cobs. A fifty-bushel crop of oats
takes 48 pounds of nitrogen from the soil, 33 pounds in the grain,
and 15 in the straw. A twenty-five bushel crop of wheat also takes
48 pounds of nitrogen from the soil, 36 pounds in the grain and 12
in the straw.
"These amounts will vary to some extent with the quality of the
crops, just as the weight of a bushel of wheat varies from perhaps
56 to 64 pounds, although as an average wheat weighs 60 pounds to
the bushel."
"You surely remember figures well," remarked Mr. Thornton as he made
some notations.
"It is easy to remember what we think about much and often," said
Percy; "as easy to remember that a ton of cowpea hay contains 43
pounds of nitrogen as that Blairville is 53 miles from Richmond."
"I have added those figures together," continued Mr. Thornton, "and
I find that the three crops, corn, oats, and wheat, would require
171 pounds of nitrogen. Now suppose we raise a crop of cowpeas the
fourth year, how much nitrogen would be added to the soil in the
roots and stubble?"
"Not any."
"Do you mean to say that the roots and stubble of the cowpeas would
add no nitrogen to the soil? Surely that does not agree with the
common talk."
"It is even worse than that," said Percy. "The cowpea roots and
stubble would contain less nitrogen than the cowpea crop takes from
a soil capable of yielding thirty bushels of corn or oats. Only
about one-tenth of the nitrogen contained in the cowpea plant is
left in the roots and stubble when the crop is harvested. Suppose
the yield is two tons per acre of cowpea hay! Such a crop would
contain about 86 pounds of nitrogen, and about 10 pounds of nitrogen
per acre would be left in the roots and stubble."
"Well, that wouldn't go far toward replacing the 171 pounds removed
from the soil by the corn, oats, and wheat, that's sure," was Mr.
Thornton's comment.
"It is worse than that," Percy repeated. "Land that will furnish 48
pounds of nitrogen for a crop of oats or wheat will furnish more
than 10 pounds for a crop of cowpeas. At the end of such a four-year
rotation such a soil would be about 200 pounds poorer in nitrogen
per acre than at the beginning, if all crops were removed and
nothing returned."
"How much would it cost to put that nitrogen back in commercial
fertilizer?" asked Mr. Thornton.
"That depends, of course, upon what kind of fertilizer is used."
"Well, most people around here who use fertilizer buy what the agent
calls two-eight-two, and its costs about one dollar and fifty cents
a hundred pounds; but it can be bought by the ton for about
twenty-five dollars."
"'Two-eight-two' means that the fertilizer is guaranteed to contain
two per cent. of ammonia, eight per cent. of available 'phosphoric
acid,' and two per cent. of potash."
"Ammonia is the same as nitrogen, is it not?"
"No, it is not the same," replied Percy. "Ammonia is a compound of
nitrogen and hydrogen. In order to have a clear understanding of the
relation between ammonia and nitrogen we only need to know the
combining weights of the elements. The smallest particle of an
element is called an atom. Hydrogen is the lightest of all the
elements and the weight of the hydrogen atom is used as the standard
or unit for the measure of all other atomic weights; thus the atom
of hydrogen weighs one."
"One what?" interrupted Mr. Thornton.
"No one knows," replied Percy. "The atom is extremely small, much
too small to be seen with the most powerful microscope; but you know
all things are relative and we always measure one thing in terms of
another. We say a foot is twelve inches and an inch is one-twelfth
of a foot, and there we stop with a definition of each expressed in
terms of the other, and both depending upon an arbitrary standard
that somebody once adopted; and yet, while the foot is known in most
countries, it is rare that two countries have exactly the same
standard for this measure of length.
"We do not know the exact weight of the hydrogen atom, but we do
know its relative weight. If the hydrogen atom weighs one then other
atomic weights are as follows:
12 for carbon
14 for nitrogen
16 for oxygen
24 for magnesium
31 for phosphorus
32 for sulfur
39 for potassium
40 for calcium
56 for iron
"This means that the iron atom is fifty-six times as heavy as the
hydrogen atom. These atomic weights are absolutely necessary to a
clear understanding of the compounds formed by the union or
combination of two or more elements.
"One other thing is also necessary. That is to keep in mind the
number of bonds, or hands, possessed by each atom. The atom of
hydrogen has only one hand, and the same is true of potassium. Each
atom of oxygen has two hands; so that one oxygen atom can hold two
hydrogen atoms in the chemical compound called water (H-O-H or H20).
Other elements having two-handed atoms are magnesium and calcium.
Strange to say, the sulfur atom has six hands but sometimes uses
only two, the others seemingly being clasped together in pairs. I
will write it out for you, thus:
Hydrogen sulfid: H-S-H or H2S
Sulfur dioxid: O=S=0 or S02
"The carbon atom has four hands, and atoms of nitrogen and
phosphorus have five hands, but sometimes use only three. Thus, in
the compound called ammonia, one atom of nitrogen always holds three
atoms of hydrogen; so, if you buy seventeen pounds of ammonia you
would get only fourteen pounds of nitrogen and three pounds of
hydrogen. This means that, if the two-eight-two fertilizer contains
two per cent. of ammonia, it contains only one and two-thirds per
cent. of the actual element nitrogen, and a ton of such fertilizer
would contain thirty-three pounds of nitrogen. In other words it
would take six tons of such fertilizer to replace the nitrogen
removed from one acre of land in four years if the crop yields were
fifty bushels of corn and oats, twenty-five bushels of wheat, and
two tons of cowpea hay."
"Six tons! Why, that would cost a hundred and fifty dollars! Well,
well, I thought I knew we couldn't afford to keep up our land with
commercial fertilizer; but I didn't think it was that bad. Almost
forty dollars an acre a year!"
"It need not be quite that bad," said Percy. "You see this
two-eight-two fertilizer contains eight per cent. of so-called
'phosphoric acid' and two per cent. of potash, and those
constituents may be worth much more than the nitrogen; but, so far
as nitrogen is concerned, the two hundred pounds would cost from
thirty to forty dollars in the best nitrogen fertilizers in the
market, such as dried blood or sodium nitrate."
"Well, even that would be eight or ten dollars a year per acre, and
that is as much as the land is worth, and this wouldn't include any
other plant food elements, such as 'phosphoric acid' and potash."
"No, that much would be required for the nitrogen alone if bought in
commercial form. I understand that the farmers who use this common
commercial fertilizer, apply about three hundred pounds of it to the
acre perhaps twice in four years. That would cost about eight
dollars for the four years, and the total nitrogen applied in the
two applications would amount to 10 pounds per acre."
"It is not quite correct to call 'phosphoric acid' and potash plant
food elements. They are not elements but compounds."
"Like ammonia, which is part nitrogen and part hydrogen?"
"The problem is somewhat similar, but not just the same," Percy
replied. "These compounds contain oxygen and not hydrogen."
"Well, I understand that both oxygen and hydrogen are furnished by
natural processes, the oxygen from carbon dioxid in the carbon
cycle, and the hydrogen from the water which falls in rain."
"That is all true, but you really do not buy the hydrogen or oxygen.
While they are included in the two-eight-two guarantee, the price is
adjusted for that. Thus the cost of nitrogen would be just the same
whether you purchase the fertilizer on the basis of seventeen cents
a pound for the actual element nitrogen, or fourteen cents a pound
for the ammonia."
"Yes, I see how that might be, but I don't see why the guarantee
should be two per cent. of ammonia instead of one and two-thirds per
cent. of nitrogen, when the nitrogen is all that gives it value."
"There is no good reason for it," said Percy. "It is one of those
customs that are conceived in ignorance and continued in
selfishness. It is very much simpler to consider the whole subject
on the basis of actual plant food elements, and I am glad to say
that many of the state laws already require the nitrogen to be
guaranteed in terms of the actual element, a few states now require
the phosphorus and potassium also to be reported on the element
basis."
"That is hopeful, at least," said Mr. Thornton. "Now, if I am not
asking too many questions or keeping you here too long, I shall be
glad to have you explain two more points that come to my mind:
First, how much of that two hundred pounds of nitrogen can I put
back in the manure produced on the farm; and, second, just what is
meant by potash and phosphoric acid?"
Percy made a few computations and then replied: "If you sell the
wheat; feed all the corn, oats, and cowpea hay and half of the straw
and corn fodder, and use the other half for bedding; and, if you
save absolutely all of the manure produced, including both the solid
and liquid excrement; then it would be possible to recover and
return to the land about 173 pounds of nitrogen during the four
years, compared with the 200 pounds taken from the soil."
"I can't understand that," said Mr. Thornton. "How can that be when
one of the crops is cowpeas?"
"In average live-stock and dairy farming," Percy continued, "about
one-fourth of the nitrogen contained in the food consumed is
retained in the milk and animal growth, and you can make the
computations for yourself. It should be kept in mind, moreover, that
much of the manure produced on the average farm is wasted. More than
half of the nitrogen is in the liquid excrement, and it is extremely
difficult to prevent loss of the liquid manure. There is also large
loss of nitrogen from the fermentation of manure in piles; and when
you smell ammonia in the stable, see the manure pile steaming, or
colored liquid soaking into the ground beneath, or flowing away in
rainy weather, you may know that nitrogen is being lost. How many
tons of manure can you apply to your land under such a system of
farming as we have been discussing?"
"Well, I've figured a good deal on manure," was the reply, "and I
think with four fields producing such crops as you counted on, that
I could possibly put ten or twelve tons to the acre on one field
every year."
"That would return from 100 to 120 pounds of nitrogen;" said Percy,
"instead of the 173 pounds possible to be returned if there is no
loss. There are three methods that may be used to reduce the loss of
manure: One of these is to do the feeding on the fields. Another is
to haul the manure from the stable every day or two and spread it on
the land. The third is to allow the manure to accumulate in deep
stalls for several weeks, using plenty of bedding to absorb the
liquid and keep the animals clean, and then haul and spread it when
convenient."
"I'm afraid that last method would not do at all for the dairy
farmer," said Mr. Thornton. "You see we have to keep things very
clean and in sanitary condition."
"Most often the cleanest and most sanitary method the average farmer
has of handling the manure in dairying," said Percy, "is to keep it
buried as much as possible under plenty of clean bedding; and one of
the worst methods is to overhaul it every day by 'cleaning' the
stable, unless you could have concrete floors throughout, and flush
them well once or twice a day, thus losing a considerable part of
the valuable excrement. If you allow the manure to accumulate for
several weeks at a time, it is best to have sufficient room in the
stable or shed so that the cows need not be tied. If allowed to run
loose they will find clean places to lie down even during the night.
"In case of horses, the manure can be kept buried for several weeks
if some means are used to prevent the escape of ammonia. Cattle
produce what is called a 'cold' manure, while it is called 'hot'
from horses because it decomposes so readily. One of the best
substances to use for the prevention of loss of ammonia in horse
stables is acid phosphate, which has power to unite with ammonia and
hold it in a fixed compound. About one pound of acid phosphate per
day for each horse should be sprinkled over the manure. Of course
the phosphorus contained in the acid phosphate has considerable
value for its own sake, and care should be taken that you do not
lose more phosphorus from the acid phosphate applied than the value
of all the ammonia saved by this means. Porous earth floors may
absorb very considerable amounts of liquid from wet manure lying
underneath the dry bedding, and the acid phosphate sometimes injures
the horses' feet; so that, as a rule, it is better to clean the
horse stables every day and supply phosphorus in raw phosphate at
one-fourth of its cost in acid phosphate."
"Before we leave the nitrogen question," said Mr. Thornton, "I want
to ask if you can suggest how we can get enough of the several
million dollars' worth we have in the air to supply the needs of our
crops and build up our land?"
"Grow more legumes, and plow more under, either directly or in
manure."
"That sounds easy, but can you suggest some practical system?"
"I think so. I know too little of your conditions to think I could
suggest the best system for you to adopt; but I can surely suggest
one that will supply nitrogen for such crop yields as we have
considered: Suppose we change the order of the crops and grow wheat,
corn, oats, and cowpeas, and grow clover with the wheat and oats,
plowing the clover under in the spring as green manure for corn and
cowpeas. If necessary to prevent the clover or weeds from producing
seed, the field may be clipped with the mower in the late summer
when the clover has made some growth after the wheat and oats have
been removed. Leave this season's growth lying on the land. As an
average it should amount to more than half a ton of hay per acre.
The next spring the clover is allowed to grow for several weeks. It
should be plowed under for corn on one field early in May and two or
three weeks later the other field is plowed for cowpeas. The spring
growth should average nearly a ton of clover hay per acre. In this
way clover equivalent to about three tons of hay could be plowed
under. Clover hay contains 40 pounds of nitrogen per ton; so this
would supply about 120 pounds of nitrogen in addition to the 173
pounds possible to be supplied in the manure. This would make
possible a total return of 293 pounds, while we figured some 200
pounds removed. Of course if you save only 100 pounds in the manure
the amount returned would be reduced to 220 pounds."
"There are two questionable points in this plan," said Mr. Thornton,
" one is the impossibility, or at least the difficulty, of growing
clover on this land. The other point is, How much of that 120 pounds
of nitrogen returned in the clover is taken from the soil itself? I
remember you figured 86 pounds of nitrogen in two tons of cowpea
hay, but you also assumed that about 29 pounds of it would be taken
from the soil."
"Yes, that is true," Percy replied, "at least 29 pounds and
probably more. You see the cowpeas grow during the same months as
corn and on land prepared in about the same manner. If the soil will
furnish 75 pounds of nitrogen to the corn crop, and 48 pounds to the
oats and wheat, it would surely furnish 29 pounds to the cowpeas. Of
course this particular amount has no special significance, but the
other definite amounts removed in corn, oats, and wheat aggregate
171 and the 29 pounds were added to make the round 200 pounds.
Perhaps 210 pounds would be nearer the truth, in which case the soil
would furnish about half as much nitrogen to the cowpea crop as to
the corn crop. This is reasonable considering that corn is the first
crop grown after the manure is applied. You will remember that only
one-tenth of the total nitrogen of the cowpea plant remains in the
roots and stubble?"
"Yes, that's what we figured on."
"The cowpea is an annual plant. It is planted, produces its seed,
and dies the same season. It has no need to store up material in the
roots for future use. Consequently the substance of the root is
largely taken into the tops as the plan approaches maturity. It is
different with the clover plant. This is a biennial with some
tendency toward the perennial plant. It lives long and develops an
extensive root system, and its stores up material in the roots
during part of its life for use at a later period. About one-third
of the total nitrogen content of the clover plant is contained in
the roots and stubble. This means that the roots and stubble of a
two-ton crop of clover would contain about forty pounds of nitrogen,
or more than we assumed was taken from the soil by the cowpeas. But
there is still another point in favor of the clover. The cowpeas
make their growth during the summer months when nitrification is
most active, whereas the clover growth we have counted on occurs
chiefly during the fall and spring when nitrification is much less
active, consequently the clover probably takes even a larger
proportion of its nitrogen from the air than we have counted on."
"That is rather confusing," said Mr. Thornton, "you say the cowpea
grows when nitrification is most active, and yet you say that it
takes less nitrogen from the air than clover. Isn't that somewhat
contradictory?"
"I think not," said Percy." Let me see.--Just what do you understand
by nitrification?"
"Getting nitrogen from the air, is it not?"
"No, no. That explains it. Getting nitrogen from the air is called
nitrogen fixation. This action is carried on by the nitrogen-fixing
bacteria, such as the clover bacteria, the soy bean bacteria, the
alfalfa bacteria, which, by the way, are evidently the same as the
bacteria of sweet clover, or mellilotus. Then we also have the
cowpea bacteria, and these seem to be the same as the bacteria of
the wild partridge pea, a kind of sensitive plant with yellow
flowers, and a tiny goblet standing upright at the base of each
compound leaf,--the plant called Cassia Chamaecrista by the
botanist."
"Nitrification is an altogether--"
"Well, I declare! Excuse me, Sir, but that's Charlie calling the
cows. Scotts, I don't see where the time has gone! You'll excuse me,
Sir, but I must look after separating the cream. You will greatly
oblige me, Mr. Johnston, if you will have dinner with us and share
our home to-night. In addition to the pleasure of your company, I
confess that I am mightily interested in this subject; and I would
like especially to get a clear understanding of that nitrification
process, and we've not had time to discuss the potash and
'phosphoric acid,' which I know cost some of our farmers a good part
of all they get for their crops, and still their lands are as poor
as ever."
"I appreciate very much your kind invitation, Mr. Thornton. I came
to you for correct information regarding the agricultural conditions
here, and you were very kind and indulgent to answer my blunt
questions, even concerning your own farm practice and experience. I
feel, Sir, that I am already greatly indebted to you, but it will
certainly be a great pleasure to me to remain with you to-night."
For more than two hours they had been standing, leaning, or sitting
in a field beside a shock of cowpea hay, Percy toying with his soil
auger, and Mr. Thornton making records now and then in his pocket
note book.
CHAPTER XV
COEDUCATION
PERCY took a lesson in turning the cream separator and after dinner
Mrs. Thornton assured him that she and her sister were greatly
disappointed that they had not been permitted to hear the discussion
concerning the use of science on the farm.
"We have never forsaken our belief that these old farms can again be
made to yield bountiful crops," she said, "as ours did for so many
years under the management of our ancestors. 'Hope springs eternal
in the human breast.' I stop with that for I do not like the rest of
the couplet. We can see that some marked progress has been made
under my husband's management, although he feels that it is very
slow work building up a run-down farm. But he has raised some fine
crops on the fields under cultivation,--as much as ten barrels of
corn to the acre, have you not, Dear?" she asked.
"Yes, fully that much, but even ten barrels per acre on one small
field is nothing compared to the great fields of corn Mr. Johnston
raises in the West. and it makes a mighty small show here on a
nine-hundred-acre farm, most of which hasn't been cropped for more
than twenty years; and even then it was given up because the negro
tenants couldn't raise corn enough to live on.
"I've talked some with the fertilizer agents, but they don't know
much about fertilizers, except what they read in the testimonials
published in the advertising booklets. I have had some good help
from the agricultural papers, but most that is written for the
papers doesn't apply to our farm, and it's so indefinite and
incomplete, that I've just spent this whole evening asking Mr.
Johnston questions; and I haven't given him a chance to answer them
all yet."
"I am sure you have not asked more questions this afternoon than I
did this forenoon," Percy remarked; "and all your answers were based
on authentic history or actual experience, while my answers were
only what I have learned from others."
"Well, if we were more ready to learn from others, it would be
better for all of us," said Mr. Thornton. "Experience is a mighty
dear teacher and, even if we finally learn the lesson, it may be too
everlasting late for us to apply it. Now we all want to learn about
that process called nitrification."
"It is an extremely interesting and important process," said Percy.
"It includes the stages or steps by which the insoluble organic
nitrogen of the soil is converted into soluble nitrate nitrogen, in
which form it become available as food for all of our agricultural
plants."
"Excepting the legumes?" asked Mr. Thornton.
"Excepting none," Percy replied. "The legume plants, like clover,
take nitrogen from the soil so far as they can secure it in
available form, and in this respect clover is not different from
corn. The respect in which it is different is the power of clover to
secure additional supplies of nitrogen from the air when the soil's
available supply becomes inadequate to meet the needs of the growing
clover. If the conditions are suitable for nitrogen-fixation, then
the growth of the legume plants need not be limited by lack of
nitrogen; whereas, nitrogen is probably the element that first
limits the growth and yield of all other crops on your common
soils."
"Now, what do you think of that, Girls? With millions of dollars'
worth of nitrogen in the air over every acre, our crops are poor
just because we don't use it. I wish you would tell me something
about the suitable conditions for nitrogen-fixation, Mr. Johnston.
You understand, Girls, that nitrogen-fixation is simply getting
nitrogen from the inexhaustible supply in the air by means of little
microscopic organisms called bacteria, which live in little balls
called tubercles attached to the roots of certain plants called
legumes, like cowpeas and clover. Corn and wheat and such crops
can't get this nitrogen. Now, Mr. Johnston is telling about
nitrification, a process which is entirely different from
nitrogen-fixation. Excuse me, Mr. Johnston, but I wanted to make
this plain to Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell."
"I am glad you did so," Percy replied. "As I was saying,
nitrification has no connection whatever with the free nitrogen of
the air.
"All plants take their food in solution; that is, the plant food
taken from the soil must be dissolved in the soil water or moisture.
Of the essential elements of plant food, seven are taken from the
soil through the roots into the plant. These seven do not include
those of which water itself is composed. Now, these seven plant food
elements exist in the soil almost exclusively in an insoluble form.
In that condition they are not available to the plant for plant
food; and it is the business of the farmer to make this plant food
available as fast as is needed by his growing crops.
"The nitrogen of the soil exists in the organic matter; that is, in
such materials as plant roots, weeds, and stubble, that may have
been plowed under, or any kind of vegetable maker incorporated with
the soil, including all sorts of crop residues, green manures, and
the common farm fertilizers from the stables. When these organic
materials are decomposed and disintegrated to such an extent that
their structure is completely destroyed, the resulting mass of
partially decayed black organic matter is called humus. The nitrogen
of the soil is one of the constituents of this humus or other
organic matter. It is not contained in the mineral particles of the
soil. On the other hand the other six elements of plant food are
contained largely in the mineral part of the soil, as the clay,
silt, and sand. thus the iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium,
all of which are called abundant elements, are contained in the
mineral matter, and usually in considerable amounts, while they are
found in the organic matter in very small proportion. The phosphorus
and sulfur are found in very limited quantities in most soils, but
they are present in both organic and mineral form.
"Practically the entire stock or store of all of the elements in the
soil is insoluble and consequently unavailable for the use of
growing plants; and, as I said, some of the chief plans and efforts
of the farmer should be directed to the business of making plant
food available.
"The nitrogen contained in the insoluble organic matter of the soil
is made soluble and available by the process called nitrification.
Three different kinds of bacteria are required to bring about the
complete change."
"Are these bacteria different from the nitrogen fixing bacteria?"
asked Mr. Thornton.
"Entirely different," Percy replied, "and there are three distinct
kinds, one for each of the three steps in the process.
"The first may be called ammonia bacteria. They have power to
convert organic nitrogen into ammonia nitrogen; that is, into the
compound of nitrogen and hydrogen; and this step in the process is
called ammonification.
"The other two kinds are the true nitrifying bacteria. One of them
converts the ammonia into nitrites, and the other changes the
nitrites into nitrates. These two kinds are known as the nitrite
bacteria and the nitrate bacteria.
"Technically the last two steps in the process are nitrification
proper; but, speaking generally, the term nitrification is used to
include the three steps, or both ammonification and nitrification
proper.
"Now, the nitrifying bacteria require certain conditions, otherwise
they will not perform their functions. Among these essential
conditions are the presence of moisture and free oxygen, a supply of
carbonates, certain food materials for the bacteria themselves, and
a temperature within certain limits.
"You may remember, Mr. Thornton, that more soil nitrogen is made
available for cowpeas during the summer weather than for clover
during the cooler fall and spring?"
"Yes, I remember that distinction."
"I declare," said Miss Russell, "Tom talks as though he had been
there and seen the things going on. I haven't seen you using any
microscope."
"Well, I tell you, I've mighty near seen 'em," was the reply. "Mr.
Johnston makes everything so plain that I can mighty near see what
he saw when he looked through the microscope."
"I greatly enjoyed my microscopic work," said Percy, "and still more
the work in the chemical laboratory where we finally learned to
analyze soils, to take them apart and see what they contain,--how
much nitrogen how much phosphorus, how much limestone, or how much
soil acidity, which means that limestone is needed. Then I also
enjoyed the work in the pot-culture laboratory, where we learned not
to analyze but to synthesize; that is, to put different materials
together to make a soil. Thus, we would make one soil and put in all
of the essential plant food elements except nitrogen, and another
with only phosphorus lacking, and still another with both nitrogen
and phosphorus present, and all of the other essential elements
provided, except potassium, or magnesium, or iron. These prepared
soils were put in glass jars having a hole in the bottom for
drainage, and then the same kind of seeds were planted in each jar
or pot. Some students planted corn, others oats or wheat or any kind
of farm seeds. I grew rape plants in one series of pots, and I have
a photograph with me which shows very well that all of the plant
food elements are essential.
"You see one pot contained no plant food and one was prepared with
all of the ten essential elements provided. Then the other pots
contained all but one of the necessary soil elements, as indicated
in the photograph."
"Why, I never saw anything like that," said Mrs. Thornton.
"But I have many a time," said her husband, "right here on this old
farm; I don't know what's lacking, of course, but some years I've
thought most everything was lacking. But, according to this
pot-culture test, you can't raise any crops if just one of these ten
elements is lacking, no matter how much you have of the other nine;
and it seems to make no difference which one is lacking, you don't
get any crop. Is that the fact, Mr. Johnston?"
One pot with no plant food, and one with all the essential elements
provided, and still others with but one element lacking. All planted
the same day and cared for alike.
"Yes, Sir," Percy replied. "Where all of the elements are provided,
a fine crop is produced, but in each case where a single element is
omitted that is the only difference, and in some cases the result is
worse than where no plant food is supplied. It seems to hurt the
plant worse to throw its food supply completely out of balance than
to leave it with nothing except what it draws from the meager store
in the seed planted. Of course all the pots were planted with the
same kind of seed at the same time, and they were all watered
uniformly every day."
"Those results are very striking, indeed," said Miss Russell," but I
suppose one would never see such marked differences under farm
conditions?"
"Only under unusual or abnormal conditions," Percy replied, "but the
fact is that as a very general rule our crop yields are limited
chiefly because the supply of available plant food is limited.
Sometimes the clover crop is a complete failure on untreated land,
while it lives and produces a good crop if the soil is properly
treated; and in such cases the difference developed in the field is
just as marked as in the pot-cultures. In general we may set it down
as an absolute fact that the productive power of normal land depends
primarily upon the ability of the soil to feed the crop.
"I have here a photograph of a corn field on very abnormal soil.
They had the negative at the Experiment Station and I secured a
print from it, in part because I became interested in a story
connected with this experiment field, which our professor of soil
fertility reported to us.
"This shows a field of corn growing on peaty swamp land, of which
there are several hundred thousand acres in the swamp regions of
Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. This peaty soil is extremely rich
in humus and nitrogen, well supplied with phosphorus and other
elements, except potassium; but in this element it is extremely
deficient. This land was drained out at large expense, and produced
two or three large crops because the fresh grass roots contained
some readily available potassium; but after three or four years the
corn crop became a complete failure, as you see from the untreated
check plot on the right; while the land on the left, where potassium
was applied, produced forty-five bushels per acre the year this
photograph was taken, and with heavier treatment from sixty to
seventy-five bushels are produced."
"Seventy-five bushels would be fifteen barrels of corn per acre.
How's that, Little Wife?" asked Tom.
"It's even more wonderful than the pot culture," replied Mrs.
Thornton; "but how much did the potassium cost, Mr. Johnston."
"About three dollars an acre," replied Percy; "but of course the
land has almost no value if not treated; and as a matter of fact the
three dollars is less than half the interest on the difference in
value between this land and our ordinary corn belt land. These peaty
swamp lands are to a large extent in scattered areas, and commonly,
if a farmer owns some of this kind of land, he also owns some other
good land, perhaps adjoining the swamp; but this is not always the
case, and was not with the man in the story I mentioned. This man
lived a few miles away and his farm was practically all of this
peaty swamp land type. He heard of this experiment field and came
with his family to see it.
"As he stood looking, first at the corn on the treated and untreated
land, and then at his wife and large family of children, he broke
down and cried like a child. Later he explained to the
superintendent who was showing him the experiments, that he had put
the best of his life into that kind of land. 'The land looked rich,'
said he,--'as rich as any land I ever saw. I bought it and drained
it and built my home on a sandy knoll. The first crops were fairly
good, and we hoped for better crops; but instead they grew worse and
worse. We raised what we could on a small patch of sandy land, and
kept trying to find out what we could grow on this black bogus land.
Sometimes I helped the neighbors and got a little money, but my wife
and I and my older children have wasted twenty years on this land.
Poverty, poverty, always! How was I to know that this single
substance which you call potassium was all we needed to make this
land productive and valuable? Oh, if I had only known this twenty
years ago, before my wife had worked like a slave,--before my
children had grown almost to manhood and womanhood, in poverty and
ignorance!'"
"Why wasn't the matter investigated sooner?" asked Miss Russell.
"Why didn't the government find out what the land needed long
before?"
"I am a Yankee," said Percy. "Why have American statesmen ridden
back and forth to the national capitol through a wilderness of
depleted and abandoned farms in the eastern states for half a
century or more before the first appropriation was made for the
purpose of agricultural investigation? and why, even now, does not
this rich federal government appropriate to the agricultural
experiment station in every state a fund at least equal to the
aggregate salaries of the congressmen from the same state, this fund
to be used exclusively for the purpose of discovering and
demonstrating profitable systems of permanent agriculture on every
type of soil? Why do we as a nation expend five hundred million
dollars annually for the development of the army and navy, and only
fifteen millions for agriculture, the one industry whose ultimate
prosperity must measure the destiny of the nation?
"Moralists sometimes tell us that the fall of the Babylonian Empire,
the fall of the Egyptian Empire, of the Grecian Empire, and the
Roman Empire, were all due to the development of pride and
immorality among those peoples; whereas, we believe that
civilization tends rather toward peace, security, and higher
citizenship. Is not the chief explanation for the ultimate and
successive fall of those great empires to be found in the exhausted
or wasted agricultural resources of the country?
"The land that once flowed with milk and honey might then support a
mighty empire, with independent resources sufficient for times of
great emergencies, but now that land seems almost barren and
supports a few wandering bands of marauding Arabs and villages of
beggars.
"The power and world influence of a nation must pass away with the
passing of material resources; for poverty is helpless, and
ignorance is the inevitable result of continued poverty. Only the
prosperous can afford education or trained intelligence.
"Old land is poorer than new land. There are exceptions, but this is
the rule. The fact is known and recognized by all America.
"What does it mean? It means that the practice of the past and
present art of agriculture leads toward land ruin,--not only in
China, where famine and starvation are common, notwithstanding that
thousands and thousands of Chinese are employed constantly in saving
every particle of fertilizing material, even gathering the human
excrements from every house and by-place in village and country, as
carefully as our farmers gather honey from their hives; not only in
India where starvation's ghost is always present, where, as a rule,
there are more hungry people than the total population of the United
States; not only in Russia where famine is frequent; but, likewise
in the United States of America, the present practice of the art of
agriculture tends toward land ruin.
"Nations rise and fall; so does the productive power of vast areas
of land. Better drainage, better seed, better implements, and more
thorough tillage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend
toward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger crops only
hastens soil depletion.
"To bring about the adoption of systems of farming that will restore
our depleted Eastern and Southern soils, and that will maintain or
increase the productive power of our remaining fertile lands of the
Great Central West, where we are now producing half of the total
corn crop of the entire world, is not only the most important
material problem of the United States; but to bring this about is
worthy of, and will require, the best thought of the most
influential men of America. Without a prosperous agriculture here
there can be no permanent prosperity for our American institutions.
While some small countries can support themselves by conducting
trade, commerce, and manufacture, for other countries, American
agriculture must not only be self-supporting, but, in large degree,
agriculture must support our other great industries.
"Without agriculture, the coal and iron would remain in the earth,
the forest would be left uncut, the railroads would be abandoned,
the cities depopulated, and the wooded lands and water-ways would
again be used only for hunting and fishing. Shall we not remember,
for example, that the coal mine yields a single harvest--one
crop--and is then forever abandoned; while the soil must yield a
hundred--yes, a thousand crops, and even then it must be richer and
more productive than at the beginning, if those who come after us
are to continue to multiply and replenish the earth.
"Even the best possible system of soil improvement, we must admit,
is not the absolute and final solution of this, the most stupendous
problem of the United States. If war gives way to peace and
pestilence to science, then the time will come when the soils of
America shall reach the limit of the highest productive power
possible to be permanently maintained, even by the general adoption
of the most practical scientific methods; and before that limit is
reached, if power, progress, and plenty are to continue in our
beloved country, there must be developed and enforced the law of the
survival of the fittest; otherwise there is no ultimate future for
America different from that of China, India, and Russia, the only
great agricultural countries comparable to the United States. An
enlightened humanity must grant to all the right to live, but the
reproduction and perpetuation of the unfit can never be an absolute
and inalienable right.
"Under the present laws and customs, a man may spend half his life
in the insane asylum or in the penitentiary, and still be the father
of a dozen children with degenerate tendencies. There should be no
reproduction from convicted criminals, insane persons, and other
degenerates. Thieves, grafters, bribers and bribe-takers all belong
in the same class, and it should not be left possible for them to
reproduce their kind. They are a burden upon the public which the
public must bear, but the public is under no obligation to permit
their multiplication. The children of such should never become the
parents of others. It is a crime against both the child and the
public.
"No doubt you will consider this extremely visionary, and so it is;
but unless America can see a vision somewhat like this, a population
that is doubling three or four times each century, and an area of
depleted soils that is also increasing at a rapid rate will combine
to bring our Ship of State into a current against which we may
battle in vain; for there is not another New World to bring new
wealth, new prosperity, and new life and light after another period
of 'Dark Ages.'
"Whether we shall ever apply any such intelligence to the possible
improvement of our own race as we have in the great improvement of
our cattle and corn is, of course, an open question; but to some
extent you will agree that the grafter and the insane, like the
poet, are born and not made. Of course there are, and always will
be, marked variations, mutants, or 'sports,' but, nevertheless,
natural inheritance is the master key to the improvement of every
form of life; and it is an encouraging fact that some of the states,
as Indiana, for example, have already adopted laws looking toward
the reduction of the reproduction of convicted degenerates."
CHAPTER XVI
PAST SELF REDEMPTION
"BUT I have rambled far from the subject assigned me," Percy
continued.
"That's only because I interrupt and ask so many side questions,"
replied Mr. Thornton, "but I hope yet to learn more about those
'suitable conditions' for nitrogen-fixation and nitrification. It
begins to look as though the nitrogen cycle deviates a good deal
from a true circle, and nature seems to need some help from us to
make that element circulate as fast as we need it. I confess, too,
that this method appeals to me much more than the
twenty-cent-a-pound proposition of the fertilizer agent."
"Yes, indeed," added Miss Russell; "and if we had to spend three
dollars an acre on this farm our 'Slough of Despond' would be worse
than the slough, or swamp, Mr. Johnston has told us about."
"I fear the practical and profitable improvement of an acre of this
land is more likely to cost thirty dollars than three," said Percy.
"Oh, for the land's sake!" came the ejaculation.
"Yes, 'for the land's sake,'" repeated Percy; "and for the sake of
those who must depend upon the land for their support for all time
hereafter."
"How ridiculous! Thirty dollars an acre for the improvement of land
that will not bring ten dollars to begin with!"
"It is better to look at the other end of the undertaking," said
Percy. "Suppose you invest thirty dollars an acre and in a few years
make your ten-dollar land produce as much as our two-hundred dollar
land!"
"But, Mr. Johnston; do you realize how much money it would require
to expend thirty dollars an acre on nine hundred acres?" continued
Miss Russell, with stronger accentuation.
"Twenty-seven thousand dollars," was the simple reply.
"Well, Sir," she said, "you are welcome to this whole farm for ten
thousand dollars."
"I am not wishing for it," he answered. "In fact I would not take
this farm as a gift, if I were obliged to keep it and pay the taxes
and had no other property or source of income."
"That's just the kind of talk I've been putting up to these girls,"
said Mr. Thornton. "By the time we live and pay about two hundred
dollars a year taxes on all this land, I tell you, there is nothing
left; and we'd been worse off than we are, except for the sale we
made to the railroad company."
"Well, the Russells lived here very well for more than a hundred
years," she retorted, "and my grandfather supported one nigger for
every ten acres of the farm, but I would like to know any farmers
about here who can put thirty dollars an acre, or even ten dollars
an acre, back into their soil for improvement."
"The problem is indeed a serious one," said Percy. "Unquestionably
much of the land in these older states is far past the point of
possible self-redemption under the present ownership. Land from
which the fertility has been removed by two hundred years of
cropping, until it has ceased to return a living to those who till
it, cannot have its fertility restored sufficiently to again make
its cultivation profitable, except by making some considerable
investment in order to replace those essential elements the supply
of which has become so limited as to limit the crop yields to a
point where their value is below the cost of production. Even on the
remaining productive lands in the North Central States, if we are
ever to adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be done
while the landowners are still prosperous. If the people of the corn
belt repeat the history of the Eastern States until their lands
cease to return a profit above the total cost of production, then
they, too, will have nothing left to invest in the improvement of
their lands."
"But their fertility could still be restored by outside capital?"
suggested Mr. Thornton. "I know very well that is the only solution
of our problem."
"Well, Tom, I would like to know where the outside capital is coming
from," said Miss Russell.
"Marry rich," he replied. "Don't make such a blunder as your sister
did."
"I fear that Mr. Johnston will suggest that we sell some more land,"
remarked Mrs. Thornton.
"All right," replied her sister; "and we will sell it to him. If he
won't take the whole farm as a gift, we'll cut it to any length he
wishes. Do you consider 'Ten Acres Enough,' Mr. Johnston; or would
you prefer 'Three Acres and Liberty?' We'll do our best to enable
you to enjoy 'The Fat of the Land.' Just tell us how large a farm
you want, I know already that you do not want nine hundred acres."
"My dear Miss Russell," said Percy. "This is so sudden"; whereupon
Mr. Thornton nearly fell from his chair and Mrs. Thornton laughed
heartily at the sister's expense who blushed as she might have done
twenty years before.
"However," Percy resumed, "if you should decide to dispose of about
half of that seven hundred acres which you use only as a safety bank
for most of your two hundred dollars in taxes, please consider me a
prospective taker."
"Take her," said Mr. Thornton, and again confusion reigned.
"Tom is so anxious to get rid of his sister-in-law that he reminds
me of the man whose mother-in-law died," said Miss Russell. "He was
too far from home to return to the usual funeral, and they
telegraphed him the sad news and asked if they should embalm,
cremate, or bury the remains. He wired back: 'Embalm, cremate, and
bury'"
"That matter of outside capital is by no means so substantial as it
might seem," said Percy. "It is worth while to consider how little
real wealth there would be in America if the remaining rich lands
should become impoverished. The railroads would at once cease to pay
dividends, and those who are now millionaires in railroad stock
would find themselves on the rapid road to poverty. The manufacturer
of finished products from the raw materials raised on the farm, the
manufacturer of agricultural implements, and the great urban
population whose income is from the trade in raw materials and
manufactured goods would soon see their wealth shrivel. The great
sky scrapers of the cities would be left for the owls and bats to
harbor in, if our agricultural lands ceased to yield their great
harvests. Meanwhile the farming people would continue to live upon
the meager products still produced from the impoverished soil, even
though they had no surplus food to ship into the cities. Human labor
would replace that of domestic animals on the farm, just as it has
done in China and India, in part because man's labor is worth more
than that of the beast, when measured only by the amount of food
consumed, and in part because a thousand bushels of grain will
support five times as many people can be supported for the same time
upon the animal products that could be produced by feeding the
grain."
"Oh, that is such a gloomy view to take of it," said Miss Russell.
"And all the world loves an optimist," replied Percy laughingly.
"Soils do not wear out; there is no poor land; the farms are better
and the crops larger than ever before; and we are the people of the
world's greatest nation, with an assured future glory which
surposses all conception."
"As soon as we get the canal dug," suggested Mr. Thornton.
"Yes, we will surely be able to dig that Panama ditch," said Percy;
"and probably our resources will last to cut a gash or two in our
own interior, if we don't build too many battle ships. You know
Egypt built three great pyramids before her resources became reduced
to such an extent that the people required all their energies to
secure a living."
CHAPTER XVII
MORE PROBLEMS
"NOW let us give Mr. Johnston a chance to tell us about the nitrogen
problem," said Mr. Thornton. "I'm pretty well satisfied with the
natural circulation of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; but I want to
understand all I can of the practical methods of securing and
utilizing nitrogen; and we have heard almost nothing about the other
six essential elements which the soil must furnish. Let me see.--I
think you said that iron, calcium, magnesium and potassium are
usually abundant in the soil, while phosphorus and sulfur are very
limited."
"Yes, that is the rule under general or average conditions, but it
should be stated that the amount of sulfur required by plants is
very small as compared with phosphorus, a difference which places a
great distinction between them. Besides considerable quantities of
sulfur are returned to the air in the combustion of coal and organic
matter, and this returns to the soil in rain. The information thus
far secured shows that sulfur rarely if ever limits the crop yields
under field conditions; and the same may be said of iron, which is
required by plants in very small amount and is contained in
practically all soils in enormous quantities.
"While normal soils contain abundance of potassium, with about half
as much calcium and one-fourth as much magnesium; yet, when measured
by crop requirements for plant food, the supplies of these three
elements are not markedly different. On the other hand, about 300
pounds of calcium are lost per acre per annum by leaching from good
soils in humid climates, compared with about 10 pounds of potasssium
and intermediate amounts of magnesium; so that, of these three
elements, calcium requires by far the most consideration and
potassium the least, even aside from the use of limestone to correct
or prevent soil acidity.
"Among the conditions essential for nitrification may be mentioned
the presence of free oxygen and limestone; and of course all
bacteria require certain food materials, resembling other plants in
this respect."
"Are they plants?" asked Mrs. Thornton. "I thought they were tiny
little animals."
"No, they are classified as plants," replied Percy; "but the
scientists have difficulty with some of the lower organism to decide
whether they are plants or animals. The college boys used to say
that some animals were plants in the botanical department and
animals again when they studied zoology. Orton says it is easy to
tell a cow from a cabbage, but impossible to assign any absolute,
distinctive character which will divide animal life from plant life.
"The oxygen is essential for nitrification, because that is an
oxidation process. That is, it is a kind of combustion, so to speak.
The organic matter is oxidized or converted into substances
containing more oxygen than in the original form. In ammonification
the carbon is separated or divorced from the nitrogen and united
with oxygen. Some of the hydrogen of the organic matter remains
temporarily with the carbon, and some is held temporarily with the
nitrogen in the form of ammonia.
"The nitrite bacteria replace two of the hydrogen atoms in ammonia
with one of oxygen, and insert another oxygen atom between the
nitrogen and the remaining hydrogen, thus forming nitrous acid;
H-O-N=O, or HNO2.
"The nitrate bacteria then cause the direct addition of another
oxygen atom, which is held by the two extra bonds of the nitrogen
atom, which you will remember is a five-handed atom.
"Thus you will see the absolute need of free oxygen in the
nitrification process; and we can control the rate of nitrification
to a considerable extent by our methods of tillage. In soils
deficient in organic matter, excessive cultivation may still
liberate sufficient nitrogen for a fairly satisfactory crop; and the
benefits of such excessive cultivation for potatoes and other
vegetables is more often due to increased nitrification than to the
conservation of moisture, to which it is frequently ascribed by
agricultural writers.
"Thus the more we cultivate, the more we hasten the nitrification,
oxidation, or destruction of the organic matter or humus of the
soil. Where the soil is well supplied with decaying organic matter,
we rarely need to cultivate in a humid section like this, except for
the purpose of killing weeds.
"The presence of carbonates in the soil is essential for
nitrification, because the bacteria will not continue the process in
the presence of their own product. Nitrification ceases if the
nitrous or nitric acid remains as such; but, in the presence of
carbonates such as calcium carbonate (ordinary limestone) or the
double carbonate of magnesium and calcium (magnesian limestone, or
dolomite), the nitrous acid or nitric acid is converted into a
neutral salt of calcium or magnesium, one of these atoms taking the
place of two hydrogen atoms and forming, say, calcium nitrate:
Ca(NO3)2. At the same time the hydrogen atoms take the place of the
calcium in limestone ( CaC03), and form carbonic acid (H2CO3), which
at once decomposes into water (H2O) and carbon dioxid (CO2), which
thus escapes as a gas into the air or remains in the pores of the
soil.
"The fact that nitrification will not proceed in the presence of
acid reminds us that only a certain degree of acidity can be
developed in sour milk. Here the lactic acid bacteria produce the
acid from milk sugar, but the process stops when about seven-tenths
of one per cent. of lactic acid has developed. If some basic
substance, such as lime, is then added, the acid is neutralized and
the fermentation again proceeds.
"In the general process of decay and oxidation of the organic matter
of the soil, the nitrogen thus passes through the forms of ammonia,
nitrous acid, and nitric acid, and at the same time the carbon
passes into various acid compounds, including the complex humic and
ulmic acids, and smaller amounts of acetic acid (found in vinegar),
lactic acid, oxalic acid (found in oxalic), and tartaric acid (found
in grapes). The final oxidation products of the carbon and hydrogen
are carbon dioxid and water, which result from the decomposition of
the carbonic acid.
"Now the various acids of carbon and nitrogen constitute one of the
most important factors in soil fertility. They are the means by
which the farmer can dissolve and make available for the growing
crops the otherwise insoluble mineral elements, such as iron,
calcium, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are contained in
most soils in great abundance. These elements exist in the soil
chiefly in the form of insoluble silicates. Silicon itself is a
four-handed element which bears somewhat the same relation to the
mineral matter of the soil as carbon bears to the organic matter.
Quartz sand is silicon dioxid (SiO2). Oxygen, which is present in
nearly all substances, including air, water, and most solids,
constitutes about one-half of all known matter. Silicon is next in
abundance, amounting to more than one-fourth of the solid crust of
the earth. Aluminum is third in abundance (about seven per cent),
aluminum silicate being common clay. Iron, calcium, potassium,
sodium, and magnesium, in this order, complete the eight abundant
elements, which aggregate about ninety-eight per cent. of the solid
crust of the earth.
"It is worth while to know that about two and one-half per cent. of
the earth's crust is potassium, while about one-tenth of one per
cent. is phosphorus; also that when a hundred bushels of corn are
sold from the farm, seventeen pounds of phosphorus, nineteen of
potassium, and seven of magnesium are carried away.
"The acids formed from the decaying organic matter not only liberate
for the use of crops the mineral elements contained in the soil in
abundance, but they also help to make available the phosphorus of
raw phosphate, when naturally contained in the soil, as it is to
some extent in all soils, or when applied to the soil in the
fine-ground natural phosphate from the mines.
"Now the increase or decrease of organic matter in the soil is
measured with a very good degree of satisfaction by the element
nitrogen, which is a regular constituent of the organic matter of
the soil; and you are already familiar, Mr. Thornton, with the
amounts of nitrogen contained in average farm manure and in some of
our most common crops."
"Yes, Sir, I have some of the figures in my note book and I mean to
have them in my head very soon. But, say, that organic matter seems
to be a thing of tremendous importance, and I'm sure we've got
mighty little of it. I think about the only thing we'll need to do
to make this old farm productive again is to grow the vegetation and
plow it under. As it decays, it will furnish the nitrogen, and
liberate the phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium; and we
may have plenty of all of them just waiting to be liberated."
"That is altogether possible," said Percy; "but it must be
remembered that your soil is acid and consequently will not grow
clover or alfalfa successfully, or even cowpeas very satisfactorily.
A liberal use of ground limestone and large use of clover may be
sufficient to greatly improve your soil; but if I am permitted to
separate Miss Russell and the Thorntons "--Mr. Thornton's hilarious
"Ha, ha" cut Percy short. He crimsoned and the ladies smiled at each
other with expressions that revealed nothing whatever.
"Now let me finish," Percy continued, when Mr. Thornton had somewhat
subsided. "I say, if I am permitted to separate Miss Russell and the
Thorntons from about three hundred acres of their land, I shall
certainly wish to know its total content of phosphorus, potassium,
magnesium, and calcium, before I make any purchase; and, if you will
remember the pot cultures and the peaty swamp land, I think you'd
agree with me.
"Well, I shall be mighty glad to know that myself," said Mr.
Thornton, "and we shall much appreciate it if you can tell us how
to secure that information."
"We can collect some soil to-morrow," Percy replied, "and send it to
a chemist for analysis."
"Good," said Mr. Thornton; "now just one more question, and I think
I shall sleep better if I have it answered to-night. Just what is
meant by potash and phosphoric acid?"
"Potash," said Percy, "is a compound of potassium and oxygen. The
proportions are one atom of oxygen and two atoms of potassium, which
you may remember are single-handed and weigh thirty-nine, so that
seventy-eight of potassium unite with sixteen of oxygen. A better
name for the compound is potassium oxid: K20. The Latin name for
potassium is kalium, and K is the symbol used for an atom of that
element. If you were to purchase potassium in the form of potassium
chlorid, which in the East is often called by the old incorrect name
'muriate of potash,' the salt might be guaranteed to contain a
certain percentage of potash, which, however, consists of
eighty-three per cent. of potassium and seventeen of oxygen."
"Just what is this potassium chlorid, or 'muriate of potash'?"
"Pure potassium chlorid contains only the two elements, potassium
and chlorin."
"But didn't you say that it was guaranteed to contain potash and
that potash is part oxygen? Now you say it contains only potassium
and chlorin."
"Yes, I am sorry to say, that this is one of those blunders of our
semi-scientific ancestors for which we still suffer. The chemist
understands that the meaning of the guarantee of potash is the
amount of potash that the potassium present in the potassium chlorid
could be converted into. The best you can do is to reduce the potash
guarantee to potassium by taking eighty-three per cent. of it; or,
to be more exact, divide by ninety-four and multiply by
seventy-eight, in order to eliminate the sixteen parts of oxygen.
"It may be well to keep in mind that when the druggist says potash
he means potassium hydroxid, KOH, a compound of potassium, hydrogen,
and oxygen, as the name indicates."
"You mentioned the word chlorin," said Mr. Thornton. "That is
another element?"
"Yes, that is a very common element. Ordinary table salt is sodium
chlorid: NaCl. Sodium is called natrium in Latin, and Na is the
symbol used in English to be in harmony with all other languages,
for practically all use the same chemical symbols. Sodium and
potassium are very similar elements in some respects, and in the
free state they are very peculiar, apparently taking fire when
thrown into water. Chlorin in the free state is a poisonous gas.
Thus the change in properties is well illustrated when these two
dangerous elements, sodium and chlorin, unite to form the harmless
compound which we call common salt.
"It is a shame," continued Percy, "that agricultural science has so
long been burdened with such a term as 'phosphoric acid,' which
serves to complicate and confuse what should be made the simplest
subject to every American farmer and landowner. As agriculture is
the fundamental support of America and of all her other great
industries, so the fertility of the soil is the absolute support of
every form of agriculture. Now, if there is any one factor that can
be the most important, where so many are positively essential, then
the most important factor in the problem of adopting and maintaining
permanent systems of profitable agriculture on American soils is the
element phosphorus.
"Phosphorus in very appreciable amount is positively necessary for
the growth of every organism. It is an absolutely essential
constituent of the nucleus of every living cell, whether plant or
animal. Nuclein, itself, which is the substance nearest to the
beginning of a new cell, contains as high as ten per cent. of the
element phosphorus.
"On the other hand, phosphorus is the most limited of all the plant
food elements, measured by supply and demand and circulation.
"What is phosphoric acid? Well, the professor of chemistry says it
is a compound containing three atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus,
and four of oxygen. It is a syrupy liquid and one of the strongest
mineral acids. In concentrated form it is as caustic as oil of
vitriol. Why, here you have a Century dictionary. That should tell
what phosphoric acid is. This is what the Century says:
"'It is a colorless, odorless syrup, with an intensely sour taste.
It is tribasic, forming three distinct classes of metallic salts.
The three atoms of hydrogen may in like manner be replaced by
alcohol radicles, forming acid and neutral ethers. Phosphoric acid
is used in medicine as a tonic.'
"That," continued Percy, "is the complete definition as given by the
Century dictionary as to what phosphoric acid is, and I note that
this is the latest edition of the Century, copyrighted in 1902."
"We bought it less than a month ago," said Mrs. Thornton. "We can
have so few books that we thought the Century would be a pretty good
library in itself; Mr. Thornton has had too little time to use it
much as yet."
"Well, even if I had used it," said Mr. Thornton, "you see there are
five volumes before I'd get to the P's. But, joking aside, I don't
get much out of that definition except that phosphoric acid is a
sour liquid and is used in medicine."
"The definition is entirely correct," said Percy "Any text on
chemistry will give you a very similar definition, and your
physician and druggist will give you the same information."
"Well, I know the fertilizer agents claim to sell phosphoric acid in
two-hundred-pound bags which wouldn't hold any kind of liquid."
"True," replied Percy, "and I consider it a shame that the farm boy
who goes to the high school or college and is there taught exactly
what phosphoric acid is, must. when he returns to the farm, try to
read bulletins from his agricultural experiment station in which the
term 'phosphoric acid' is used for what it is not. At the state
agricultural college, the professor of chemistry correctly teaches
the farm boy that phosphoric acid is a liquid compound containing
three atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus, and four of oxygen in
the molecule; and then the same professor, as an experiment station
investigator, goes to the farmers' institutes and incorrectly
teaches the same boy's father that phosphoric acid is a solid
compound pound containing two atoms of phosphorus and five atoms of
oxygen in the molecule."
"But why do they continue to teach such confusion?"
"Well, Sir, if they know, they never tell. In some manner this
misuse of the name was begun, and every year doubles the difficulty
of stopping it."
"Like the man that was too lazy to stop work when he had once
begun," remarked Mr. Thornton.
"Yes," said Percy, "but it is true that some of the States have
adopted the practice of reporting analyses of soils and fertilizers
on the basis of nitrogen instead of ammonia; and in the Corn Belt
States, phosphorus and potassium are the terms used to a large
extent instead of 'phosphoric acid,' and potash. The agricultural
press is greatly assisting in bringing about the adoption of the
simpler system, and the laws of some States now require that the
percentages of the actual plant food elements, as nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium, shall be guaranteed in fertilizers
offered for sale. It is one of those questions that are never
settled until they are settled right; and it is only a question of
time until the simple element basis will be used throughout the
United States, or at least in the Central and Western States."
"The so-called 'phosphoric acid' of the fertilizer agent is a
compound whose molecule contains two atoms of phosphorus and five
atoms of oxygen; and, since the atomic weight of phosphorus is
thirty-one and that of oxygen sixteen, this compound contains
sixty-two parts of phosphorus and eighty parts of oxygen. In other
words, this phosphoric acid, falsely so-called, contains a trifle
less than forty-four per cent. of the actual element phosphorus."
"Is the bone phosphate of lime that the agents talk about the same
as the 'phosphoric acid'?" asked Mr. Thornton.
"No, by 'bone phosphate of lime,' which is often abbreviated B. P.
L., is meant tricalcium phosphate, a compound which contains exactly
twenty per cent. of phosphorus. Thus, you can always divide the
guaranteed percentage of 'bone phosphate of lime' by five, and the
result will be the per cent. of phosphorus.
"As stated in your Century dictionary, true phosphoric acid forms
three distinct classes of salts, because either one, two, or all of
the three hydrogen atoms may be replaced by a metallic element.
Thus, we have phosphoric acid itself containing the three hydrogen
atoms, one phosphorus atom, and four oxygen atoms. This might be
called trihydrogen phosphate (H3PO4). Now if one of the hydrogen
atoms is replaced by one potassium atom, we have potassium
dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4); with two potassium atoms and one
hydrogen, we have dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4); and if
all hydrogen is replaced by potassium the compound is tripotassium
phosphate (K3PO4). To make similar salts with two-handed metallic
elements, like calcium or magnesium, we need to start with two
molecules of phosphoric acid H6(PO4)2; because each atom of calcium
will replace two hydrogen atoms. Thus we have mono calcium
phosphate, CaH4(PO4)2, dicalcium phosphate, Ca2H2(PO4)2, and
tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2. It goes without saying that
monocalcium phosphate contains four atoms of hydrogen and that
dicalcium phosphate contains two hydrogen atoms. By knowing the
atomic weights (40 for calcium, 31 for phosphorus, and 16 for
oxygen), it is easy to compute that the molecule of tricalcium
phosphate weighs 310 of which 62 is phosphorus. This is exactly
one-fifth, or twenty per cent. This compound you will remember is
sometimes called 'bone phosphate of lime'. It is also called simply
'bone phosphate'; because it is the phosphorus compound contained in
bones. It is sometimes called lime phosphate, although it contains
no lime in the true sense, for it has no power to neutralize acid
soils, except when the phosphorus is taken up by plants more rapidly
than the calcium, which in such case might remain in the soil to act
as a base to neutralize soil acids; but even then the effect of the
small amount of calcium thus liberated from the phosphate would be
very insignificant compared with a liberal application of ground
limestone."
"Well," said Mr. Thornton, stretching himself, "orange phosphate is
my favorite drink but I fear some of these phosphate you have just
been giving me are too concentrated. I ought to have the dose
diluted; but I like the taste of it, and if you'll write a book
along this line, in this plain way just about as you have been
giving it to me straight for almost twelve hours, I tell you I'll
read it over till I learn to understand it a heap better than I do
now."
CHAPTER XVIII
CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH
THE following day Percy collected soil samples to represent the
common type of soil on the farm. In the main the land was nearly
level and very uniform, although here and there were small areas
which varied from the main type, and in places the variation was
marked. Percy and his host devoted the entire day to an examination
of the soils of the farm and the collection of the samples.
"The prevailing soil type is what would be called a loam," said
Percy, "and a single set of composite samples will fairly represent
at least three-fourths of the land on this farm.
"It seems to me that it is enough for the present to sample this
prevailing type, and later, if you desire, you could collect samples
of the minor types, of which there are at least three that are quite
distinct."
"A loam soil is one that includes a fair proportion of the several
groups of soil materials, including silt, clay, and sand."
"What is silt?" asked Mr. Thornton.
"Silt consists of the soil particles which are finer than sand,--too
small in fact to be felt as soil grains by rubbing between the
fingers, and yet it is distinctly granular, while clay is a mere
plastic or sticky mass like dough. What are commonly called clay
soils consist largely of silt, but contain enough true clay to bind
the silt into a stiff mass. In the main such soils are silt loams,
but when deficient in organic matter they are yellow in color as a
rule, and all such material is usually called clay by the farmers."
"Well, I had no idea that it would take us a whole day to get enough
dirt for an analysis," remarked Mr. Thornton, as they were
collecting the samples late in the afternoon. "Five minutes would
have been plenty of time for me, before I saw the holes you've bored
to-day."
"The fact is," replied Percy, "that the most difficult work of the
soil investigator is to collect the samples. Of course any one could
fill these little bags with soil in five minutes, but the question
is, what would the soil represent? It may represent little more than
the hole it came out of, as would be the case where the soil had
been disturbed by burrowing animals, or modified by surface
accumulations, as where a stack may sometime have been burned. In
the one case the subsoil may have been brought up and mixed with the
surface, and in the other the mineral constituents taken from forty
acres in a crop of clover may have been returned to one-tenth of an
acre."
"Certainly such things have occurred on many farms," agreed Mr.
Thornton, "and they may have occurred on this farm for all any one
knows."
"Fifty tons of clover hay," continued Percy, after making a few
computations, "would contain 400 pounds of phosphorus, 2400 pounds
of potassium, 620 pounds of magnesium, and 2340 pounds of calcium."
"I don't see how you keep all those figures in your head," said Mr.
Johnston.
"How many pounds are there in a ton of hay?" asked Percy.
"Two thousand."
"How many pounds in a bushel of oats?"
"Thirty in Virginia, but thirty-two in Carolina."
"How many in a bushel of wheat?"
"Sixty"
"Corn?"
"Fifty-six pounds of shelled corn, or seventy pounds of ears."
"Potatoes?"
"Eighty-six pounds,--both kinds the same, but most States require
sixty pounds for the Irish potatoes."
Percy laughed. "You see," he said, "you have more figures in your
head than I have in mine. You have mentioned twice as many right
here, without a moment's hesitation, as I try to remember for the
plant food contained in clover. I like to keep in mind the
requirements of large crops, such as it is possible to raise under
our climatic conditions if we will provide the stuff the crops are
made of, so far as we need to, and do the farm work as it should be
done. I never try to remember how much plant food is required for
twenty-two bushels of corn per acre, which is the average yield of
Virginia for the last ten years, while an authentic record reports a
yield of 239 bushels from an acre of land in South Carolina. On our
little farm in Illinois we have one field of sixteen acres, which
was used for a pasture and feed lot for many years by my grandfather
and has been thoroughly tile-drained since I was born, that has
produced as high as 2,015 bushels of corn in one season, thus making
an average of 126 bushels per acre.
"What I try to remember is the plant food requirements for such
crops as we ought to try to raise, if we do what ought to be done. I
try to remember the plant food required for a hundred-bushel crop of
corn, a hundred-bushel crop of oats, a fifty-bushel crop of wheat,
and four tons of clover hay. It is an easy matter to divide these
amounts by two, as I have really been doing here in the East where
it is hard for people to think in terms of such crops as these lands
ought to be made to produce.
"The requirements of the clover crop I certainly want to have in
mind as a part of my little stock of ever-ready knowledge. It is not
very hard to remember that a four-ton crop of clover hay, which we
ought to harvest from one acre in two cuttings, contains:
160 pounds of nitrogen,
31 pounds of magnesium,
20 pounds of phosphorus,
120 pounds of potassium,
117 pounds of calcium.
"It is just as easy to think in these terms as in per cent. or
pounds of butter fat, which I understand is the basis on which you
sell your cream."
"Yes, I believe you are right in this matter, Mr. Johnston, but I
have never been able to see how we could apply the figures reported
from chemical analysis."
"Neither do I see how any one but a chemist could make much use of
the reports which the analyst usually publishes. Such reports will
usually show the percentages of moisture and so-called 'phosphoric
acid,' for example, in a sample of clover hay, and perhaps the
percentages of these constituents in a sample of soil; but to
connect the requirements of the clover crop with the invoice of the
soil demand more of a mental effort than I was prepared for before I
went to the agricultural college.
"On the other hand we were taught in college that the plowed soil of
an acre of our most common Illinois corn belt land contains only
1200 pounds of phosphorus, and that a hundred-bushel crop of corn
takes twenty-three pounds of phosphorus out of the soil. Furthermore
that about one pound of phosphorus per acre is lost annually in
drainage water in humid regions. By dividing 1200 by 24 it is easy
to see that fifty corn crops such as we ought to try to raise would
require as much phosphorus as the present supply in our soil to a
depth of about seven inches. Of course there is some phosphorus
below seven inches, but it is the plowed soil we must depend upon to
a very large extent. The oldest agricultural experiment station in
the world is at Rothamsted, England. On two plots of ground in the
same field where wheat has been grown every year for sixty years,
the soil below the plow line has practically the same composition,
but on one plot the average yield for the last fifty years has been
thirteen bushels per acre, while on the other the yield of wheat has
averaged thirty-seven bushels for the same fifty years."
"The same kind of wheat?" inquired Mr. Thornton.
"Yes, and great care has always been taken to have these two plots
treated alike in all respects, save one."
"And what was that?"
"Plant food was regularly incorporated with the plowed soil of the
high-yielding plot."
"You mean that farm manure was used?"
"No, not a pound of farm manure has been used on that plot for more
than sixty years; and, furthermore, the two plots were very much
alike at the beginning; but, to the high-yielding plot, nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sulfur have all been
applied in suitable compounds every year."
"That is to say," observed Mr. Thornton, "that the land itself has
produced thirteen bushels of wheat per acre and the plant food
applied has produced twenty four bushels, making the total yield
thirty-seven bushels on the fertilized land."
"That is certainly a fair way to state it," replied Percy.
" Well, that sounds as though something might be done with run-down
lands. About what part of the twenty-four bushels increase would it
take to pay for the fertilizers?"
"About 150 per cent. of it," Percy replied.
"One hundred and fifty per cent! Why, you can't have more than a
hundred per cent. of anything."
"Oh, yes, you can. The twenty-four bushels are one hundred per cent.
of what the fertilizers produced, and the land itself increased this
by fifty per cent., so that the fertilized land produced one hundred
and fifty per cent. of the increase from the plant food applied.
"Well, that's too much college mathematics for me; but do you mean
to say that it would take the whole thirty-seven bushels to pay for
the plant food that produced the increase of twenty-four bushels?"
"That is exactly what I mean. I see that you do not like percentage
any better than I do. Really the acre is the best agricultural unit.
We buy and sell the land itself by the acre; we report crop yields
at so many bushels or tons per acre; we apply manure at so many
loads or tons per acre; we apply so many hundred pounds of
fertilizer per acre; sow our wheat and oats at so many pecks or
bushels per acre; and we ought to know the invoice of plant food in
the plowed soil of an acre and the amounts carried off in the crops
removed from an acre.
"Now, referring again to these figures from the forty acres of
clover at two tons per acre. If the eighty tons were burned and the
ashes mixed with the surface soil on a tenth of an acre the increase
per acre would be as follows:
4,000 pounds of phosphorus
24,000 pounds of potassium
6,200 pounds of magnesium
23,400 pounds of calcium.
"These, remember, are the amounts per acre that would be added to
the soil by burning the eighty tons of clover on one-tenth of an
acre.
"Now compare these figures with the total amounts of the same
elements contained in the common corn belt prairie soil of Illinois,
which are as follows:
1,200 pounds of phosphorus
35,000 pounds of potassium
8,600 pounds of magnesium
5,400 pounds of calcium.
"From these figures you will see that the analysis of a single
sample of soil collected from a spot of ground that had sometimes
received such an addition as this would be positively worse than
worthless, because it would give false information, and that is much
worse than no information.
"The methods of chemical analysis have been developed to a high
degree of accuracy, and it is not a difficult matter to find a
chemist who can make a correct analysis of the sample placed in his
hands; but the chief difficulties lie, first, in securing samples of
soil that will truly represent the type or types of soil on the
farm; and, second, in the interpretation of the results of analysis
with reference to the adoption of methods of soil improvement."
"Is the report of the analysis as confusing with respect to other
elements as with potassium and phosphorus, which, I understand, are
likely to be reported in terms of potash and a 'phosphoric acid'
that is not true phosphoric acid?"
"Still worse," Percy replied. "The calcium is commonly reported in
terms of lime, or, as you would say, quick lime; and vet the soil
may be an acid soil, like yours, and contain no lime whatever,
neither as quick lime nor limestone. I have seen an analysis
reporting half a per cent. of calcium oxid, which would make five
tons of quick lime in the plowed soil of an acre; whereas the soil
not only contained no lime whatever, but was so acid that it needed
five tons of ground limestone per acre to correct the acidity.
"The trouble is that when the chemist found calcium in the soil
existing in the form of acid silicate, or calcium hydrogen silicate,
he reported calcium oxid, or lime, in his analytical statement,
assuming apparently that the farmer would understand that the
analytical statement did not mean what it said."
"But some soils do contain lime, do they not?"
"Some soils contain limestone," replied Percy, "and the analysis of
such a soil should report the amount of limestone, or calcium
carbonate, based upon the actual determination of carbonate carbon
or carbon dioxid, which is a true measure of the basic property of
the soil, even though the limestone may be somewhat magnesian in
character."
For a set of soil samples. Percy collected soil from three different
strata. The first sample represented the surface stratum from the
top to six and two-third inches; the second sample represented the
subsurface stratum from six and two-thirds to twenty inches; and the
third sample represented the subsoil from twenty to forty inches,
each sample being a composite of about twenty borings.
In collecting these the hole was bored to six and two-third inches
and somewhat enlarged by scraping up and down with the auger, all of
the soil being put into a numbered bag. Then, the hole was extended
and the subsurface boring removed without touching the surface soil.
This boring to a depth of twenty inches was put into a second bag.
The hole was then enlarged to the twenty-inch depth but the
additional soil removed was discarded as a mixture of the surface
and subsurface strata. Finally the hole was extended to the
forty-inch depth and the subsoil from one groove of the auger was
put into a third bag. In this manner about an equal quantity of soil
was bagged from each stratum; and twenty such borings taken with an
auger about one inch in diameter make a sufficient quantity to
furnish to the chemist.
"Of course the surface soil is by far the most important," Percy
explained. "It represents just about the depth of earth that is
turned by the plow in good farming on normal soils; and it weighs
about two million pounds per acre. The subsurface stratum extending
from six and two-thirds to twenty inches in depth represents the
practical limit of subsoiling; and this stratum weighs about four
million pounds; while the subsoil stratum weighs about six million
pounds, where the soil is normal, such as loam, silt loam, clay
loam, or sandy loam. Pure sand soil weighs about one-fourth more,
while pure peat soil weighs only half as much as normal soil."
"I wish you would tell me," said Mr. Thornton, "what the fertilizers
cost that have been used on that Rothamsted wheat field."
"The annual application of nitrogen has been one hundred twenty-nine
pounds per acre," said Percy. "What will it cost?"
"Well, at twenty cents a pound, it would cost $25.80," was Mr.
Thornton's reply after he had figured a moment. "But why didn't they
grow clover and get the nitrogen from the air?"
"For two reasons," replied Percy. "First, when those classic
experiments were begun by Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert in
1844, it was not known that clover could secure the free nitrogen
from the air; and, second, the experiment was designed to discover
for certain whether wheat must be supplied with combined nitrogen,
by ascertaining the actual effect upon the yield of wheat of the
nitrogen applied."
"And what was the actual effect of the nitrogen?" questioned Mr.
Thornton. "How much did the wheat yield when they left out the
nitrogen and applied all the other elements?"
"Only fifteen bushels," was the reply.
"Only fifteen bushels! Only two bushels increase for all the other
elements, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium,--and I
remember you said that sulfur also was applied. Why didn't they
leave off all these other elements, and just use the nitrogen
alone?"
"They did on another plot in the same field."
"Oh, they did do that? What was the yield on that plot?"
"Only twenty bushels."
"Only twenty bushels! Well, that s mighty queer. How do you account
for that?"
"Does Mrs. Thornton sometimes make dough out of flour and milk?"
asked Percy.
"Another Yankee question, eh?" said Mr. Thornton. "I told my wife
once that I wished she could make the bread my mother used to make,
and she said she wished I could make the dough her father used to
make. Yes, my wife makes dough, a good deal more than I do, and she
makes it of flour and milk, when we aren't reduced to corn meal and
water."
"Can she make dough of flour alone?" continued Percy.
"No," replied Mr. Thornton.
"Nor of milk alone?"
"No."
"Well, wheat cannot be made of nitrogen alone, nor can it be made
without nitrogen. On Broadbalk field at Rothamsted, where the wheat
is grown, the soil is most deficient in the element nitrogen. In
other words, nitrogen is the limiting element for wheat on that
soil; and practically no increase can be made in the yield of wheat
unless nitrogen is added. However, some other elements are not
furnished by this soil in sufficient amount for the largest yield of
wheat, and these place their limitation upon the crop at twenty
bushels. To remove this second limitation requires that another
element, such as phosphorus, shall be supplied in larger amount than
is anually liberated in the soil under the system of farming
practiced."
"Yes, I see that," said Mr. Thornton, "it's like eating pancakes and
honey; the more cakes you have the more honey you want. I think I
can almost see my way through in this matter; we are to correct the
acid with limestone, to work the legumes for nitrogen, and turn
under everything we can to increase the organic matter, and if we
find that the soil won't furnish enough phosphorus, potassium,
magnesium, or calcium, even with the help of the decaying organic
matter to liberate them, why then it is up to us to increase the
supply of those elements."
"You must remember that the calcium will be supplied in the
limestone;" cautioned Percy. "And, if you use magnesian limestone,
you will thus supply both calcium and magnesium. Keep in mind that
_magnesian _only means that the limestone contains some _magnesium._
and that it is not a pure calcium carbonate. The purest magnesian
limestone consists of a double carbonate of calcium and magnesium,
called dolomite."
"But I have heard that magnesian lime is bad for soils," said Mr.
Thornton.
"That is true," Percy replied, "and so is ordinary lime bad for
soils. The Germans say: 'Lime makes the fathers rich but the
children poor.' The English saying is:
'Lime and lime without manure
Will make both farm and farmer poor.'
"Both of these national proverbs are correct for common, every-day
lime; but you know, do you not, that limestone soils are usually
very good and very durable soils?"
"That's what I've always heard," replied Mr. Thornton.
"Well, there is no danger whatever from using too much limestone;
and all the information thus far secured shows that magnesian
limestone is even better than the pure calcium limestone. I know two
Illinois farmers who are using large quantities of ground magnesian
limestone, and one of them has applied as much as twenty tons per
acre. On that land his corn crop was good for eighty bushels per
acre this year. Of course that heavy application was more than was
needed, but initial applications of four or five tons are very
satisfactory, and these should be followed by about two tons per
acre every four to six years."
Mr. Thornton took his guest to Blairville that evening as they had
planned and he assured Percy that should he decide to purchase land
in that section they would let him have three hundred acres of their
land at ten dollars an acre.
"I will let you know after I get the samples analyzed for you," said
Percy. "The price is low enough and the location ideal, but still I
want to have the invoice before I buy the goods. I will write you
about sending the samples to the chemist after I hear from some I
sent him from Montplain."
CHAPTER XIX
FROM RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON
THE next day Percy spent a few hours at the State Capitol in
Richmond, where he found the records of the State of much interest.
Thus he found that in practically every county there was more or
less land owned by the commonwealth, because of its complete
abandonment by former owners, and the failure of any one to buy when
sold by the state for taxes.
Under such conditions the title to the land returns to the State,
and after two years it may be sold by the State to any one desiring
to purchase and the former owner has no further right of redemption.
Some of these lands which are owned by the State, and on which the
State has received no taxes for many years, are still occupied by
their former owners or by "squatters"' and may continue to be so
occupied unless the land should be purchased from the State by some
one else who would demand full possession. Such purchasers, however,
are likely to be unpopular residents in the community, if the
transaction forces poor people from a place they have called home,
even though they had no legal right to occupy it.
Percy found that the report of the State Auditor showed that the
clerk of the court of Powhatan county had returned to the State
$1.05 "for sales of lands purchased by the commonwealth at tax
sales," while from Prince Edward county the State received a similar
revenue amounting to $17.39 for the same year. The total revenue to
the commonwealth from this source amounted to $667.85 for the year.
Contrasted with this was the revenue from "Redemption of Land,"
amounting to $27,436.38, suggesting something of the struggle of the
man to retain possession of his home before it becomes legally
possible for another to take it from him beyond redemption.
According to the records about a million acres of land are owned by
the Commonwealth of Virginia alone.
Percy decided to go to Washington to learn what definite information
he might obtain from the United States Department of Agriculture. On
the train for Washington he found himself sitting beside a Virginia
farmer.
"These lands remind me of our Western prairies," Percy remarked.
"You have some extensive areas of level or gently undulating
uplands."
"They don't remind me of the Western prairies, I can tell you," was
the reply. "I am a Westerner myself, or I was until eight years ago.
These lands look all right from the train when the crops are all
off, but I find that every patch of the earth's surface doesn't
always make a good farm. Why you can go from Danville, Illinois, to
Omaha, Nebraska, and stop anywhere in the darkest night and you're
mighty near sure to light on a good farm where one acre is worth ten
of this land along here."
"About what is this land worth?" asked Percy.
"Well, I thought six hundred acres of it was worth $5,000 about
eight years ago, especially as the buildings on the place were in
good repair and couldn't be built to-day for less than $6,000: but
right now I think I paid a plenty for my land. It's just back a few
miles at the station where I got on."
"How far is that from Washington?"
"About fifteen miles, I reckon, as the crow flies. My boy has a
telescope his uncle sent him and we can see the Monument on a clear
day."
"What monument?" asked Percy.
"Why, Washington's monument. Haven't you ever been to Washington?"
"No, this is my first visit. I am really thinking of buying a farm
somewhere here in the East. I have been in Richmond and learned a
great deal from the state reports, and I thought I might get more
information from the Department of Agriculture in Washington."
"Perhaps," said the man, "but my advice is to keep in mind that
there is a difference between buying land and buying a farm. I've
got land to sell, by the way. I thought I'd need it all when I
bought, but I can see now that I'll not need more'n half of it at
the most; so, if you want two or three hundred acres of this kind of
land right close here where you kind o' neighbor with the senators
and other upper tens, and run back and forth from the City in an
hour or so, why I think I can accommodate you. My name is
Sunderland, J. R. Sunderland, and you'll find me at home any day."
"How much would you sell part of your land for?" inquired Percy.
"Well, I'd kind o' hate to take less than ten dollars an acre for
it; but I think we can make a deal all right if you like the
location."
CHAPTER XX
A LESSON IN OPTIMISM
ABOUT nine o'clock the day following Percy's arrival in Washington
he sent his card into the office of the Secretary of Agriculture.
"Just step this way," said the boy on his return. "The Secretary
will see you at once."
A gentleman who appeared to be sixty, but was really several years
older, arose from his desk and greeted Percy very kindly.
"I see you are from Illinois, Mr. Johnston. I am an Iowa man myself,
and I am always glad to see any one from the corn belt. Do you know
we are going to beat the records this year? It is wonderful what
crops we grow in this country, and they are getting better every
year. We are growing more than two-thirds of the entire corn crop of
the globe, right here in these United States. Yes, Sir, and we are
just beginning to grow corn; and corn is only one of our important
agricultural products. Do you know that eighty-six per cent. of all
the raw materials used in all the manufactured products of this
country come from the farms of the United States; yes, Sir,
eighty-six per cent.
"Now, what can I do for you? I am very glad you called, and I will
be glad to serve you in any way you desire. By the way, how is the
corn turning out in your part of Illinois? Bumper crop, I have no
doubt."
"I think so," said Percy, "after seeing the crops here in the East.
"That's what I thought," continued the Secretary." A bumper crop,
the biggest we ever raised. Oh, they don't know how to raise corn
here in the East. They just grow corn, corn, corn, year after year;
and that will get any land out of fix. I found that out years ago in
Iowa. I am a farmer myself, as I suppose you know. I found you
couldn't grow corn on the same land all the time. But just rotate
the crops; put clover in the rotation; and then your ground will
make corn again, as good as ever."
"But I understand that clover refuses to grow on most of this
eastern land," said Percy.
"Oh, nonsense. They don't sow it. I tell you they don't sow it, and
they don't know how to raise it. It takes a little manure sometimes
to start it, but it will grow all right if they would only give it
half a chance. Why, for years the Iowa farmers said blue grass
wouldn't grow in Iowa. Yes, Sir, they just knew it wouldn't grow
there; and then I showed them that blue grass was actually growing
in Iowa,--actually growing along the roadsides almost
everywhere,--blue grass that would pasture a steer to the acre--just
came in of itself without being seeded. No, I tell you they don't
sow clover down here. They just say it won't grow and keep right on
planting corn, corn, corn, until the corn crop amounts to nothing,
and then they let the land grow up in brush."
"Now, I do not wish to take up more of your time," said Percy, "for
I know how busy a man you must be, but I am thinking of buying a
farm, or some land, here in the East and have come to you for
information. We have a small farm in Illinois and land is rather too
high-priced there to think of buying more; but I thought I could
sell at a good price, and buy a much larger farm here in the East
with part of the money and still have enough left to build it up
with; and, with the high price of all kinds of farm produce here, we
ought to make it pay."
"You can do it," said the Secretary. "No doubt of it. Any land that
ever was any good is all right yet if you'll grow clover, and you
can start that with a little manure if you need it. I have done it
in Iowa, and I know what I am talking about.
"Now my Bureau of Soils can give you just the information you want.
We are making a soil survey of the United States, and we have soil
maps of several counties right here in Maryland. You can take that
map and pick out any kind of land you want,--upland or bottom
land,--sandy soil, clay soil, loam, silt loam, or anything you
want."
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF
"SHOW this gentleman to the Bureau of Soils," said the Secretary to
the boy who came as he pushed a button.
"All the world loves an optimist," said Percy to himself as he
followed the boy to another office where he met the Chief of the
Bureau of Soils, who kindly furnished him with copies of the soil
maps of several counties, including two in Maryland, Prince George,
which adjoins the District of Columbia, and St. Mary county, which
almost adjoins Prince George on the South.
These maps were accompanied by extensive reports describing in some
detail the agricultural history of the counties and the general
observations that had been made by the soil surveyors.
"I desire to learn as much as I can regarding the most common upland
soils," Percy explained. "Not the rough or broken land, but the
level or undulating lands which are best suited for cultivation. I
am sure these maps and reports will be a very great help to me."
"I think you will find just what you are looking for," said the
Chief. "You can spread the maps out on the table there and let me
know if I can be of any assistance. You see the legend on the margin
gives you the name of every soil type, and the soils are fully
described in the reports. One of the most common uplands soils in
southern Prince George county is the Leonardtown loam, and this type
is also the most extensive soil type in St. Mary county.
"The same type is found in Virginia to some extent. While the soil
has been run down by improper methods of culture, it has a very good
mechanical composition and is really an excellent soil; but it needs
crop rotation and more thorough cultivation to bring it back into a
high state of fertility. The farmers are slow to take up advanced
methods here in the East. We have told them what they ought to do,
but they keep right on in the same old rut."
For two hours Percy buried himself with the maps and reports.
Finally the Chief came from his inner office, and finding Percy
still there asked if he had found such information as he desired.
"I find much of interest and value, but I do not find any complete
invoice of the plant food contained in these different kinds of
soil."
"You mean an ultimate chemical analysis of the soil?" asked the
Chief.
"Yes, a chemical analysis to ascertain the absolute amount of plant
food in the soil. I think of it as an invoice; but I see that you do
not report any such analyses."
"No, we do not," answered the Chief. "We have been investigating the
mechanical composition of soils, the chemistry of the soil solution,
and the adaptation of crop to soil. We find that farmers are not
growing the crops they should grow; namely, the crops to which their
soils are best adapted. For example, they try to grow corn on land
that is not adapted to corn."
"It seems to me," said Percy, "that our farmers are always trying to
find a crop that is adapted to their soil. Down in 'Egypt,' which
covers about one-third of Illinois, the farmers once raised so much
corn that the people from the swampy prairie went down there to buy
corn, and hence the name 'Egypt' became applied to Southern
Illinois. But there came a time when the soil refused to grow such
crops of corn; the farmers then found that wheat was adapted to the
soil. Later the wheat yields decreased until the crop became
unprofitable; and the farmers sought for another crop adapted to a
still more depleted soil. Timothy was selected, and for many years
it proved a profitable crop; but of late years timothy likewise has
decreased in yield until there must be another change; and now whole
sections of 'Egypt' are growing red top as the only profitable crop.
After red top, then what? I don't know, but it looks as though it
would be sprouts and scrub brush, and final land abandonment, a
repetition of the history of these old lands of Virginia and
Maryland."
"Well, can't they grow corn after red top?" asked the Chief.
"Many of them try it many times," replied Percy, "and the yield is
about twenty bushels per acre, whereas the virgin soil easily
produced sixty to eighty bushels."
"And they can't grow wheat as they once did?"
"No, wheat after timothy or red top now yields from five to twelve
bushels per acre, while they once grew twenty to thirty bushels of
wheat per acre year after year.
"If they rotate their crops, they would probably yield as well as
ever," said the Chief.
"No, that, too, has been tried," replied Percy. "The Illinois
Experiment Station has practiced a four-year rotation of corn,
cowpeas, wheat, and clover on an experiment field on the common
prairie soil down in 'Egypt,' and the average yield of wheat has
been only twelve bushels per acre during the last four years, but
when legume crops were plowed under and limestone and phosphorus
applied, the average yield during the same four years was
twenty-seven bushels per acre."
"Probably the increase was all produced by the green manure,"
suggested the Chief. "Organic matter has a great influence on the
control of the moisture supply."
"That was tested," said Percy. "The green manure alone increased the
average yield to only fourteen bushels while the green manure and
limestone together raised the average wheat yield to nineteen
bushels, the further increase to twenty-seven bushels having been
produced by the addition of phosphorus."
"Well, Sir," said the Chief, "we have made both extensive intensive
investigations concerning the chemistry of the soil solution by very
delicate and sensitive methods of analysis we have developed, and we
have also conducted culture experiments for twenty-day periods with
wheat seedlings in the water extract of soils from all parts of the
United States, and the results we have obtained have changed the
thought of the world as to the cause of the infertility of soils."
"But you have not made analyses for total plant food in the soils or
conducted actual field experiments with crops grown to maturity?"
asked Percy.
"No, we have not done that," answered the Chief. "Those are old
methods of investigation which have been tried for many years and
yet no chemist can tell in advance what will be the effect of a
given fertilizer upon a given crop on a given soil."
"That is true," said Percy, "but neither can any merchant tell in
advance just what effect will be produced on the next day's business
by the addition of a given number of a given kind of shoes to a
given stock on his shelves. There are many factors involved in both
cases."
"Yes, you are right in that," said the Chief, "we are just beginning
to understand the chemistry of the soil, and we hope soon to have
very complete proof of the advanced ideas we already have concerning
the causes of the fertility and infertility of soils."
"Referring to the specific case of the Leonardtown loam of
Maryland," said Percy, "I find the following statement on page 33 of
the Report of the Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils for 1900.
After describing the Norfolk loam of St. Mary County, the writer
says:
"'The Leonardtown loam is a very much heavier type of soil. It
covers about forty-one per cent. of St. Mary County. The soil is a
yellow silty soil, resembling loess in texture, underlaid by a clay
subsoil with layers or pockets of sand. This soil has been
cultivated for upward of two hundred years, but it is now little
valued and is covered with oak and pine over much of its area. It is
worth from $1 to $3 per acre. The cultivated areas produce small
crops of corn, wheat, and an inferior grade of tobacco.'"
"The generally low estimation in which this land is held is probably
wholly unjustified," replied the Chief. "There are two or three
farms in the area which, under a high state of cultivation with
intelligent methods, will produce from twenty to thirty bushels of
wheat per acre and corresponding crops of corn. Those farmers are a
credit to the country. They furnish the towns with good milk and
butter and vegetables, and they also help to keep the towns clean
and sanitary by hauling out the animal excrements, and other waste
and garbage that tend to pollute the air and water of the village."
"I can see how that might maintain the fertility of those farms,"
said Percy. "It seems that the general condition of this kind of
land is about the same in Prince George County. On page 45 of the
1901 Report of the Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, I have
noted the following statement:
"'The Leonardtown loam, covering 45,770 acres of the area, is the
nearest approach among the Maryland Coastal Plain Soils to the heavy
clays of the limestone regions of Western Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The surface is generally level and the drainage fair. The soil is
not adapted to tobacco, and has consequently been allowed to grow up
to scrub forest, so that large portions of it are at present
uncleared. Such unimproved lands can be bought for $1.50 to $5.00 an
acre, even within a few miles of the District line. The soil has
been badly neglected, and when cultivated the methods have not been
such as to promote fertility. When properly handled, as it is in a
few places, good yields of wheat, corn and grass are obtained.'"
"That's right," said the Chief, "exactly right. Upon the whole it is
one of the most promising soils of the locality, although it is not
considered so by the resident farmers."
"You mean that it should be handled the same as is done by the
successful farmers of St. Mary County?" inquired Percy.
"Yes, it needs thorough cultivation and the rotation of crops; and
the physical condition of the soil needs to be improved by the
addition of lime and manure, or green crops turned under."
"I have been looking over some of the other Reports of Field
Operations," said Percy." I became interested in the description of
a Virginia soil called Porters black loam. I find the following
statements on page 210 of the Report for 1902:
"'The Porters black loam occurs in all the soil survey sheets,
extending along the top of the main portion of the Blue Ridge
Mountains in one continuous area. This type consists of the broad
rolling tops and the upper slopes of the main range of the Blue
Ridge Mountains. Locally the Porters black loam is called "black
land" and "pippin" land, the latter term being applied because, of
all the soils of the area, it is pre-eminently adapted to the
Newtown and Albermarle Pippin. This black land has long been
recognized as the most fertile of the mountain soils. It can be
worked year after year without apparent impairment of its fertility.
Wheat winter kills, the loose soils heaving badly under influence of
frost. The areas lie at too high elevations for corn. Oats do well,
making large yields. Irish potatoes, even under ordinary culture,
will yield from two hundred to three hundred bushels per acre. It
seeds in blue grass naturally, which affords excellent pasturage.
Clover and other grasses will also grow luxuriantly upon it. The
areas occupied by this soil are mostly cleared.'"
"Yes, Sir," said the Chief, "the Potters black loam is a fine
soil--loose and porous as stated in the Report. You see it has a
good physical condition."
"There is one other description in this Report for 1903 that is of
special interest to me," said Percy. "This relates to a type of soil
which the surveyors found in the low level areas of prairie land in
McLean County, Illinois, and which they have called Miami black clay
loam. I think we have several acres of the same kind of soil on our
own little farm. I found the following statements on page 787:
"'When the first settlers came to McLean County they found the areas
occupied by the Miami black clay loam wet and swampy, and before
these areas could be brought under cultivation it was necessary to
remove the excess of moisture. With the exception of a few large
ditches for outlets, tile drains have taken the place of open
ditches. Drainage systems in some instances have cost as much as $25
an acre, but the very productive character of the soil, and the
increase in the yields fully justify the expense. There are few
soils more productive than the Miami black clay loam. Some areas
have been cropped almost continuously in corn for nearly fifty years
without much diminution in the yields.'"
"Now there you are again," said the Chief. "Drainage, that's all it
needed. You see it's a simple matter; and that's what the
Leonardtown loam needs in places. Give it good drainage and good
cultivation with a rotation of crops, and you'll get results all
right."
"Has the Bureau of Soils tried these methods on any of this soil
near Washington?" asked Percy.
"No use," replied the Chief. "We've got the scientific facts and
besides, as I told you, some few farms are kept up in both Prince
George and St. Mary counties and they are as good demonstrations as
anyone could want. Now I suggest that you meet some of our
scientists."
CHAPTER XXII
THE CHEMIST'S LABORATORY
THE Chief showed Percy into the laboratories of the Bureau and
introduced him to the soil physicist and the soil chemist. Percy was
greatly interested in the various lines of work in progress and
gladly accepted an invitation to return after lunch and become
better acquainted with the methods of investigation used.
In the afternoon the physicist showed him how the soil water could
be removed from an ordinary moist soil by centrifugal force, and the
chemist was growing wheat seedlings in small quantities of this
water and in water extracts contained in bottles. The seedlings were
allowed to grow for twenty days and then other seedlings were
started in the same solution and also in fresh solution, and it was
very apparent that in some cases the wheat grew better in the fresh
solutions.
The chemist explained that he also analyzed the soil solutions and
water extracts from different soils and that there was no relation
between the crop yields and the chemical composition of the soils.
"But it seems to me," said Percy, "that your analysis refers to the
plant food dissolved in the soil water only at the time when you
extract it. How long a time does it require to make the extraction?"
"As a rule we shake the soil with water for three minutes and then
it takes twenty minutes to separate the water from the soil. This
gives us the plant food in solution and with the addition of more
water the nitrates, phosphoric acid, and potash in the soil
immediately dissolve sufficiently give us a nutrient solution of the
same concentration as we had before. Thus there is always sufficient
plant food in the soil so long as there is any of the original
stock."
"That is surely quick work," said Percy, "but I wonder if the corn
plant might not get somewhat different results from the soil
analysis which it makes."
"How do you mean?"
"Did you ever plant a field of corn and then cultivate it and watch
it grow with increasing rapidity, until along about the Fourth of
July every leaf seemed to nod its appreciation and thanks as you
stirred the soil; and to show its gratitude, too, by growing about
five inches every twenty-four hours when the nights were warm?"
"No," replied the Chemist, "I have never had any experience of that
sort. I am devoting my life to the more scientific investigations
relating to the fundamental laws which underlie these soil fertility
problems."
"Well, I was only thinking," Percy continued, "that you analyze a
fraction of a pound of soil in a few minutes, while the corn plant
analyzes about a ton of soil by a sort of continuous process, which
covers twenty-four hours every day for about one hundred and twenty
days, and it takes into account every change in temperature and
moisture, the aeration with any variation produced by cultivation,
and also the changes brought about by the nitrifying bacteria and
all other agencies that promote the decomposition of the soil and
the liberation of plant food, including the action upon the
insoluble phosphates and other minerals of the carbonic acid exhaled
by the roots of the corn plants, the nitric acid produced by the
process of nitrification, and the various acids resulting from the
decay of organic matter contained in the soil."
"I am very familiar with the literature of the whole subject of soil
fertility," replied the Chemist, "and our theories are being
accepted everywhere. I have just returned from a lecture tour
extending from Florida to Michigan, and our ideas and methods are
being very generally adopted, not only in this country but also in
Europe."
"The Chief of the Bureau very kindly permitted me to look over the
maps and reports relating to the soils of Maryland and Virginia,"
said Percy, "but in this literature I found no data as to the amount
of plant food contained in the various soil types that have been
found in the surveys. May I ask if the Bureau has made any analyses
to ascertain the total amounts of the different essential plant food
elements contained in these different soils?"
"No," the Chemist replied, "a chemical analysis gives practically no
information concerning the fertility of the soil. We have made no
ultimate analyses of soils, although we have used the same methods
of analysis in a study of the partial composition of the soil
separates, or particles of different grades, such as the sand, the
silt, and the clay."
"And have you also determined the percentages of sand, silt, and
clay in the soils themselves?"
"Oh, yes, the physical composition of the soil is a matter of very
great importance, and this is always determined and reported for
every soil. Did you not see that in the Reports you examined this
morning?"
"I think I did notice it," Percy replied, "but it is so easy for the
farmer himself to tell a sandy soil from a clay soil that I did not
appreciate the value of those physical analyses.
"In any case, I shall be very glad to know what results were
obtained from the chemical analysis of the soil separates to which
you referred."
"Those results are all reported in Bulletin No. 54 of the Bureau of
Soils," said the Chemist, "and I have extra copies right here and
will be glad to present you with one. And let me give you our
Bulletin 22 also. This will enable you to get a clear idea of the
principles we are developing which are solving the soil fertility
problems that have completely baffled the scientists heretofore."
CHAPTER XXIII
MATHEMATICS APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE
PERCY left the Bureau of Soils with a feeling of deep appreciation
for the uniform courtesy and kindness that had been accorded him,
but with a firm conviction that the laboratory scientists were too
far removed from the actual conditions existing in the cultivated
field. He sought the quiet of his room at the hotel in order to
study the bulletins he had received.
Even with his college training he found it difficult to form clear
mental conceptions of the results of investigations reported in the
bulletins. Sometimes the data were reported in percentages and
sometimes in parts per million. No reports gave the amounts of the
element phosphorus; but PO4 was given in some places and P2O5 in
others. In Bulletin No. 22, the potassium and calcium were reported
as the elements and the nitrogen in terms of NO3, while potash
(K20), quicklime (CaO), and magnesia (MgO) were reported in Bulletin
54.
By a somewhat complicated mathematical process, he finally succeeded
in making computations from the percentages of the various compounds
reported in the soil separates and from the percentages of these
different separates contained in the soils themselves and from the
known weights of normal soils, until he reduced the data to amounts
per acre of plowed soil.
He was especially pleased to find that the essential data were at
hand not only for both the Leonardtown loam and the Porter's black
loam, but also for the Norfolk loam, which he had learned from one
of the soil maps was the principal type of soil southwest of
Blairville on Mr. Thornton's farm; and, furthermore, the Miami black
clay loam of Illinois was included. Percy knew the black clay loam
was a rich soil, for the teacher in college had said that the more
common prairie land and most timber lands were much less durable and
needed thorough investigation at once, while the flat recently
drained heavy black land could wait a few years if necessary.
Percy first worked out the data for the Miami black clay loam. The
chemist had analyzed the soil separates for only four constituents,
and they showed the following amounts per acre of plowed soil to a
depth of six and two-thirds inches, averaging two million pounds in
weight:
2,970 pounds of phosphorus
38,500 pounds of potassium
18,440 pounds of magnesium
46,200 pounds of calcium
He then made the computations for the average of the Leonardtown
loam of St. Mary County, Maryland, with results as follows:
160 pounds of phosphorus
18,500 pounds of potassium
3,480 pounds of magnesium
1,000 pounds of calcium
Percy stared at these figures when he brought them together for
comparison. He then checked up his computations to be sure they were
right.
"Almost twenty times as much phosphorus!" he said to himself. "Is it
possible? And more than forty times as much calcium! Let me see! It
takes one hundred and seventeen pounds of calcium for four tons of
clover hay. The total amount in the plowed soil of the Leonardtown
loam would not be sufficient for eight such crops; and six crops of
corn such as we raised one year on our sixteen acres would take more
phosphorus from the land than is now left in the plowed soil of this
Leonardtown loam. The magnesium is not quite so bad--about one-fifth
as much as in our black soil, and the potassium is almost one-half
as much as we have."
Percy next turned to the Porters black loam, which he had noticed
was to be found not many miles from Montplain. He thought he might
induce Mr. West to drive with him to the upper mountain slope in
order that they might see that land. His computations for the
Porters black loam gave the following results:
4,630 pounds of phosphorus
48,300 pounds of potassium
12,360 pounds of magnesium
23,700 pounds of calcium
He viewed these figures a moment with evident satisfaction.
"Plenty of everything in this wonderful 'pippin land,'" he thought.
"Big yields reported for everything suited to that altitude. 'Can be
worked year after year without apparent impairment of its
fertility,' so the Report stated. I should think it might,
especially since clover is one of the crops grown. Both phosphorus
and potassium are way above our best black land. Magnesium
two-thirds and calcium one-half of our flat land, but still greater
than our common prairie, according to the average they gave us at
college. And no doubt there is plenty of magnesian limestone in
these mountains which could be had if ever needed. The soil surveyor
certainly did not say too much in praise of the Porters black loam,
considering that its physical composition is also all right."
He worked out the Norfolk loam to see what he would get if he
accepted Miss Russell's dare. The following are the figures:
610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium
"Rather low in everything," said Percy, "compared with any soil I
know that has a good reputation. More uniformly poor but not so
extremely poor as the Leonardtown loam."
He wished that the nitrogen had been determined by the chemist, even
though he knew the organic matter and the nitrogen must be very low
in the poor soils, but nowhere was any such record to be found in
the bulletin. He found the statement, however, that all data were
reported on the basis of ignited soil.
"That will reduce some of these amounts about one-tenth," he said to
himself. "In our physics work in college, good soils generally lost
about ten per cent. in weight by ignition, even after all
hygroscopic moisture had been expelled; but these very poor soils
haven't much to lose, I guess. They surely contain no carbonates and
very little organic matter, although they may contain some combined
water."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE NATION'S CAPITOL
PERCY spent three days in Washington.
"If I lived here long," he wrote his mother, "I think I should
become as optimistic as the Secretary of Agriculture, even though
the total produce of the original thirteen states should supply a
still smaller fraction of the necessities of life required by their
population. The Congressional Library is by far the finest structure
I have ever seen. I cannot help feeling proud that I am an American
when I walk through its halls and look upon the portraits of the
great men who helped to make our country truly great.
"As I shook hands with the President of the United States at one of
his public receptions held in the 'East Room' of the White House, I
wondered if there was another country on the earth where the
humblest subject could thus come face to face with the head of a
mighty nation. In the Treasury Building I was permitted to join a
small party of some distinction and shared with each of them the
privilege of holding in my hands for a moment eight million dollars
in government bonds.
"I have visited many of the great buildings, the Capitol, of course,
and Washington's monument, which rises to a height of 555 feet above
the surrounding land, or practically 600 feet above low-water level
in the Potomac. There are many smaller monuments erected in honor of
American heroes in various squares, circles, and parks throughout
the City.
"The zoological garden took a full half-day, and I could have spent
a much longer time there. They told me of a frightful occurrence
that happened only last week. In a pool of water a very large
alligator is kept confined by a low stout iron fence. A negro woman
was leaning over the fence holding her baby in her arms and looking
at the monster who seemed to be asleep; when, without a moment's
warning, he thrust himself half out of the water and snapped the
baby from her arms, swallowing it at one gulp as he settled back
into the water. I fear the report is true enough, for they have made
the fence higher in a very temporary manner, and I heard it
mentioned by a dozen or more.
"I leave Washington by boat at five o'clock this afternoon, and I
expect to land at Leonardtown, St. Mary county, Maryland, about six
o'clock in the morning, when the boat will be ready to leave that
port. It is a freight boat and stops for hours at large towns.
"I am planning for a trip into New England next week. I did not
realize how easy it is to go there until I looked up the train
service. In less than twelve hours' time, one can make the trip from
the Virginia line, through the District of Columbia, Maryland,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, and into Massachusetts,--ten different states, including the
District. The trip from Galena to Cairo can hardly be made in so
short a time, not even on the limited Illinois Central trains."
An hour before leaving the Washington hotel Percy chanced to meet a
Congressman whom he had seen on several occasions at the University
and who had spoken at the alumni banquet at the time of Percy's
graduation.
"I'm very glad you introduced yourself, Mr. Johnston," said he.
"Want to get a place down here, do you? Very likely I can help you
some. I've helped several friends of mine to get good places. What
are you after ?"
"I am thinking of getting a place of about three hundred acres,"
said Percy, "and I shall certainly appreciate any assistance or
information you can give me."
"Whe-e-ew. What are you up to? Want to sell us a site for the new
Government insane hospital, or going to lay out another addition to
the city?"
"Neither," replied Percy. "I am looking for a piece of cheap land
that I can build up and make into a good farm."
"Oh, ho!" said the Congressman. "That's it, is it? Well, now let me
tell you that you've struck the wrong neck of the woods to find land
that you can make a good farm out of. The land about here is cheap
enough all right--cheaper than the votes of some politicians, but it
can't be built up into good farms. Don't attempt the impossible, my
friend. If you want cheap land for town sites or insane hospitals,
right here's the country to land in; but if you want a good farm,
you stay right in Illinois, or else follow Horace Greeley's advice
and 'go West.'. That's a good suggestion for you, too. Just go West
and get three hundred and twenty acres of the richest soil lying out
of doors."
"There is not much land left in the West where the rainfall is
sufficient for good crops," said Percy.
"Then take irrigated land. The Government is getting under way some
big irrigation projects, and you ought to get in on the ground floor
on one of those tracts. It is a fact that the apples from some of
those irrigated farms sometimes bring more than $500 an acre."
"I don't doubt that," said Percy. "An illustration or example can
usually be found to prove almost anything. I know that the Perrine
Brothers, who conduct a fruit farm down in 'Egypt,' actually
received $800 per acre for the apples grown on thirteen acres one
year; and there is plenty of such land in Egypt that can be bought
for less than $40 an acre, and near to the great markets. I am told,
however, that there are from a dozen to a hundred applicants for
every farm opened to settlement in the West in these years, and it
is estimated that all of the arid lands that can ever be put under
irrigation in the United States will provide homes for no more than
our regular increase in population in five years, and that the only
other remaining rich lands--the swamp areas--will be occupied by the
increase of ten years in our population. It has seemed to me that it
is high time we came back to these partially worn-out Eastern lands
and begin to build them up. Here the rainfall is abundant, the
climate is fine, and the markets are the best, and there are
millions of acres of these Eastern lands that lie as nicely for
farming as the Western prairies. Why should they not be built up
into good farms?"
"Now, let me give you a little fatherly advice," said the
Congressman, laying his hand on Percy's shoulder. "I tell you this
land never was any good. If the East and South hadn't been settled
first, they never would have been settled. Poor land remains poor
land, and good land remains good land; and if you want to farm good
land, you better stay right in the corn belt. You can't grow
anything on these Eastern lands without fertilizer and the more you
fertilize the more you must, and still the land remains as poor as
ever. Just leave off the fertilizer one year and your crop is not
worth harvesting. These lands never were any good and they never
will be."
"But that is hardly in accord with what the people now living on
these old Eastern farms report for the conditions of agriculture in
the times of their ancestors."
"Oh, yes, I know people are always talking about their ancestors,
and especially Virginians; but, Caesar! I wonder what their
ancestors would think of them! You can't afford to take any stock in
the ancestry of these old Virginians."
"I call to mind that the historical records give much information
along this line," said Percy. "It is recorded that mills for
grinding corn and wheat were common, that the flour of Mount Vernon
was packed under the eye of Washington, and we are told that barrels
of flour bearing his brand passed in the export markets without
inspection. History records that the plantations of Virginia usually
passed from father to son, according to the law of entail, and that
the heads of families lived like lords, keeping their stables of
blooded horses and rolling to church or town in their coach and six,
with outriders on horseback. Their spacious mansions were sometimes
built of imported brick; and, within, the grand staircases, the
mantles, and the wainscot reaching from floor to ceiling, were of
solid mahogany, elaborately carved and paneled. The sideboards shone
with gold and silver plate, and the tables were loaded with the
luxuries from both the New and the Old World, and plenty of these
old mansions still exist in dilapidated condition."
"That all sounds good for history," said the Congressman, "but the
historian probably got his information from some of these old
Virginians whose only religion is ancestral worship. If the lands
were ever any good they'd be good now. Good lands stay good. As an
Illinois man, you ought to know that. My father settled in Illinois
and I tell you his land is better to-day than it was the day he took
it from the Government."
"My grandfather also took land from the Government," said Percy,
"but the land that he first put under cultivation is not producing
as good crops now as it used to, even though--"
"Then it must be you don't farm it right. Of course you don't want
to corn your land to death. I lived on the farm long enough to learn
that; but if you'll only grow two or three crops of corn and then
change to a crop of oats, you'll find your land ready for corn
again; and, if you'll sow clover with the oats and plow the clover
under the next spring, you'll find the land will grow more corn than
ever your grandfather grew on it."
"But how can we maintain the supply of plant food in the soil by
merely substituting oats for corn once in three or four years and
turning under perhaps a ton of clover as green manure. That amount
of clover would contain no more nitrogen than 40 bushels of corn
would remove from the soil, and of course the clover has no power to
add any phosphorus or other mineral elements."
"Oh, yes. I've heard all about that sort of talk. You know I'm a U.
of I. man myself. I studied chemistry in the University under a man
who knew more in a minute than all the 'tommy rot' you've been
filled up with. I also lived on an Illinois farm, and I speak from
practical experience. I know what I am talking about, and I don't
care a rap for all the theories that can be stacked up by your
modern college professor, who wouldn't know a pumpkin if he met one
rolling down hill. I tell you God Almighty never made the black corn
belt land to be worn out, and he doesn't create people on this earth
to let 'em starve to death. Don't you understand that?"
"I am afraid that I do not," replied Percy. "I have received no such
direct communication; but I saw a letter written from China by a
missionary describing the famine-stricken districts in which he was
located. He wrote the letter in February and said that at that time
the only practical thing to do in that district was to let four
hundred thousand people starve and try to get seed grain for the
remainder to plant the spring crops. I have a "Handbook of Indian
Agriculture" written by a professor of agriculture and agricultural
chemistry at one of the colleges in India. I got it from one of the
Hindu students who attended the University when I was there. This
book states that famine, local or general, has been the order of the
day in India, and particularly within recent years. It also states
that in one of the worst famines in India ten million people died of
starvation within nine months. The average wage of the laboring man
in India, according to the Governmental statistics, is fifty cents a
month, and in famine years the price of wheat has risen to as high
as $3.60 a bushel. This writer states that the most recent of all
famines; namely, that prevailing in most parts of India from 1897 to
1900, was severer than the famine of 1874 to 1878. No, Sir, I am not
sure that I understand just what God's intentions are concerning the
corn belt, but it is recorded that the Lord helps him who helps
himself, and that man should earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow. If God made the common soil in America with a limited amount
of phosphorus in it, He also stored great deposits of natural rock
phosphate in the mines of several States, and perhaps intended that
man should earn his bread by grinding that rock and applying it to
the soil. Possibly the Almighty intended--"
"Now, I'm very sorry, Mr. Johnston, but I have an engagement which I
must keep, and you'll have to excuse me just now. I'm mighty glad to
have met you and I'd like to talk with you for an hour more along
this line; but you take my advice and stick to the corn belt land.
Above all, don't begin to use phosphates or any sort of commercial
fertilizer; they'll ruin any land in a few years; that's my opinion.
But then, every man has a right to his own opinion. and perhaps you
have a different notion. Eh?"
"I think no man has a right to an opinion which is contrary to
fact," Percy replied. "This whole question is one of facts and not
of opinions. One fact is worth more than a wagonload of incorrect
opinions. But I must not detain you longer. I am very glad to have
met you here. In large measure the statesmen of America must bear
the responsibility for the future condition of agriculture and the
other great industries of the United States, all of which depend
upon agriculture for their support and prosperity. Good bye."
"I'll agree with you there all right; the farmer feeds them all.
Good bye."
CHAPTER XXV
A LESSON ON TOBACCO
PERCY found Leonardtown almost in the center of St. Mary county,
situated on Breton bay, an arm of the lower Potomac.
From the data recorded on the back of his map of Maryland, Percy
noted that a population of four hundred and fifty-four found support
in this old county seat, according to the census of I 900. After
spending the day in the country, he found himself wondering how even
that number of people could be supported, and then remembered that
there is one industry of some importance in the United States which
exists independent of agriculture, an industry which preceded
agriculture, and which evidently has also succeeded agriculture to a
very considerable extent in some places; namely, fishing.
"Clams, oysters and fish, and in this order," he said to himself,
"apparently constitute the means of support for some of these
people."
And yet the country was not depopulated, although very much of the
arable land was abandoned for agricultural purposes. A farm of a
hundred acres might have ten acres under cultivation, this being as
much as the farmer could "keep up," as was commonly stated. This
meant that all of the farm manure and other refuse that could be
secured from the entire farm or hauled from the village, together
with what commercial fertilizer the farmer was able to buy, would
not enable him to keep more than ten acres of land in a state of
productiveness that justified its cultivation. Tobacco, corn, wheat
and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the principal article
of food, with wheat bread more or less common. The cowpeas and corn
fodder usually kept one or more cows through the winter when they
could not secure a living in the brush. Tobacco, the principal "money
crop," was depended on to buy clothing, and "groceries," which
included more or less fish and pork, although some farmers "raised
their own meat," in part by fattening hogs on the acorns that fell
in the autumn from the scrub oak trees.
One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned by an old lady, who
lived in the nearby country village was rented for $100 a year,
which amounted to about fifty-two and one-half cents an acres as the
gross income to the landowner. After the taxes were paid, about
thirty cents an acre remained for repairs on buildings and fences
and interest on the investment.
Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre farm belonging to an
old gentleman who still gave his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man
whose father had been prominent in the community. According to the
county soil map which had been presented to Percy by the Bureau of
Soils, the soil of this farm was all Leonardtown loam, except about
forty acres which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend of
which cut the farm on the south side.
"My father had this whole farm under cultivation," said Mr. Jones,
"except the hillsides. But what's the use? We get along with a good
deal less work, and I've found it better to cultivate less ground
during the forty odd years I've had to meet the bills. But I've kept
up more of my land than most of my neighbors. I reckon I've got
about eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm, and the
leaves and pine needles we rake up where the trees grow on the old
fields make a good fertilizer for the land we aim to cultivate, and
I get a good many loads of manure from friends who live in the
village and keep a cow or a horse.
"The last crop I raised on that east field, where you see those
scrub pines, was in 1881. I finished cultivating corn there the day
I heard about President Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot
July day too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about ten years
ago, came along from the village and waited for me to come to the
end of the row down by the road and he told me that Garfield was
shot. We both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop and when
I gathered the fodder that fall there was a right smart of a corn
crop. Yes, Sir, it's pretty good land, but we don't need much corn,
no how, and we can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it
takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good patch of tobacco,
but good tobacco always brings good money."
"About how much money do you get for an acre of tobacco?" asked
Percy.
"That varies a lot with the quality and price--sometimes
$100--sometimes $300, when the trust don't hold the price down on
us. We can raise good tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money.
We can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get our
groceries and some clothes now and then, and that's about all
anybody gets in this world, I reckon. But taxes are mighty high, I
tell you. About $75 to $80 I have to pay. Are taxes high out West?"
"We pay about forty to fifty cents an acre in the corn belt," Percy
replied; "but, in a course I took in economics, I learned that the
taxes do not vary in proportion to land values. Poor lands, if
inhabited, must always pay heavy taxes; whereas, large areas of good
land carry lighter taxes compared with their earning capacity. You
must provide your regular expenses for county officers, county
courthouse, jail, and poorhouse, about the same as we do. Your roads
and bridges cost as much as ours; and the schools in the South must
cost more than ours, for a complete double system of schools is
usually provided.
"But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre in taxes?" asked
Mr. Jones.
"Yes, about that, in the corn belt," replied Percy, "but not so much
in Southern Illinois where the land is poor. I think the farmers in
that section pay taxes as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an
acre."
"Do you mean to say that you have poor land in Illinois?"
"Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illinois must be called
poor as compared with the corn belt land. There is a good deal of
land in Southern Illinois that was put under cultivation before
1820, and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon the store
of plant food originally contained in those soils."
"Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil right here, Young
Man, in St. Mary County, in 1634 and don't you know, Sir, that we
had a rebellion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one
hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So you've raised only
eighty crops and the land is already getting poor, and we've raised
two hundred and fifty crops--well, maybe, not quite so many, for
we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for the last fifty or
sixty years; but my grandfather used to raise twenty-five bushels of
wheat to the acre with the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster,
and I've no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to raise
wheat, but one acre of tobacco is worth ten of wheat, so why should
I bother with wheat?"
"Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre," repeated Percy, half to
himself. "The total supply of phosphorus still remaining in the
plowed soil would be sufficient for only twenty more crops like
that. Two hundred years of such crops would require 1600 pounds of
phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds at the beginning, if it all
came from the plowed soil. That is one and a half times as much as
is now contained in our common corn belt prairie land."
"More stuff in our land than in yours, did you say?" questioned the
old man. "I told you we had pretty good soil here, but I've always
allowed your soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure lasts
on this land. You can see where you put it for nigh twenty years.
Then we rest our land some and that helps a sight, and if the price
stays up we make good money on tobacco. I'm sorry your land is
getting so poor out West, especially if you can't raise tobacco.
Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?--gosh, but you remind me of one of
them Government fellows who came driving along here once when Bob
and his brothers were plowing corn right here about three years ago.
Bob's my tenant's nigger, and he ain't no fool either, even if he is
colored; but then, to tell the truth, he ain't much colored. Well, I
was sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping an eye on
the niggers unbeknownst to them when one of them Government fellows
stopped his horse as Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob:
"'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.'
"'Well, I mean it looks as though you won't get more than half a
crop,' says he.
"'I reckon not,' says Bob. 'The landlord, he done gets the other
half.'
"With that the fellow says to Bob:
"'It seems to me you're mighty near a fool.'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob, 'and I'm mighty feared I'll catch it if I
don't get a goin'.'
"The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, but I liked to
died. He'd been here two or three times pestering me with questions
about raising tobacco. Say, you ain't one of them Government
fellows, are you? They were travelling all around over this county
three years ago, learning how we raised tobacco and all kinds of
crops. They had augers and said they were investigating soils, but I
never heard nothing of 'em since. Have you got an auger to
investigate soils with?"
Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was
trying to learn all he could about the soil.
He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his land happened to be
situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to
stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the
fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do
with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about
fifteen acres.
Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then
returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr.
Jones was standing.
"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of an auger them
fellows had three years ago. Still boring holes, are you? Want to
bore around over my farm again, do you?"
Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several
places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil
were like in that kind of land.
"That's all right, Young Man. Just bore as many holes as you please.
I suppose you'd rather do that than work; but you'll have to excuse
me. I've got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. I
can't take time again to tell you fellows how to raise tobacco. Good
day."
CHAPTER XXVI
ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO
THE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a pocket and filled his mouth
with a chew of tobacco.
He walked by Percy's buggy with the tobacco juice drizzling from the
corners of his mouth, and turned down the road toward the house.
Percy finished boring the hole and then returned to the buggy.
"Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast!" exclaimed the
driver as Percy approached.
"Are you speaking to me?" asked Percy.
"Why, certainly."
"That is not my name, please," admonished Percy, "but I can tell
you that I know Him well and that He is my best friend."
"What, old Al Jones?"
"No,--Christ," replied Percy, with a grieved expression plainly
discernible.
"Oh," said the driver.
They drove past the Jones residence and out into the field beyond.
The house one might have thought deserted except for the well-beaten
paths and the presence of chickens in the yard. It was a large
structure with two and a half stories. The cornice and window
trimmings revealed the beauty and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs
still grew in the spacious front yard, and gnarled remnants of
orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A dozen other buildings,
large and small, occupied the background, some with the roofs partly
fallen, others evidently still in use.
"How old do you suppose these buildings are?" asked Percy of the
driver.
"About a hundred years," he replied, "and I reckon they've had no
paint nor fixin' since they was built, 'cept they have to give some
of 'em new shingles now and then or they'd all fall to pieces like
the old barns back yonder."
Percy examined the soil in several places on the Jones farm and on
other farms in the neighborhood. They lunched on crackers and canned
beans at a country store and made a more extended drive in the
afternoon.
"It is a fine soil," Percy said to the driver, as they started for
Leonardtown. "It contains enough sand for easy tillage and quick
drainage, and enough clay to hold anything that might be applied to
it."
"That's right," said the driver. "Where they put plenty of manure
and fertilizer they raise tobacco three foot high and fifteen
hundred pounds to the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows
beyond the manured land so's to be sure and not lose any manure, why
the stuff won't grow six inches high and it just turns yellow and
seems to dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mister, would
you mind telling me if you're a preacher?"
"Oh, no," replied Percy, "--I am not a preacher, any more than every
Christian must be loyal to the name."
"Well, anyway, I've learned a lesson I'll try to remember. I never
thought before about how it might hurt other people when I swear. I
don't mean nothing by it. It's just a habit; but your saying Christ
is your friend makes me feel that I have no business talking about
anybody's friend, any more than I'd like to hear anybody else use my
mother's name as a by-word. I reckon nobody has any right to use
Christ's name 'cept Christians or them as wants to be Christians. I
reckon we'd never heard the name if it hadn't a been for the
Christians.
"But I don't have so many bad habits. I don't drink, nor smoke, nor
chew; and I don't want to. My father smoked some and chewed a lot,
and I know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother about as sick
as she could be; but she had to stand it, or at least she did stand
it till father died; and now she lives with me, and I'm mighty glad
she don't have to smell no more tobacco
"She often speaks of it--mother does; and she says she's so thankful
she's got a boy that don't use tobacco. She says men that use
tobacco don't know how bad it is for other folks to smell 'em. Why,
sometimes I come home when I've just been driving a man some place
in the country, riding along like you and I are now, and he a
smoking or chewing, or at least his clothes soaked full of the vile
odor; and when I get home mother says, 'My! but you must have had an
old stink pot along with you to-day.' She can smell it on my
clothes, and I just hang my coat out in the shed till the scent gets
off from it.
"No, Sir, I don't want any tobacco for me, and I don't know as I'd
care to raise the stuff for other folks to saturate themselves with
either; and every kid is allowed to use it nowadays, or at least
most of them get it. It's easy enough to get it. Why, a kid can't
keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he tries. They're
everywhere. Every kid has hip pockets full; and I know blamed well
that some smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren't more than
half bright. It's a fact, Sir,--plenty of 'em too; and some old men,
like Al Jones, are just so soaked in tobacco they seem about half
dead. Course it ain't like whiskey, but I think it's worse than beer
if beer didn't make one want whiskey later.
"But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business saying things
about,--about anybody you call your friend, and I think I'll just
swear off swearing, if I can."
"You can if you will just let Him be your friend."
"Well, I don't know much about that," was the slow reply. "That
takes faith, and I don't have much faith in some of the church
members I know."
"That used to trouble me also," said Percy, "until one time the
thought impressed itself upon me that even Christ himself did all
His great work with one of the twelve a traitor; and this thought
always comes to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting
with organized Christianity because of those who may be regarded as
traitors or hypocrites, but not of such flagrant character as to
insure expulsion from the Church?"
"Do you believe in miracles?" asked the driver.
"Oh, yes," said Percy, "in such miracles as the growth of the corn
plant."
"Why, that isn't any miracle. Everybody understands all about that."
"Not everybody," replied Percy. "There is only One who understands
it. There is only one great miracle, and that is the miracle of
life. It is said that men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of
making the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it requires
an expert to detect the fraud; but do you think an imitation seed
would grow?"
"No, it wouldn't grow," said the driver.
"Not only that," said Percy, "but we may have a natural and perfect
grain of corn and it can never be made to grow by any or all of the
knowledge and skill of men, if for a single instant the life
principle has left the kernel, which may easily result by changing
its temperature a few degrees above or below the usual range. The
spark of life returns to God who gave it, and man is as helpless to
restore it as when he first walked the earth.
"What miracle do you find hard to accept?" asked Percy.
"How could Jesus know that Lazarus had died when he was on the other
side of the mountain?"
"I don't know," Percy replied; "perhaps by some sort of wireless
message which his soul could receive. I don't know how, but it was
no greater miracle than it would have been then to have done what I
did last week."
The driver turned to look squarely at Percy as though in doubt of
his sanity, but a kindly smile reassured him.
"Our train coming into Cincinnati ran in two sections," Percy
continued, "and the section behind us was wrecked, three travellers
being killed and about fifteen others wounded. I was sure my mother
would hear of the wreck before I could reach her with a letter, and
so I talked with her from Cincinnati over the long distance 'phone,
with which we have always had connection since I first went away to
college. Yes, I talked with her, and, though separated by a distance
three times the entire length of Palestine, I distinctly heard and
recognized my mother's voice. Oh, yes, I believe in miracles; but
that is a matter of small consequence. The important thing is that
we have faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ, his Son."
"Well, that's what troubles me," said the driver. "How's one to get
faith?"
"There are two methods of receiving faith," replied Percy. "Faith
cometh by prayer." "Yes, Sir, I believe that." "And, faith cometh by
hearing." "Hearing what?" "Hearing by the Word of God; hearing those
who have studied His Word and who testify of Him; and hearing with
an ear ready to receive the truth."
CHAPTER XXVII
EIGHTEEN TO ONE
TWO days later Percy was in Rhode Island visiting a farm owned by
Samuel Robbins, one of the most progressive and successful farmers
of that State.
Mr. Robbins' farm lay in what appeared to be an ancient valley,
several miles in width, although only a small stream now winds
through it to the sea seven miles away.
"So you are from Illinois," said Mr. Robbins, after Percy had
introduced himself and explained the nature of his visit. "The
papers have a good deal to say about the corn you grow in Illinois;
but have you noticed that the Government reports show our average
yield of corn in New England is higher than yours in Illinois?"
"Yes, Sir," Percy replied, "I have noticed that and I have come to
Rhode Island to learn how to raise more corn per acre. I have
noticed, however, that New England corn does not occupy a large
acreage."
Well, now, we count corn as one of our big crops, next to hay.
You'll see plenty of corn fields right here in Rhode Island."
"Would you believe that we actually raise more corn on one farm in
Illinois than the total corn crop of Rhode Island?"
"You don't tell!"
"Yes," said Percy, "the Isaac Funk farm in McLean County grows more
corn on seven thousand acres a year, with an average yield certainly
above fifty bushels per acre, and surely making a total above
350,000 bushels; while the State of Rhode Island grows corn on
nearly ten thousand acres with an average yield of thirty-two
bushels, making a total yield of about 320,000 bushels."
"Well, I'll give it up; but I'd like to know how much corn you raise
in the whole State of Illinois."
"Our average production," said Percy, "is about equal to the total
production of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, and Mississippi."
"Eighteen of us!" exclaimed Mr. Robbins, who had counted on his
fingers from New York to Mississippi. "And you come to Rhode Island
to learn how to raise corn?"
"Yes, I came to learn how you raise more than thirty-five bushels of
corn per acre as an average for New England, while we raise less
than thirty-five bushels as an average in Illinois, and while
Georgia, a larger State than Illinois, raises only eleven bushels
per acre as a ten year average. Illinois is a new State, but I call
to mind that Roger Williams settled in Rhode Island in 1636 and that
he was joined by many others coming not only from Massachusetts but
also from other sections. I assume that much of the land in Rhode
Island has been farmed for 250 years, and the fact that you are
still producing more than thirty bushels of corn per acre, as an
average, is, it seems to me, a fact of great significance. I suppose
you use all the manure you can make from the crops you raise and
perhaps use some commercial fertilizer also. I should like to know
what yield of corn you produce without any manure or fertilizer?"
"We don't produce any," said Mr. Robbins; "at least we know we
wouldn't produce any corn without fertilizing the land in one way or
another. If you will walk over here a little ways you can see for
yourself. I didn't have quite enough manure to finish this field and
I had no more time to haul seaweed so I planted without getting any
manure on a few rods in one corner, and the corn there wouldn't make
three bushels from an acre. I didn't bother to try to cut it, but
the cows will get what little fodder there is as soon as I can get
the shocks out of the field and turn 'em in for a few days to pick
up what they can."
Percy examined the corn plants still standing in the corner of the
field. They had grown to a height of about two feet. Most of them
had tassels and many of them appeared to have little ears, but
really had only husks containing no ear. In a few places where the
hill contained only one plant a little nubbin of corn could be
found.
"I don't mean to let any of my land get as poor as this field was,"
continued Mr. Robbins, "but I just couldn't get to it, and I left it
in hay about two years longer than I should have done. Last year was
first class for hay but this field had been down so long it was
hardly worth cutting."
"About what yield do you get from the manured land?" inquired Percy.
"In a fair year I get about forty bushels, and that's about what I
am getting this year from my best fields. You see there's lots of
corn in these shocks. There's about an average ear, and we get five
or six ears to the hill."
"Eight-row flint," said Percy, as he took the ear in his hand and
drew a celluloid paper knife from his vest pocket with a six-inch
scale marked on one side.
"Yes, Sir, our regular Rhode Island White Cap."
"Just five inches long. Weight about three ounces?"
"Perhaps. We count on about four hundred ears to the bushel. If we
get four thousand hills to the acre one ear to the hill would give
us ten bushels per acre, so you see we only have to have four ears
to the hill to make our forty bushels. A good many hills have five
to six ears, but then of course, some hills don't have much of any,
so I suppose my corn makes an average of four ears about like that."
"I suppose you feed all of the corn you raise in order to produce as
much manure as possible."
"Feed that corn! Not much we don't. Why, corn like that brings us
close on to a dollar a bushel. No, Sir, we don't feed this corn.
It's all used for meal. It makes the best kind of corn meal. No, we
buy corn for feed; western corn. Oh, we feed lots of corn; three
times as much as we raise; but we don't feed dollar corn, when we
can buy western corn for seventy-five or eighty cents.
"I sell corn and I sell potatoes; that's all except the milk. I keep
most of my land in meadow and pasture and feed everything I raise
except the corn and potatoes. And milk is a good product with us. We
average about sixty cents a pound for butter fat, and it's ready
money every month; and, of course, we need it every month to pay for
feed."
"Then you produce on the farm all the manure you use," suggested
Percy, "but I think you mentioned hauling seaweed."
"Yes, and I haul some manure, too, when I can get it; but usually
there are three or four farmers ready to take every load of town
manure."
"You get it from town for the hauling?"
"Well, I guess not," said Mr. Robbins emphatically and with apparent
astonishment at such a question. "I don't think I would haul seaweed
seven miles if I could get manure in town for nothing. Manure is
worth $1.50 a ton Iying in the livery stable, and there are plenty
to take it at that right along. I'd a little rather pay that than
haul seaweed; but the manure won't begin to go around, and so
there's nothing left for us but seaweed; and, if we couldn't get
that, the Lord only knows what we could do."
"How much seaweed can you haul to a load, and about how many loads
do you apply to the acre?"
"When the roads are good we haul a cord and a quarter, and we put
ten or twelve loads to the acre for corn and then use some
commercial fertilizer."
"Do you know how much a cord of the seaweed would weigh?"
"Yes, a cord weighs about a ton and a half."
"Then you apply about twenty tons of seaweed to the acre for corn?"
"Yes, but some use less and some more; probably that's about an
average. Hauling seaweed's a big job and a bad job. We have to start
from home long before daylight so as to get there and get the weed
while the tide is out, and then we get back with our load about two
o'clock in the afternoon; and, by the time we eat and feed the team,
and get the load to the field and spread, there isn't much time left
that day, especially when you've got to pile out of bed about two
o'clock the next morning and hike off for another load."
"Then you use some fertilizer in addition to the seaweed? May I ask
how much fertilizer you apply to the acre and about how much it
costs per ton?"
"Where we spread seaweed for corn, we add about four hundred and
fifty pounds per acre of fertilizer that costs me $26 a ton, but I
have the agency and get it some cheaper than most have to pay. Then
for potatoes we apply about 1500 pounds of a special potato
fertilizer that costs me $34 a ton."
"The fertilizer costs you about $6 an acre for the corn crop and $25
for potatoes," said Percy; "and then you have the cost of the
seaweed. I should think you would need to count about $25 or $30 an
acre for the expense of hauling seaweed."
"Yes, all of that if we had to pay for the work, but of course we
can haul seaweed more or less when the farm work isn't crowding, and
we don't count so much on the expense. It doesn't take the cash,
except may be a little for a boy to drive one team when we haul two
loads at a time; and we don't use seaweed for potatoes. The corn
crop will generally more'n pay for it and the fertilizer too; and
the seaweed helps for three or four years, especially for grass.
There's good profit in potatoes, too, when we get a crop, but
they're risky, considering the money we have to pay for fertilizer."
CHAPTER XXVIII
FARMER OR PROFESSOR
AFTER leaving Rhode Island, Percy spent two days in and about
Boston, and then returned to Connecticut for a day. The weather had
turned cold; the ground had frozen and the falling snow reminded him
that it was the day before Thanksgiving.
From New London he took a night boat to New York, and then took
passage on a Coast Line vessel from New York to Norfolk.
The weather had cleared and the wind decreased until it was scarcely
greater than the speed of the ship.
Whether or not the dining room service was extraordinary because of
the day, Percy was soon convinced that the only way to travel was by
boat. He regretted only that his mother was not with him to enjoy
that day. For hours they coasted southward within easy view of the
New Jersey shore, dotted here and there with cities, towns, and
villages. Light houses marked the rocky points where danger once
lurked for the men of the sea.
The sea itself was of constant interest; and hundreds of craft were
passed or met. Here a full-rigged sailing vessel lazily drifting
with the wind; there a giant little tug puffing in the opposite
direction with a string of barges in tow loaded almost to the
water's edge.
Norfolk was reached early the next morning, and before noon Percy
passed through Petersburg on his way to Montplain. He changed cars
at Lynchburg and arrived at Montplain before dark. In accordance
with a promise to Mr. West he had notified him of his plans.
Would Adelaide met him, and if so would she have the family carriage
and again insist upon his riding in the rear seat? He had found
these questions in his mind repeatedly since he left New London,
with no very definite purpose before him except to arrive at
Montplain at the appointed time.
Yes, it was the family carriage. He saw the farm team tied across
the street from the depot. As he left the train he caught a glimpse
of Adelaide standing with the group of people who were waiting to
board the train. She extended her hand as he reached her side.
"Mr. Johnston, meet my cousin, Professor Barstow."
"I am glad to meet you, Professor," said Percy, as he shook hands
with a tall young man about his own age. Percy noted his handsome
face and gentlemanly bearing.
"Miss Adelaide calls me cousin," said Barstow, "because my aunt
married her uncle."
"Well, Sir, if we're not cousins, then I'm Miss West and not Miss
Adelaide. Is that too much for an absent-minded professor to
remember?"
"I am afraid it is," said Barstow, "and I am sure I would rather be
cousins."
"Professor Barstow leaves on this train," Adelaide explained to
Percy; "excuse me, please."
Percy raised his hat as he stepped back from the crowd and waited
for the parting of the two. He was sure that Barstow held her hand
longer than was necessary, and he also noticed that her face flushed
as she rejoined him after the train started.
"Will you take the rear seat?" she asked. as they reached the
carriage.
"If you so prefer."
"That seat is for our guests, so I don't prefer," came her reply,
which left Percy wholly in the dark as to her wishes.
"Then let me be your coachman rather than your guest."
"If you so prefer," she repeated, and without waiting for assistance
quickly mounted to the front seat, leaving him to occupy the
driver's seat beside her.
"Captain and Mrs. Stone of Montplain were with us for Thanksgiving
and I came with the carriage to take them home. Professor Barstow
has also been spending his Thanksgiving vacation visiting with
papa."
"Thank you," said Percy, as he took the lines and turned the horses
toward Westover.
"You are certainly welcome to drive this team if you enjoy it."
"I thank you for that also," said Percy. Adelaide noted the word
_also, _but she only remarked that she hoped he had enjoyed his
travels, though she could not understand what pleasure he could find
in visiting old worn-out farms.
"Of all things," she continued, "it seems to me that farming is the
last that anyone would want to undertake."
"It is both the first and the last," said Percy. "As you know, when
our ancestors came to America, agriculture was the first great
industry they were able to develop. Other industries and professions
follow agriculture and must be supported in large measure by the
agricultural industry. Merchants, lawyers, doctors and teachers are
in a sense agricultural parasites."
An hour before he would not have included teachers in this class;
for, next to the mother in the home, he felt that the teacher in the
school is the greatest necessity for the highest development of the
agricultural classes.
"Without agriculture," he continued, "America could never have been
developed, and, unless the prosperity of American agriculture can be
maintained, poverty is the only future for this great nation. The
soil is the greatest source of wealth, and it is the most permanent
form of wealth. The Secretary of Agriculture at Washington told me a
few days ago that eighty-six per cent. of the raw materials used in
all our manufacturing industry are produced from the soil.
"Yes, agriculture is certainly the first industry in this country;
and I am fully convinced that to restore the fertility of the
depleted soils of the East and South, and even to maintain the
productive power of the great agricultural regions of the West,
deserves and will require the best thought of the most influential
people of America.
"Throughout the length and breadth of this land, the almost
universal purpose of the farmers is to work the land for all they
can get with practically no thought of permanency. The most common
remark of the corn belt farmer is that his land doesn't show much
wear yet; and it is holding up pretty well, or as well as could be
expected; or that he thinks it will last as long as he does. All
recognize that the land cannot hold up under the systems of farming
that are being practiced, and these systems are essentially the same
as have been followed in America since 1607. What the Southern
farmer did with slave labor, the Western farmer is now doing with
the gang plow, the two-row cultivator, and the four-horse disks and
harrows. In addition he tile-drains his land which helps to insure
larger crops and more rapid soil depletion. He even uses clover as a
soil stimulant, and spreads the farm fertilizer as thinly as
possible with a machine made for the purpose in order to secure both
its plant food value and its stimulating effect. Positive soil
enrichment is practically unknown in the great corn belt.
"Robbery is a harsh word; and yet the farmers and landowners of
America are and always have been soil robbers; and they not only rob
the nation of the possibility of permanent prosperity, but they even
rob themselves of the very comforts of life in their old age and
their children and grandchildren of a rightful inheritance.
"Worse than all this, or at least more lamentable, is the fact that
it need not be. The soils of Virginia need not have become worn out
and abandoned; because the earth and the air are filled with the
elements of plant food that are essential to the restoration and
permanent maintenance of the high productive capacity of these
soils. Moreover there is more profit and greater prosperity for the
present landowner in a possible practicable system of positive soil
improvement than under any system which leads to ultimate depletion
and abandonment of the land.
"The profit in farming lies first of all in securing large crop
yields. It costs forty bushels of corn per acre in Illinois to raise
the crop and pay the rent for the land or interest and taxes on the
investment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will require $8 to pay
the interest and taxes. Another $8 will be required to raise the
crop and harvest and market it, even with very inadequate provision
made for maintaining the productive power of the soil, such as a
catch crop of clover, or a very light dressing of farm fertilizer. A
forty-bushel crop of corn at forty cents a bushel, which is about
the ten year average price for Illinois, would bring only $16 an
acre, and this would leave no profit whatever.
"A crop of fifty bushels would leave only ten bushels as profit;
but, if we could double the yield and thus produce a hundred bushels
per acre, the profit would not be doubled only, but it would be six
times as great as from the fifty bushel crop. In other words, 100
bushels of corn from one acre would yield practically the same
profit as fifty bushels per acre from six acres, simply because it
requires the first forty bushels from each acre to pay for the fixed
charges or regular expense.
"It is not the amount of crop the farmer handles, but the amount of
actual profit that determines his prosperity. It requires profit to
build the new home or repair the old one, to provide the home with
the comforts and conveniences that are now to be had in the country
as well as in the city; to send the boys and girls to college; to
provide for the expense of travel and the luxuries of the home."
Percy stopped himself with an apology.
"I hope you will pardon me, Miss West. I forget that this subject
may be of no interest to you, and I have completely monopolized the
conversation."
"I am glad you have told me so much," she replied. "I am deeply
interested in what you have been saying. I never realized that
agriculture could involve such very important questions in regard to
our national prosperity. I only know that our farm has furnished us
with a living but there has been very little of what you call
profit. We children could never have gone away to school except that
we were enabled to take advantage of some unusual opportunities. My
brother almost earned his expenses as commissary in a boarding club
at college. He felt that he could not come home for Thanksgiving
because he had a chance to earn something and I have missed him so
much. Most farmers get barely enough from their farms in these parts
to furnish them a modest living and pay their taxes."
"That reminds me of your statement that farming is the last thing
that you would expect anyone to undertake. In a large sense that is
in accordance with the history of all great agricultural countries.
After the great wave of easy spoilation of the land has passed, and
the farmers reach a condition under which they need most of what
they produce for their own consumption, the parasites are themselves
forced to produce their own food. The lands become divided into
smaller holdings and the agricultural inhabitants increase rapidly
in proportion to the urban population which must depend upon the
profits from secondary pursuits for a living. Thus ninety-five per
cent. of the three hundred million people of India belong
principally to the agricultural classes, and the farms of India
average about two to three acres in size. Farming there is in no
sense a profit-yielding business, but it is only a means of
existence. The people live upon what they raise, so far as they can,
although, as you must know, India is almost never free from famine.
In Russia, the situation is but little better, for famine follows if
the yield of wheat falls two bushels below the average. Special
agents of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department
of Agriculture report that at least one famine year occurs in each
five year period, and sometimes even two; that the famine years are
so frequent they are recognized as a permanent feature of Russian
agriculture."
"But couldn't those poor starving people do some other kind of work
and thus earn a better living?" asked Adelaide.
"No. Agriculture is the only hope," said Percy. "The soil is the
breast of Mother Earth, from which her children must always draw
their nourishment, or perish. It is the 'last thing,' as you truly
said. Aside from hunting and fishing, there is no source of food
except the soil, and, when this is insufficient for the people who
produce it in the country, God pity the poor people who live in the
cities. But let us not talk of this more. I ought not to have taken
up the time of our ride through this beautiful scenery with a
subject which tends always toward the serious. The leaves are all
gone in New England, but here they have only taken on their most
beautiful colors. 'What is so rare as a day in June?' could now well
be answered, 'a day in November in Piedmont, Virginia.'"
"Do you know if your father received a letter for me from the
chemist to whom I sent the soil samples?"
"Yes, it came in Wednesday's mail, and there is a letter from the
University of Illinois and two others that Grandma says must be from
a lady. Papa says he is anxious to know what results would be found
in the chemist's report. May I listen while you tell papa about it?
Indeed, I am extremely interested to know if anything can be done to
make our farm produce such crops as it used to when grandmother was
a little girl."
"Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome subject," said Percy.
"It is, as a rule, not an easy matter to adopt a system of permanent
improvement on land that has been depleted by a century or more of
exhaustive husbandry. but you will be very welcome not only to
listen but to counsel also. My mother can measure difficulties in
advance better than most men; and I believe it is true that women
will deliberately plan and follow a course involving greater
hardship and privation than men would undertake. I cannot conceive
of any man doing what my mother has done for me."
Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his mother. Something in
his words or voice seemed to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a
wealth of affection akin to reverence, such as she had never
recognized before.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON
WILKES was at the side gate to meet Adelaide and Percy, and the
grandmother stood at the door as they reached the veranda.
"Lucky for us you got back before the Thanksgiving scraps are all
gone," she said to Percy, "but I suppose even our Thanksgiving fare
will be poor picking after you've been living in Washington and
Boston."
"Even the Thanksgiving dinner on the boat was not equal to this,"
said Percy, as they sat down to the table loaded with such an
abundance of good things as is rarely seen except on the farmer's
table. The "scraps," if such there were, had no appearance of being
left-overs, and there was monster turkey, browned to perfection and
sizzling hot, placed before Mr. West ready for the carving knife.
Percy had opened the letter from the chemist, but said to Mr. West
that it would take him an hour or more to compute the results to the
form of the actual elements and reduce them to pounds per acre in
order to make possible a direct comparison between the requirements
of crops, on the one hand, and the invoice of the soil and
application of plant food in manure and fertilizers, on the other
hand.
"Please let me help you make the computations," said Adelaide, much
to the surprise of her parents, who knew that she took no interest
in affairs pertaining to farming. "I like mathematics and will
promise not to make any mistakes if you will tell me how to do some
of the figuring."
"Thank you," said Percy. "With your help it will take only half the
time that I should require alone."
This proved to be correct, for in half an hour after supper they had
the results in simplified form. Even the mother and grandmother
joined the circle as Percy began to discuss the results with Mr.
West
"Now here is the invoice," said Percy, "of the surface soil from an
acre of land where we collected the first composite sample,--the
land which you said had not been cropped since you could remember.
This soil contains plant food as follows:
1,440 pounds of nitrogen
380 pounds of phosphorus
15,760 pounds of potassium
3,340 pounds of magnesium
10,420 pounds of calcium
"I'd like to know how these amounts compare with what your Illinois
soil contains," said Mr. West.
"We have several different kinds of soil in Illinois," replied
Percy. "The common corn belt prairie soil is called brown silt loam.
It contains, as an average, 5000 pounds of nitrogen and 1200 pounds
of phosphorus, or nearly four times as much of each of those
elements as this Virginia soil which you say is too poor to
cultivate.
"I wrote to the Illinois Experiment Station before I left Washington
to see if I could get the average composition of the heavier prairie
soil, which occupies the very flat areas that were originally
swampy, and one of the letters you had received for me gives 8000
pounds of nitrogen and 2000 pounds of phosphorus as the general
average for that soil. That is our most productive land, and it
contains about five times as much of these two very important
elements as your poorest land.
"Our more common Illinois prairie contains about 35,000 pounds of
potassium, 9,000 pounds of magnesium, and I 1,000 pounds of calcium.
This is more than twice as much potassium and nearly three times as
much magnesium as in your poorest land, but the calcium content is
about the same in your soil as in ours. However, as you will
remember, your soil is distinctly acid and consequently markedly in
need of lime, the magnesium and calcium evidently being contained in
part in the form of acid silicates with no carbonates; whereas, our
brown silt loam is a neutral soil and our black clay loam contains
much calcium carbonate, the same compound as pure limestone."
"I am anxious to know about our best land," said Mr. West. "What
did the chemist find in the soil from the slope where we get the
best corn after breaking up the old pastures?"
"He found the following amounts in the surface soil," said Percy.
800 pounds of nitrogen
1,660 pounds of phosphorus
34, 100 pounds of potassium
8,500 pounds of magnesium
13,100 pounds of calcium
"Rich in everything but nitrogen," Percy continued, "richer than our
common prairies in phosphorus and calcium, and nearly as rich in
potassium and magnesium; but very, very poor in nitrogen. Legume
plants ought to grow well on that land, because the minerals are
present in abundance, and, while lack of nitrogen in the soil will
limit the yield of all grains and grasses, there is no nitrogen
limit for the legume plants if infected with the proper
nitrogen-fixing bacteria, provided, of course, that the soil is not
acid. You will remember, however, that even this sloping land is
more or less acid, although here and there we found pieces of
undecomposed limestone. With a liberal use of ground limestone, any
legumes suited to this soil and climate ought to grow luxuriantly on
those slopes."
"That reminds me that we are greatly troubled with Japan clover on
those slopes," said Mr. West. "Of course it makes good pasture for a
few months, but it doesn't come so early in the spring as blue grass
and it is killed with the first heavy frost in the fall. We like
blue grass much better for that reason, but when we seed down for
meadow and pasture, the Japan clover always crowds out the timothy
and blue grass on those slopes."
"And when you plow under the Japan clover, you get one or two good
crops of grain," said Percy, "because this clover has stored up some
much needed nitrogen and the soil is rich in all other necessary
elements. Have you ever tried alfalfa on that kind of land? That is
a crop that ought to do well there, especially if limestone were
applied."
"Yes, I have tried alfalfa," replied Mr. West, "and I tried it on a
strip that ran across one of those steep slopes; but it failed
completely, and, as I remember it, it was poorer on that hillside
than on the more level land."
"Did you inoculate it?" Percy asked.
"Inoculate it? No. I didn't do anything to it, but just sow it the
same as I sow red clover."
"What does it mean to inoculate it?" asked Adelaide.
"It means to put some bugs on it," said the grandmother; "some germs
or microbes, or whatever they are called. Don't you remember,
Adelaide, that I told you about that when I read it in the magazine
a while ago? Don't you remember that somebody was making it and a
man could carry enough in his vest pocket to fertilize an acre and
he wanted $2 a package. Charles said that $1.50 a hundred was more
than he could afford to pay for fertilizer, and he didn't care to
pay $2 for a vest pocket package. Isn't that the stuff, Mr.
Johnston?"
"It listens like it, as the Swedes say," said Percy, "but the
advertisements of these germ cultures put out by commercial
interests are usually very misleading. The safest and best and least
expensive method of inoculating a field for alfalfa is to use
infested soil taken from some old alfalfa field or from a patch of
ground where the common sweet clover, or mellilotus, has been
growing for several years. I saw the sweet clover growing along the
railroad near Montplain, and there is one patch on the roadside
right where--when you enter the valley on the way to the station."
"Right where Adelaide smashed that nigger's eye with her heel and
helped Mr. Johnston capture them both," broke in the grandmother.
"That's the only good thing I can say for her peg heeled shoes."
Adelaide colored and Percy now understood what had been a puzzle to
him.
"The same bacteria," he went on quickly, "live upon both the sweet
clover and the alfalfa, or at least they are interchangeable. These
bacteria are not a fertilizer in any ordinary sense, but they are
more in the nature of a disease, a kind of tuberculosis, as it were;
except that they do much more good than harm. They attack the very
tender young roots of the alfalfa and feed upon the nutritious sap,
taking from it the phosphorus and other minerals and also the sugar
or other carbohydrates needed for their own nourishment, since they
have no power to secure carbon and oxygen from the air, as is done
by all plants with green leaves. On the other hand, these bacteria
have power to take the free nitrogen of the air, which enters the
pores of the soil to some extent, and cause it to combine with food
materials which are secured from the alfalfa sap, and thus the
bacteria secure for themselves both nitrogen and the other essential
plant foods. The alfalfa root or rootlet becomes enlarged at the
point attacked by the bacteria, and a sort of wart or tubercle is
formed which resembles a tiny potato, as large as clover seed on
clover or alfalfa, and, singularly, about as large as peas on
cowpeas or soy beans. On plants that are sparsely infected, these
tubercles develop to a large size and often in clusters. While the
bacteria themselves are extremely small and can be seen only by the
aid of a powerful microscope, the tubercles in which they live are
easily seen, and they are sufficient to enable us to know whether
the plants are infected."
"I wish you would tell me the difference between the words
inoculated and infected," said Adelaide.
"Inoculated is used in the active sense and infected in the
passive," said Percy. "Thus the red clover growing in the field is
infected if there are tubercles on its roots, although it may never
have been inoculated; and we inoculate alfalfa because it would not
be likely to become infected without direct inoculation."
"Under favorable conditions," continued Percy, "these bacteria
multiply with tremendous rapidity, somewhat as the germs of small
pox or yellow fever multiply if allowed to do so. A single tubercle
may contain a million germs which if distributed uniformly over an
acre would furnish more than twenty bacteria for every square foot."
"There, Charles," said the grandmother, "wouldn't a vest pocketful
of those bugs or germs be a big enough dose for one acre?"
"Well, but they're not a fertilizer, Mother," said Mr. West, "and
besides Mr. Johnston says it is better to use the infected sweet
clover soil and there is no need of paying $2 an acre for something
we knew nothing about, and especially on land that is not worth more
than $2 an acre."
"I don't care what it's worth," she replied, "some of it cost your
grandfather $68 an acre, and it will never be sold for any $2, while
I have any say so about it."
They waited for Percy to proceed.
"The individual bacteria are very short-lived," he continued, "and
products of decay soon begin to accumulate in the tubercles. These
products contain, in combined form, nitrogen which the bacteria have
taken from the air, and in this form it is taken from the tubercles
and absorbed through the roots into the host plant and thus serves
as a source of nitrogen for all of the agricultural legumes.
"It should be kept in mind, of course, that the red clover has one
kind of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that the cowpea has a different
kind, and that the soy bean bacteria are still different, while a
fourth kind lives on the roots of alfalfa and sweet clover."
"How much infected sweet clover soil would I need to inoculate an
acre of land for alfalfa?" asked Mr. West.
"If the soil is thoroughly infected, a hundred pounds to the acre
will do very well if applied at the same time the alfalfa seed is
sown and immediately harrowed in with the seed. If allowed to lie
for several hours or days exposed to the sunshine after being spread
over the land the bacteria will be destroyed, for like most
bacteria, such as those which lurk in milk pails to sour the milk,
they are killed by the sunshine."
" That's right," said the grandmother. "That's the way to sterilize
milk pails and pans and crocks. I like crocks better than pans. They
don't have any sort of joints to dig out."
"Of course," continued Percy, "a wagon load of infected soil will
make a more perfect inoculation than a hundred pounds, and where it
costs nothing but the hauling it is well to use a liberal amount."
"How deep should it be taken?" asked Mr. West.
"About the same depth as you would plow. The tubercles are mostly
within six or eight inches of the surface. The bacteria depend upon
the nitrogen of the air and this must enter the surface soil.
Sometimes in wet weather the tubercles can be found almost at the
surface of the ground, and when the ground cracks one can often find
tubercles sticking out in the cracks an inch or two beneath the
surface but protected from direct sunshine.
"These bacteria have power to furnish very large amounts of nitrogen
to such a crop as alfalfa. The Illinois Station reports having grown
eight and one-half tons of alfalfa per acre in one season. It was
harvested in four cuttings. The hay itself was worth at least $6 a
ton above all expenses, which would bring $51 an acre net profit for
one year. Of course this was above the average, which is only about
four and one-half tons over a series of several years. But suppose
you can save only three tons and get $6 a ton net for it, as you
could easily do by feeding it to your cattle and sheep. That would
bring $18 an acre or six per cent. interest on $300 land. I am
altogether confident that this could be done on your sloping
hillsides, with their rich supplies of phosphorus and other mineral
foods, provided, of course, that you use plenty of ground limestone
and thoroughly inoculate the soil."
"Well, I shall certainly try alfalfa again," said Mr. West, "and if
I can grow such crops of alfalfa as you think on the hillsides, I
can have much more farm manure produced for the improvement of the
rest of the land. By the way what did that chemist find in that
sample you took of the other land where it does not wash so much as
on the steeper slopes."
"He found the following:
1,030 pounds of nitrogen
1,270 pounds of phosphorus
16,500 pounds of potassium
7,460 pounds of magnesium
16,100 pounds of calcium
"Well, the phosphorus is not so low," said Mr. West.
"Fully equal to that in our $150 Illinois prairie," replied Percy,
"and again the calcium is more than ours, with magnesium not far
below, and potassium half our supply. Nitrogen is plainly the most
serious problem on most of this farm, and limestone and legumes must
solve that problem if properly used."
"Do you think this land could be made as valuable as the Illinois
land just by a liberal use of limestone and legumes?" asked
Adelaide.
"I should have some doubt about that," Percy replied. "Your very
level uplands that neither lose nor receive material from surface
washing are very deficient in phosphorus and much poorer than ours
in potassium and magnesium; and your undulating and steeply sloping
lands are more or less broken, with many rock outcrops on the points
and some impassable gullies, which as a rule compel the cultivation
of the land in small irregular fields. A three-cornered field of
from two to fifteen acres can never have quite the same value per
acre as the land where forty or eighty acres of corn can be grown in
a body with no necessity of omitting a single hill. Then there is
some unavoidable loss from surface washing, so that to maintain the
supply of organic matter and nitrogen will require a larger use of
legumes than on level land of equal richness. In addition to this is
the initial difference in humus content. This is well measured by
the nitrogen content. While your soil contains eight hundred pounds
of nitrogen on the steeper slopes and one thousand pounds on the
more gently undulating areas, ours contains five thousand pounds in
the brown silt loam and eight thousand pounds in the heavier black
clay loam. This means that our Illinois prairie soil contains from
five to ten times as much humus, or organic matter, as your best
upland soil. To supply this difference in humus would require the
addition of from four hundred to eight hundred tons per acre of
average farm manure, or the plowing under of one hundred to two
hundred tons of air-dry clover. This represents the great reserve of
the Illinois prairie soils above the total supplies remaining in
your soils.
"Our farmers are still producing crops very largely by drawing on
this reserve. Of course most of this great supply of humus is very
old. It represents the organic residues most resistant to
decomposition; and, where corn and oats are grown exclusively, the
soil has reached a condition on many farms under which the
decomposition of the reserve organic matter is so slow that the
nitrogen liberated from its own decay and the minerals liberated
from the soil by the action of the decomposition products are not
sufficient to meet the requirements of large crops, and for this
reason alone some of our lands that are still rich are said to be
run down; but they only require a moderate use of clover or farm
manure or other fresh and active organic matter to at once restore
their productiveness to a point almost equal to the yields from the
virgin soil. Some Illinois farmers who have discovered this apparent
restoration have jumped to the conclusion that they have solved the
problem of permanently maintaining the fertility of the soil; and I
judge from a remark made by the Secretary of Agriculture that some
Iowa farmers have the same mistaken notions.
"These fresh supplies of active organic matter serve primarily as
soil stimulants, hastening the liberation of nitrogen from the
organic reserve and of minerals from the inorganic soil materials.
"Where one of the Eastern farmers has managed a farm under the
rotation system with the occasional use of clover or light
applications of farm manure,--where this has been continued until
the great reserve is largely gone, and the phosphorus supply greatly
depleted, then the land is truly run down, but not until then.
"Finally, land-plaster and quick-lime, still more powerful soil
stimulants, are often brought into the system to bring about a more
complete exhaustion of the soil reserves, and lastly the use of
small amounts of high-priced commercial fertilizers serves to put
the land in suitable condition for ultimate abandonment."
"Do you mean that commercial fertilizers injure the soil?" asked Mr.
West.
"Well, to some extent they injure the soil because they tend to
destroy the limestone and increase the acidity of the soil, and also
because they contain more or less manufactured land-plaster and thus
serve as soil stimulants; but the chief point to keep in mind
concerning the use of the common so-called complete commercial
fertilizer is that they are too expensive to permit their use in
sufficient quantities to positively enrich the soil. Thus the farmer
may apply two hundred pounds of such a fertilizer at a cost of $3.00
an acre, and then harvest a crop of wheat, two crops of hay, pasture
for another year or two, plow up the grounds for corn, apply another
two hundred pounds for the corn crop, follow with a crop of oats,
and then repeat. He thus harvests five crops and pastures a year or
two and applies perhaps four hundred pounds of fertilizer at a cost
of $6.00.
"As an average of the most common commercial fertilizers sold to the
farmers in the Eastern and Southern States, the four hundred pounds
would add to the soil seven pounds of nitrogen, fourteen pounds of
phosphorus and seven pounds of potassium, while a single
fifty-bushel crop of corn will remove from the soil ten times as
much nitrogen, five times as much potassium, and nearly as much
phosphorus as the total amounts applied in this six-year or
seven-year rotation.
"In this manner the farmer extends the time during which he can take
from the soil crops whose value exceed their cost. He applies only
one-fourth or possibly one-half as much of the most deficient
element as the crops harvested require, and thus he continues for a
longer time to 'work the land for all that's in it! '"
"Well, isn't that the limit?" said Adelaide, with emphasis on the
"isn't," for which she received a disapproving look from her mother,
so far as her almost angel-face could give such a look.
"So far as human ingenuity has yet devised," replied Percy, "this
system appears to be the limit; but this limit has not yet been
reached on any Westover soil. If anyone can devise a method for
extending this limit he should apply it on a type of soil covering
more than two-fifths of the total area of St. Mary County and more
than 45,000 acres of Prince George County, Maryland, some of which
almost adjoins the District of Columbia. This soil has been reduced
in fertility until it contains only one-third as much phosphorus as
your poorest land. I found a Western man who had come down to
Maryland a few years ago. He saw that beautiful almost level upland
soil, and it looked so good to him that he bought and kept buying
until he had 'squared out' a tract of eleven hundred acres. He
still had left money enough to fence the farm and to put the
buildings in good repair. He was a live-stock farmer from the West
who just knew from his own experience and from that of the Secretary
of Agriculture, in the use of a little clover or farm manure in
unlocking the great reserves of an almost virgin soil, that all his
Maryland farm needed was clover seed and live stock. Sheep
especially he knew to be great producers of fertility.
"He sowed the clover and grass seed and they germinated well. He
even secured a fine catch, but it failed to hold, as we say out
West. He tried again and again, and failed as often as he tried. He
showed me his best clover on a field that had received some manure
made from feed part of which was purchased, and that had also
received five hundred pounds per acre of hydrated lime, which he was
finally persuaded to use, after becoming convinced that
clover-growing on old abandoned land was not exactly as easy as
clover-growing on a 'run-down' farm of almost virgin soil in the
West."
"And was the clover good after that treatment?" asked Mr. West.
"No, not good," said Percy, "but in some places where the manure had
been applied to the high points, as is the custom of the Western
farmer, the yield of clover, weeds, and foul grass together must
have been nearly a half ton to the acre. Fortunately he waited to
fully stock his farm with cattle and sheep until he should have some
assurance of producing sufficient feed to keep them for a time at
least, instead of making the common mistake of the less experienced
farmer who goes to the country from the city, and who imagines that,
if he has plenty of stock on the farm, they must of necessity
produce abundance of manure with which to enrich his land for the
production of abundant crops."
"Well, now you'll have to show me," said the grandmother. "To my
way of thinking that's a pretty good kind of a notion for a farmer
to have, and I'd like to know what's wrong with it."
Again a shadow seemed to cross the sweet face as the mother's glance
turned from grandma to Adelaide.
"The system has some merit," replied Percy, "but it starts at the
wrong point in the circle. Cattle and sheep must first have feed
before they can produce the fertilizer with which to enrich the
soil; and people who would raise stock on poor land should always
produce a good supply of food before they procure the stock
requiring to be fed. There is probably no more direct route to
financial disaster than for one to insist upon over-stocking a farm
that is essentially worn out."
"But doesn't pasturing enrich the soil?" asked the grandmother.
"Pasturing may enrich the soil only in a single element of plant
food," said Percy. "In all other elements simple pasturing must
always contribute toward soil depletion. If the pasture herbage
contains a sufficient proportion of legume plants so that the
fixation of free nitrogen exceeds the utilization of nitrogen in
animal growth, then the soil will be enriched in that element,
although with the same growth of plants it would be enriched more
rapidly without pasturing; for animals are not made out of nothing.
Meat, milk, and wool are all highly nitrogenous products.
"On the other hand no amount of pasturing can add to the soil a
single pound of any one of the six mineral elements, and phosphorus,
which is normally the most limited of all these elements, is
abstracted from the soil and retained by the animals in very
considerable amounts. As an average one-fourth of the phosphorus
contained in the food consumed is retained in the animal products,
especially in bone, flesh, and milk."
"Well, I didn't know that milk contained phosphorus," said Mr. West,
"although I did know, of course, that phosphorus must be contained
in bone."
"But, as you know," said Percy, "milk is the only food of young
animals, and they must secure their bone food from the milk.
Furthermore, the complete analysis of milk shows that it contains
very considerable quantities. There are also records of digestion
experiments in which less than one-half of the phosphorus in the
food consumed was recovered in the total manural excrements. As a
matter of fact there is a time in the life of the young mother, as
with the two-year old cow, for example, when she must abstract from
the food she consumes sufficient phosphorus for the nourishment of
three growing animals,--her own immature body, a suckling calf, and
another calf as yet unborn.
"Of course the organic matter of the soil should increase under
pasturing, especially under conditions that make possible an
accumulation of nitrogen; but here too the animals make no
contribution toward any such accumulation. With the same growth of
plants the accumulation of organic matter would be much more rapid
without live stock."
"It is known absolutely but not generally that live stock destroy
about two-thirds of the organic matter contained in the food they
consume. With grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse
forage it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds of the dry
matter in tender young grass or clover or in a mixed, well-balanced
ration of grain and hay is digested and thus practically destroyed
so far as the production of organic matter is concerned.
"This you could easily verify yourself, Mr. West, by feeding two
thousand pounds of any suitable ration, such as corn and clover hay,
collecting and drying the total excrement, which will be found to
weigh about seven hundred pounds, if it contains no higher
percentage of moisture than was contained in the two thousand pounds
of food consumed.
"Of course one should not forget that the liquid excrement contains
more nitrogen and more potassium than the solid, and that much of
this can be saved and returned to the land by use of plenty of
absorbent bedding, and in pasturing there is no danger of any loss
from this source."
"That is one great trouble with us," said Mr. West. "We never have
as much bedding as we could use to advantage, and it is altogether
too expensive to permit us to think of buying straw."
"Probably it would be much less expensive for you to buy ground
limestone and then use good alfalfa hay for bedding," said Percy. "I
mean exactly what I say," he continued. "Of course I do not advise
you to use good alfalfa hay in that way, but it would be a cheap
source of very valuable bedding, and it would make an extremely
valuable manure. However, I should not hesitate to make liberal use
of partially spoiled alfalfa hay for bedding, and you are quite
likely to have more or less such hay; for under favorable
conditions, such as you can easily have with your soil and climate,
alfalfa comes on with a rush in the spring, and often the first crop
should be cut before the weather is suitable for making hay. There
should be very little or no delay at this time, because the first
cutting should be removed in order that it may be out of the way of
the second crop, which comes forward still more rapidly under normal
conditions.
"Some of our Illinois farmers make strenuous objection to taking
care of an alfalfa field that produces $50 worth of the richest and
most valuable hay, because it interferes too much with the proper
care of a $25 corn crop, which they somehow feel requires and
deserves all their time and attention.
"Some of our Virginia farmers have sent to Illinois for their seed
corn," said Mr. West; "and they report very good results as a rule,
especially on land that has been kept up. On our poor land I think
the native corn does better than the Western seed."
"Perhaps that is because it is used to it," suggested Percy, "used
to making the struggle for itself on poor land. Fighting for all it
gets, so to speak. You know the high-bred animals cannot hold their
own with the scrubs when it comes to pawing the snow off the dead
wild grass for a living in the winter, as cattle must do sometimes
on the plains of the Northwest.
"Well, there may be something in that," responded Mr. West, "but the
western seed corn certainly looks fine."
"Yes, that is true," said Percy. "Our farmers have made marked
improvement in seed corn; they also understand very well how to grow
corn. They know how and when to prepare the ground, how and when to
plant; and how and when to cultivate. When Illinois farmers go to
Iowa to buy land, the Iowa real estate men usually take them to see
a farm that is owned and operated by a former Illinoisan, and they
insist that there are no other farmers who know how to raise corn
quite so well as the Illinois farmer. Perhaps the Illinois real
estate man would tell a similar story to the Iowa farmer if he ever
came there to buy land, but 'Westward the Course of Empire takes its
Way' and the man once gone west knows the east no more, except as a
market for his surplus products or a good place in which to spend
his surplus cash.
"But, here. We must finish our study of the data that Miss Adelaide
so kindly helped me to compute."
It was the first time that he had spoken her name in her presence;
and she met his glance as she raised her eyes.
What's in a name? What's in a glance?
Percy proceeded without delay; and Adelaide listened as before, her
drooping lashes protecting her eyes almost entirely from the view of
others. The father and mother heard no name spoken and saw no eyes
meet, and yet as Percy continued speaking a second self seemed to be
thinking different thoughts and he was conscious of a strong desire
to look longer than an instant into those captivating eyes.
A side glance, as she let her lashes droop, revealed to Adelaide
that grandma alone had heard and seen. But Percy was a very
common-place man. Certainly he had no such face as had held her
glance for more than an instant as the afternoon train began to move
from the depot platform. Percy was slightly above the average height
and solidly built, but he was not tall. His face had often been
described as a "perfect blank." No one saw anything of what lay
within by merely looking into his eyes, and yet there was a certain
indescribable something that appealed to one from those eyes. An
elderly German lady once remarked to his mother: "Ihr Sohn hat so
etwas gutes im Auge."
Percy was not polished in manner, Adelaide admitted. Professor
Barstow had said that he deliberated for half an hour as to whether
he should bring his "cawds," for use on Thanksgiving day, because he
feared that the custom in "Vi'ginia" might not be the same as in
"No'th Cahlina"; while she doubted very much if Percy had any cards
whatever. She had never heard it said that he was "strong as an ox
and quick as lightning," but perhaps she knew it as well as his
schoolmates ever had. She had not heard that one of the college
professors, noted for his short-cut expressions, had once told his
class that he wished they would all "keep their thinking apparatus
in as good repair as Johnston's." One thing she did know was that
Percy's voice had been trained to talk to a woman, and that no other
voice had ever spoken her name as he did. Reserve force? depth of
manhood? confidence in his own words? absolute decision? wealth of
tenderness? persistent endurance? unfailing loyalty? boundless
affection? Deep in her heart Adelaide felt that these were among the
attributes revealed in Percy's voice. When he spoke all listened.
His voice was low-pitched but rich in tone and volume and
sincerity,--that was the word.--The whole man seemed to feel and
speak when he spoke. He surely can have no secrets. His mother must
know all that he knows of his own self; but were those letters from
his mother? The handwriting was very modern. Even her father made an
old-fashioned C and W in signing his own name. Had he not looked at
the writing on both those letters before he noticed the others? and
why did he remain so long in his room before coming down to dinner?
Had he not been in college--in a great University where there were
hundreds of the brightest girls of his own State? But why should any
girl be interested in farming? Teaching is such a cultured
profession.
Only a moment--just while he was sorting the papers upon which they
had made the computations, but a hundred thoughts had passed through
her mind. Now he was speaking.
"You remember we took a sample of the subsoil on the sloping land.
This soil is evidently residual, formed in place from the
disintegration of the underlying rock. The soil may represent only a
small part of the original rock, because of the loss by leaching.
Here are the amounts of plant food found in two million pounds of
the subsoil:
590 pounds of nitrogen
1,980 pounds of phosphorus
37,940 pounds of potassium
24,808 pounds of magnesium
31,320 pounds of calcium
"A splendid subsoil," Percy continued. "I know of none better in
Illinois, except that we sometimes have more calcium in the form of
carbonate, and even somewhat more potassium in places; but this must
be a fine subsoil for alfalfa, where the bed rock is not too near
the surface. Of course there is but little nitrogen in the subsoil,
but that is true of all normal soils, because the nitrogen is
contained only in the organic matter, and that decreases rapidly
with depth and usually becomes insufficient to color the soil below
18 inches."
"Now," began Mr. West, "from these different analyses or invoices,
and from your discussion of these results, I take it that you would
not advise me to purchase any commercial fertilizer for use on the
land we are still using in my rotation; but you think we should make
large use of limestone and legume crops."
"Yes, Sir. Phosphorus is markedly deficient only in the very level
upland which has been allowed to remain uncleared for fifty years or
more, and nitrogen is certainly the limiting element on the land you
are trying to keep in your rotation. While you cannot hope to put
into your soil any such reserve of slow-acting organic matter as we
still have in our comparatively new soils of the West, we may keep
in mind that a small amount of quick-acting fresh organic matter is
more effective than a large supply of what we might call embalmed
material that decomposes very, very slowly unless assisted by the
addition of more active organic matter. It frequently happens that
one soil containing a large reserve of old humus, and hence showing
more organic carbon and more nitrogen, by the ultimate invoice, than
another soil, is, nevertheless, less productive, because the other
soil contains a larger amount of fresh organic matter which decays
quickly and thus furnishes more nitrogen and liberates more of the
other elements from the insoluble minerals of the soil because of
the greater abundance of the active products of organic decay.
"I think you should keep in mind, however, that, for every
twenty-five bushels of corn you wish to produce, you should return
to the soil one ton of clover or four tons of average farm manure,
and that for one ton of produce hauled to the barns and fed, you
will probably not return to the land more than one ton of manure."
CHAPTER XXX
"STONE SOUP"
THE next forenoon Percy and Mr. West spent some time making some
further tests with hydrochloric acid and litmus paper in different
places on the farm; but the result only confirmed the previous
examinations.
"I never before saw any such light as now appears," said Mr. West.
"It seems to me that for the first time in the history of Westover,
covering about two centuries, a real plan can be intelligently made
based upon definite information looking toward the positive
improvement of the soil. While you have been away, I have been
looking up the lime matter. I find that a lime is being advertised,
and sold in small amounts, that is called hydrated lime, and it is
especially prepared as an agricultural lime. It is recommended by
some dealers as being fully equal to the ordinary commercial
fertilizer which sells at about $25 a ton, while this hydrated
agricultural lime can be bought for $8 a ton, and I think for a
little less in larger amounts. You mentioned also that you had seen
some one who had used hydrated lime, but it didn't seem to make much
of a clover crop. Of course, I understand from what you said that
his soil contained only one hundred and sixty pounds of phosphorus,
and I take it that lime alone could not markedly improve his soil;
but still I would like to know why, if he has one hundred and sixty
pounds of phosphorus in his plowed soil, he could not produce a few
good crops of clover. HOW much phosphorus does it require for a ton
of clover?"
"One ton of clover contains only five pounds of phosphorus," Percy
replied, "and of course the roots must also require some phosphorus,
although after the crop is produced and removed, the phosphorus
contained in the roots remains for the benefit of subsequent crops.
Thus we might suppose the land which contains one hundred and sixty
pounds of phosphorus ought to furnish the phosphorus needed for a
three ton crop of clover every year for ten years; but in actual
practice no such results are secured. The invoice of the plant food
in the soil is a matter of very great importance, for it reveals the
mathematical possibilities, but another matter of almost equal
importance is the problem of liberating plant food from this supply
sufficient for the crops to be produced year by year.
"Decaying or active organic matter is one of the great factors in
the liberation of plant food, and undoubtedly the extension or
distribution of the root system of the growing plant is another very
potent factor. If the root surfaces come in contact with one per
cent. of the total surface of the soil particles in the plowed soil,
then we might conceive of a relationship whereby one per cent. of
the phosphorus in that soil would be dissolved or liberated from the
insoluble minerals and thus become available as food for the growing
crop. We know that the rate of liberation varies greatly, with
different soils and seasons, and crops also differ in their power to
assist themselves in the extraction of mineral plant food from the
soil. The presence of limestone encourages the development of
certain soil organisms which tend to hasten some decomposition
process. But, all things considered, it may be said, speaking very
generally, that the equivalent of about one per cent. of the total
phosphorus contained in the plowed soil does become available for
the crops under average conditions. On this basis one hundred and
sixty pounds of phosphorus would furnish about one and one-half
pounds for the crops during one season. But in such a soil the
phosphorus still remaining may be the most difficultly soluble, and
the supply of decaying organic matter may be extremely low, so that
possibly less than one pound per acre would become available, and
this would meet the needs of less than four hundred pounds per acre
of clover hay. Furthermore, the supply grows less and less with
every crop removed.
"With your ordinary soil, carrying twelve hundred and seventy pounds
of phosphorus, perhaps you may be able by a liberal use of decaying
organic matter to liberate ten or fifteen pounds of phosphorus, or
sufficient for a crop of forty to sixty bushels of corn; and, with a
subsoil richer in phosphorus than the surface, and with more or less
of the partially depleted surface removed by erosion year by year,
the supply of phosphorus is thus permanently provided for unless the
bed rock is brought too near the surface. It is doubtful if the
direct addition of phosphorus to your sloping lands will ever be
necessary or profitable. Certainly such addition is not advisable
until you have brought the land to as high a state of fertility as
is practicable by means of limestone, legumes, and manure."
"That seems clearly to be the case with most of the land now under
cultivation on this farm," said Mr. West "Can you tell me anything
about this hydrated lime?
"I can tell you it is correctly named," Percy replied. "_Hydrated_
means _watered,_ and an investment in hydrated lime is properly
classed with other watered investments. If you prefer to use
hydrated lime I would suggest that you buy fresh burned lump lime
and do the hydrating yourself, which only requires that you add
eighteen pounds of water to each fifty-six pounds of quick lime; in
other words, that you slack the lime by adding water in the proper
proportion. Both quick lime and hydrated lime are known as caustic
lime. Webster says that the word _caustic_ means 'capable of
destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance by
chemical action.'
"This definition is correct for caustic lime, as you can easily
determine by keeping your hand in a bucket of slacked lime a few
minutes. Caustic lime eats away the organic matter of the soil. In
an experiment conducted by the Pennsylvania Experiment Station,
during a period of sixteen years, eight tons of hydrated lime
destroyed organic matter equivalent to thirty-seven tons of farm
manure, as compared with the use of equivalent applications of
ground limestone; and, as an average of the sixteen years, every ton
of caustic lime applied liberated seven dollars' worth of organic
nitrogen, as compared with ground limestone. That this much
liberated nitrogen was essentially wasted and lost is evidenced by
the fact that larger crops were produced where ground limestone was
used than where burned lime was applied.
"The limestone must be quarried whether used for grinding or for
burning, and the grinding can be done for twenty-five cents a ton
where a large equipment with powerful machinery is used and where
cheap fuel is provided, as near the coal mining districts. It need
not be very finely ground. If ground to pass a sieve with twelve
meshes to the linear inch, it is very satisfactory, provided that
all of the fine dust produced in the grinding is included in the
product. You see the soil acids are slightly soluble and they attack
the limestone particles and are thus themselves destroyed or
neutralized. If, however, you ever wish to use raw rock phosphate,
insist upon its being sufficiently fine-ground that at least ninety
per cent. of it will pass through a sieve with ten thousand meshes
to the square inch, this being no finer than is required for the
basic slag phosphate, of which several million tons are now being
used each year in the European countries. Like the raw rock
phosphate, the slag gives the best results only when used in
connection with plenty of decaying organic matter."
"That reminds me," said Mr. West, "of what one of the fertilizer
agents said about raw phosphate. He said the use of raw phosphate
with farm manure reminded him of 'stone soup,' which was made by
putting a clean round stone in the kettle with some water. Pepper
and salt were added, then some potatoes and other vegetables, a
piece of butter and a few scraps of meat. 'Stone soup,' thus made,
was a very satisfactory soup. He said that in practically all of the
tests of raw phosphate conducted by the various State Experiment
Stations, manure has been used as a means of supplying organic
matter to liberate the phosphorus from the raw rock, but in such
large quantity as to be entirely impracticable for the average
farmer to use on his own fields; and his opinion was that the entire
benefit was due to the manure. He had a little booklet entitled
'Available or Unavailable Plant Food--Which?' published by the
National Fertilizer Association, and said I could get a copy by
addressing the Secretary at Nashville, Tennessee."
"Fortunately," said Percy, "this is not a question of opinion but
one of fact; and it has been discovered that the fertilizer agents
who are long on opinions and short on facts prefer to sell four tons
of complete fertilizer for $80, or even two tons of acid phosphate
for $30, rather than to sell one ton of raw phosphate, containing
the same amount of phosphorus, for $7.50. In the manufacture of
acidulated fertilizers, one ton of raw phosphate, containing about
two hundred and fifty pounds of the element phosphorus, is mixed
with one ton of sulfuric acid to make two tons of acid phosphate;
and, as a rule, these two tons of acid phosphate are mixed with two
tons of filler to make four tons of complete fertilizer. A favorite
filler is dried peat, which is taken from some of the peat bogs, as
at Manito, Illinois, and shipped in train loads to the fertilizer
factories. The peat is not considered worth hauling onto the land in
Illinois, even where the farmers can get it for nothing; but it
contains some organic nitrogen, and, by the addition of a little
potassium salt, the agent is enabled to call the product a
'complete' fertilizer.
"Experiments with the use of raw rock phosphate have been conducted
by the State Agricultural Experiment Stations over periods of twelve
years in Maryland, eleven years in Rhode Island, twenty-one years
(in two series) in Massachusetts, fourteen years (in two series) in
Maine, twelve years in Pennsylvania, thirteen years in Ohio, four
years in Indiana, and from four to six years on a dozen different
experiment fields in different parts of Illinois.
"I have here some quotations taken from the directors of several of
these experiment stations which fairly represent the opinions which
they have expressed concerning their own investigations. Thus the
Maryland director says:
"'The results obtained with the insoluble phosphates has cost
usually less than one-half as much as that with the soluble
phosphates. Insoluble South Carolina phosphate rock produced a
higher total average yield than dissolved South Carolina rock.'
"The Rhode Island director comments as follows:
"' With the pea, oat, summer squash, crimson clover, Japanese
millet, golden millet, white podded Adzuka bean, soy bean, and
potato, raw phosphate gave very good results; but with the flat
turnip, table beet, and cabbage it was relatively very inefficient.'
"The following statement is from the Massachusetts director:
"'It is possible to produce profitable crops of most kinds by
liberal use of natural phosphates, and in a long series of years
there might be a considerable money saving in depending at least in
part upon these rather than upon the higher priced dissolved
phosphates.'
"The director of the Maine State Experiment Station gives us the
following:
"'For the first year the largest increase of crop was produced by
soluble phosphate. For the second and third years without further
addition of fertilizers, better results were obtained from the plots
where stable manure and insoluble phosphates had been used.'
"The stable manure and insoluble phosphates here referred to were
not applied together, but on separate plots. In deed, the raw
phosphate was not used in connection with manure either in Maryland,
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania, or Indiana; and in
the extensive experiments in progress in Illinois the raw phosphate
has been used, as a rule, not with farm manure, but with green
manures; and wherever manure has been used in connection with the
raw phosphate, as in Ohio, the comparison is made with the same
amounts of manure applied without phosphate.
"The Pennsylvania Report for 1895, page 210, contains the following
statement:
"'The yearly average for the twelve years gives us a gain per acre
of $2.83 from insoluble ground bone, $2.45 from insoluble South
Caroline rock, $1.61 from reverted phosphate, and 48 cents from
soluble phosphate, thus giving us considerably better results from
the two forms of insoluble phosphate than from the reverted or
soluble forms.'
"The Indiana director reports as follows:
"'It will be seen that during the first and second years the rock
phosphate produced little effect, while the acid phosphate very
materially increased the yields. During the third and fourth
seasons, however, the rock produced very striking results, even
forging ahead of the acid. This and very similar investigations in
progress lead us to believe that rock phosphate is a cheap and
effective source of phosphorus where immediate returns are not
required.
"In the Ohio experiments eight tons of manure per acre were applied
once every three years in a three-year rotation of corn, wheat, and
clover, three different fields being used, so that every crop might
be grown every year. The average yields for the thirteen years where
manure alone was used were:
53.1 bushels of corn
20.6 bushels of wheat
1.63 tons of hay
"The average yields on the unfertilized land were:
32.2 bushels of corn
11.4 bushels of wheat
1.16 tons of hay
"If the corn is worth 35 cents a bushel, the wheat 70 cents, and the
hay $6 a ton, in addition to the expense of harvesting and
marketing, then the total value of the manure spread on the land is
$2.07 a ton.
"Where $1.20 worth of raw phosphate (320 pounds) were added in
connection with the manure the average yields were as follows:
61.4 bushels of corn
26.3 bushels of wheat
2.23 tons of hay
"And where $2.40 worth of acid phosphate (320 pounds) were used with
the same amount and kind of manure the following average yields were
secured:
60.4 bushels of corn
26.5 bushels of wheat
2.16 tons of hay
"These are the actual yield, and by any method of computation yet
proposed, each dollar invested in raw phosphate has paid back much
more than has a dollar invested in acid phosphate."
"And was the use of the raw phosphate really profitable?" asked Mr.
West.
"Well, you might figure that out for yourself," Percy replied,
"preferably using the average prices for your own locality for corn,
wheat and clover. As I figure it at prices below the ten-year
average for Illinois, the raw phosphate paid about eight hundred per
cent. net on the investment."
"Eight hundred per cent! You must mean eight per cent. net.
"No, Sir, I mean eight hundred per cent. net, but you had better
take the data and make your own computations. But does it not seem
strange that, with such positive knowledge as this available, many
of the Illinois landowners who have managed to sell off enough of
their original stock of fertility in grain or stock at good prices
to enable them to more than pay for their lands, should continue to
invest their surplus in more land with hope that it will pay them
eight per cent. interest, when they could secure many times that
much interest from investing in the permanent improvement of the
land they already own?"
"Perhaps it is not so strange," replied Mr. West. "I fear that some
of their ancestors did the same thing in Virginia and other Eastern
States until the land became poor, and then of course they were
'land poor.' But, say, that 'stone soup' wouldn't be so bad for
those Ohio landowners, would it? I should think they would avail
themselves of the positive information from their experiment
station. Speaking of soup, I wonder if it isn't time for lunch! But
tell me; are the Illinois farmers doing anything with raw
phosphate?"
"Yes, they are doing something, but by no means as much as they
ought. About two months ago a group of the leading farmers from our
section of the State went up to Urbana to look over the experiment
fields, some of which have been carried on since 1870. The land is
the typical corn belt prairie, and consequently the results should
be of very wide application. Well, as a result of that day's
inspection of the actual field results, an even twelve carloads of
raw phosphate were ordered by those farmers upon their return home;
and I learned of another community where ten carloads were ordered
at once after a similar visit. As an average of the last three years
the yield of corn on those old fields has been 23 bushels per acre
where corn has been grown every year without fertilizing, 58 bushels
where a three-year rotation of corn, oats and clover is followed,
and in the same rotation where organic matter, limestone, and
phosphorus have been applied the average yield has been 87 bushels
in grain farming and 92 bushels in live-stock farming.
"I attended the State Farmers' Institute last February, and there I
met many men who have had several years' experience with the raw
rock. Usually they put on one ton per acre as an initial application
and plow it under with a good growth of clover; and, afterward,
about one thousand pounds per acre every four years will be ample to
gradually increase the absolute total supply of phosphorus in the
soil, even though large crops are removed.
"A good many of our thinking farmers are now using one or two cars
of raw phosphate every year, and they are figuring hard to keep up
the organic matter and nitrogen. The most encouraging thing is the
very marked benefit of the phosphate to the clover crop, and of
course more clover means more corn in grain farming, and more corn
and clover means more manure in live-stock farming.
"On the Illinois fields advantage is taken of these relations in the
developing of systems of permanent agriculture. You see, if the
phosphate produces more clover, then more clover can be plowed under
on that land; or, if the crops are fed, then more manure can be
returned to the phosphated land than to the land not treated with
phosphate and not producing so large crops. Really the phosphate is
not given full credit for what it has accomplished in the Ohio
experiments; because, while the land receiving phosphated manure has
produced about one-fourth larger crops than the land receiving the
untreated manure, the actual amounts of manure applied have been the
same, whereas one-fourth more manure can be produced from the
phosphated land and if this increased supply of manure were returned
to the land it would increase the supply of nitrogen and thus make
still larger crop yields possible."
"That is surely the way it would work out in practical farming,"
said Mr. West. "I think I did not tell that $4.80 a ton is the
lowest quotation I have been able to get as yet for ground limestone
delivered at Blue Mound Station."
"That would make its use prohibitive," said Percy. "You ought to get
it for just one-fourth of that, or for $1.20 a ton. In Illinois we
can get it delivered a hundred miles from the quarry for $1.20 a
ton. It costs no more for a thirty-ton car of ground limestone than
the farmer receives for a cow; and the cost of a car of fine-ground
natural phosphate is about equal to the price of one horse."
"Of course, our limestone supplies are essentially inexhaustible,"
said Mr. West, "but is that also true of our natural phosphate
deposits?"
"It is not true of the high-grade phosphate," replied Percy; "for,
according to the information furnished by the United States
Geological Survey, it is evident that the known supplies of our
high-grade phosphate will be practically exhausted in fifty years if
our exportation continues to increase at the prevailing rate. After
that is gone we may then draw upon our low-grade phosphate deposits,
which though probably not inexhaustible are known to be exceedingly
extensive."
CHAPTER XXXI
THEORIES VERSUS FACTS
PERCY planned to walk to Blue Mound to take the three-thirty train
that Saturday afternoon; but Adelaide's parents both insisted that
she would willingly drive to the station, and the grandmother
discovered that she needed a certain kind of thread which Adelaide
could then also get at the store.
"Certainly," said Adelaide, with some merriment, "I always enjoy our
departing guests to the train."
"Very well," replied Percy. "If you must go to get the thread and
will permit me to be the coachman, I shall be satisfied, for you
will be home early."
"Then we will take the colts and buckboard, and I shall be home in
less than twenty minutes after your train leaves the station."
"I think I have missed several days of your beautiful 'Indian
Summer,' because of my trip to the North," Percy remarked to Mr.
West as they sat on the broad veranda waiting for the hour of two
thirty when the colts were to be ready for the drive.
"I wish you might have been with us while Professor Barstow was
here," replied Mr. West, "not only because of the mild autumn
weather we have had, but also because Professor Barstow has some
ideas about questions of soil fertility that are very different from
those you hold. He says a young man from Washington gave a lecture
at his college down in North Carolina, in which he informed them
that the cause of infertility of soils is a poisonous substance
excreted by the plant itself, and that this can be overcome by
changing from one crop to another because the excrete of one plant,
while poisonous to that plant, will not be poisonous to other plants
of a different kind. Thus, by rotation of crops, good crops could be
grown indefinitely on the same land without the addition of plant
food. He said that the soil water alone dissolved plenty of plant
food from all soils for the production of good crops, and that the
supply of plant food will be permanently maintained, because the
plant food contained in the subsoil far below where the roots go is
being brought to the surface by the rise of the capillary moisture,
and that there is in fact a steady tendency toward an accumulation
of plant food in the surface soil. He said that it is never
necessary to apply fertilizing material to any soil for the purpose
of increasing the supply of plant food in that soil. He admitted
that applications of fertilizers sometimes produce increased crop
yields, but that the effect was due to the power of the fertilizer
to destroy the toxic substances excreted by the plants, and this is
really the principal effect of potash, phosphates, and nitrates, and
also of farm manure and green manures. Humus, he said, is one of the
very best substances for destroying these toxic excrete although
they had some other things which were as good or better than any
sore of fertilizing materials. He mentioned especially a substance
called pyrogallol, which cost $2.00 a pound, and of course it could
not be applied on a large scale; but it was as good a fertilizer as
anything, although it contains nothing but carbon, oxygen, and
hydrogen, which, as you explained to me when you were here before,
the plants secure in abundance from air and water. This information
had been secured in the laboratories at Washington by growing wheat
seedlings in water culture for twenty-day periods."
"I have already heard something of those theories," said Percy, "but
I shall be glad to have you tell me more about them. As I understand
them, we need only to rotate and cultivate and our lands should
always continue to produce bountiful crops. Is that correct?"
"I understand that is the theory," replied Mr. West, "but I know it
is not correct for my grandfather used to grow two or three times as
much wheat per acre as I can grow, and I rotate much more than he
did. In fact I can grow only ten to fifteen bushels of wheat per
acre once in ten years, whereas he grew from twenty-five to forty
bushels per acre in a five-year rotation; and I don't see that there
is any particular connection between the growing of wheat seedlings
in small pots or bottles for a few twenty-day periods and the
growing of crops in soils during successive seasons. No, I don't
take any stock in their theories. I think they are _watered, _or
perhaps I should say _hydrated, _in deference to science. But I
would like to know about this question of plant food coming up from
below. That would be a happy solution of the fertilizer problem."
"It is true," said Percy, "that soluble salts are brought to the
surface in the rise of moisture by capillarity in times of partial
drouth; and in the arid regions where the small amount of water that
falls in rain or snow leaves the soil only by evaporation, because
there is never enough to produce underdrainage, the salts tend to
accumulate at the surface. The alkali conditions in the arid or
semiarid regions of the West are thus produced. But in humid
sections where more or less of the rainfall leaves the soil as
underdrainage the regular loss by leaching is so much in excess of
the rise by capillarity that soils which are not affected by erosion
or overflow steadily decrease in fertility even under natural
conditions, with no cultivation and no removal of crops. Of course
this applies at first only to the mineral plant foods, as phosphorus
potassium, magnesium, and calcium. While mineral supplies are
abundant in the surface soil, there may be a large acumulation of
organic matter and nitrogen, especially because of the growth of
wild legumes, which are very numerous and in places very abundant,
especially on some of the virgin prairies of the West. However, as
the process of leaching proceeds there comes a time when the growth
of the native vegetation is limited because of a deficiency in some
essential mineral plant food, such as phosphorus, or the limestone
completely disappears and soil acidity develops which greatly
lessens the growth of the legumes.
"Decomposition of organic matter begins almost as soon as any part
of the plant ceases to live, and there is certain to come a time
when the rate of decomposition and loss exceeds the rate of fixation
and accumulation; and from that time on the organic matter and
nitrogen as well as the mineral plant foods continue to decrease in
the surface, until finally the natural barrens are developed, such
as are found in different sections of the World and in some places
even where the rainfall is sufficient for abundant crops."
"Yes, Sir," said Mr. West. "I know that is true. I have visited
Tennessee and I know there are some extensive areas there of
practically level upland which have always been considered too poor
to justify putting under cultivation, and they are called the
'Barrens'."
"I know about those barren lands, too," said Percy. "Our teacher of
soil fertility in college told us that a farm is more than a piece
of the earth's surface. He said if we only wanted to get a large
level tract of upland where the climate is mild and the rainfall
abundant and where all sorts of crops do well on good soil,
including the wonderful cotton crop which brings a hundred dollars
for a thousand pounds, while corn brings forty dollars for a hundred
bushels,--well, he said we could go to the Highland Rim of Tennessee
where, according to analyses reported in 1897 by the Tennessee
Experiment Station, the surface soil of the 'Barrens' contains
eighty-seven pounds of phosphorus and the subsoil sixty-one pounds
of phosphorus per acre, counting two million pounds of soil in each
case. He said, if we didn't like that we might go into the Great
Central Basin of Tennessee or the famous Blue Grass Region of
Kentucky and find land that is still extremely productive and more
valuable than ever, even after a hundred years of cultivation, and
buy land containing from three thousand to fifteen thousand pounds
of phosphorus per acre."
"I know both of those sections very well," said Mr. West. "But
doesn't it seem strange that the scientists at Washington would
teach as they do? Why doesn't the plant food accumulate in the
surface soil of those barrens? Surely they have been lying there
long enough, with no crops whatever removed, so that they ought to
have become very rich. I wish I had known about their phosphorus
content so I could have told Professor Barstow. He was quite carried
away with the Washington theory."
"You ought not for a moment call it the 'Washington' theory," said
Percy; "and neither is it promulgated by scientists, but rather by
two or three theorists who are upheld by our greatest living
optimist. Science, Sir, is a word to be spoken of always with the
greatest respect. Of course you know its meaning?"
"Yes, I know it comes from the Latin _scire, _to know."
"Then _science _means _knowledge; _it does not mean theory or
hypothesis, but absolute and positive knowledge. Is there any
uncertainty as to the instant when the next eclipse will appear? No,
none whatever. Science means knowledge, and men are scientists only
so far as they have absolute knowledge, and to that extent every
farmer is a scientist.
"Nevertheless the erroneous teaching so widely promulgated by the
federal Bureau of Soils is undoubtedly a most potent influence
against the adoption of systems of positive soil improvement in the
United States, because it is disseminated from the position of
highest authority. Other peoples have ruined other lands, but in no
other country has the powerful factor of government influence ever
been used to encourage the farmers to ruin their lands."
CHAPTER XXXII
GUESSING AND GASSING
AS we were riding to Montplain yesterday," said Adelaide to Percy,
soon after they started for Blue Mound, "Professor Barstow told me
that in his opinion all that was needed to redeem these old lands of
Virginia and the Carolinas is plenty of efficient labor, such as he
thinks we had before the war. I know papa does not agree with him in
that, but Professor said that soils do not wear out if well
cultivated, that in New England they grow as large crops as ever,
and that in Europe, on the oldest lands the crop yields are very
much larger than in the United States; and in fact that the European
countries are producing about twice as large crops as they did a
hundred years ago. He thinks it is because they do their work more
thoroughly than we do. He says that 'a little farm well tilled' is
the key to the solution of our difficulties."
"That might seem to be a good guess as to the probable relation of
cause and effect," replied Percy, "but we ought not to overlook some
well known facts that have an important bearing. It is exactly a
hundred years since DeSaussure of France, first gave to the world a
clear and correct and almost complete statement concerning the
requirements of plants for plant food and the natural sources of
supply. Sir Humphrey Davy, Baron von Liebig, Lawes and Gilbert, and
Hellriegel followed DeSaussure and completely filled the nineteenth
century with accumulated scientific facts relating to soils and
plant growth.
"Sir John Bennett Lawes, the founder of the Rothamsted Experiment
Station, the oldest in the world, on his own private estate at
Harpenden, England, began his investigations in the interest of
practical agricultural science soon after coming into possession of
Rothamsted in 1834. In 1843 he associated with him in the work
Doctor Joseph Henry Gilbert, and for fifty-seven years those two
great men labored together gathering agricultural facts. Sir John
died in 1900, and Sir Henry the following year.
"That the people of Europe have made some use of the science thus
evolved is evident from the simple fact that they are taking out of
the United States every year about a million tons of our best
phosphate rock for which they pay us at the point of shipment about
five millions dollars; whereas, if this same phosphate were applied
to our own soils that already suffer for want of phosphorus, it
would make possible the production of nearly a billion dollars'
worth of corn above what these soils can ever produce without the
addition of phosphorus. And our phosphate is only a part of the
phosphate imported into Europe. They also produce rock phosphate
from European mines, and great quantities of slag phosphate from
their phosphatic iron ores.
"They feed their own crops and large amounts of imported food
stuffs, and utilize all fertilizing materials thus provided for the
improvement of their own lands. Legume crops are grown in great
abundance and are often plowed under to help the land.
"Do you wonder why the wheat yield in England is more than thirty
bushels per acre while that of the United States is less than
fourteen bushels? Because England produces only fifty million
bushels of wheat, while she imports two hundred million bushels of
wheat, one hundred million bushels of corn, nearly a billion pounds
of oil cake, and other food stuffs, from which large quantities of
manure are made; and, in addition to this, England imports and uses
much phosphate and other commercial plant food materials.
"Germany imports great quantities of wheat, corn, oil cake, and
phosphates, and thus enriches her cultivated soil, and Germany's
principal export is two billion pounds of sugar, which contains no
plant food of value, but only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, secured
from air and water by the sugar beet.
"Denmark produces four million bushels of wheat, imports five
million bushels of wheat, fifteen million bushels of corn, fifteen
million bushels of barley, eight hundred million pounds of oil cake,
eight hundred million pounds of mill feed, and other food stuffs,
phosphate, etc., and exports one hundred and seventy-five million
pounds of butter, which contains no plant food of value, but sells
for much more than these imports cost.
"Italy applies to her soils every year about a million tons of
phosphates, which contain nearly twice as much phosphorus as is
removed from the land in all the crops harvested and sold from the
farms of Italy.
"The very good yields of the crops of New England are attributable
to large use of fertilizing materials, in part made from food stuffs
shipped in from the West; and the high development of certain lands
of Europe and New England has been possible under the system
followed only because the areas concerned are small. Thus, the
average acreage of corn in Rhode Island and Connecticut is less than
three townships, or less than one-tenth as much corn land in the two
States as the area of single counties in the Illinois corn belt.
"Did you ever hear of the 'Egypt' we have out West, Miss West?"
"Out West, Miss West," she repeated. "That is too much repetition
of the same word to make a good sentence. I like 'Miss Adelaide'
better; I do get tired of hearing West and Westover over and over.
Yes, I have heard of the 'Egypt' you have out West. Is it near
Illinois?"
"Near Illinois? Why, Miss Adelaide, I am surprised that you should
even know about the crop yields of Rhode Island and not know where
'Egypt' is. Let me inform you that 'Egypt' is in Illinois, and our
'Egypt' is a country as large as thirteen states the size of Rhode
Island. Cairo is the Capital, and Alexandria, Thebes, and Joppa are
all near by. Tamm and Buncombe, and Goreville and Omega are also
among our promising cities of 'Egypt,' although you may not so
easily associate them with the ancient world."
"Well I know where Cairo is," Adelaide replied, "but if your 'Egypt'
is on the map you will have to show me. I know now that 'Egypt' is
in Southern Illinois, but how do you separate 'Egypt' from the rest
of the State?"
"We make no such separation," said Percy. "But to find 'Egypt' on
the map, you need only take the State of Illinois and subtract
therefrom all that part of the corn belt situated between the
Mississippi River and the west line of Indiana. The southern point
of 'Egypt' is at Cairo, the Capital, and it is bounded on the east,
south, and west, by the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi; but
the north line is not only imaginary, but it is movable. In fact it
is always just a few miles farther south, but I think all
'Egyptians' will agree that a sand bar which is being formed below
Cairo between the Ohio and the Mississippi is truly 'Egyptian '
territory. If you ever visit in the West do not fail to see 'Egypt.'
"I really hope I may, sometime," she replied. "We have relatives who
claim to live in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, but I think
possibly they may all be 'Egyptians,' from what you have told me
about the vast area of that great fairy empire. I know I would
dearly love to go there."
"'Egypt' is the wheat belt and the fruit belt of Illinois," Percy
continued. "One of the grand old men of Illinois, Colonel N. B.
Morrison, who was for years a trustee of the State University, used
to be called upon for an address whenever he was present at
Convocation. He always stated proudly that he lived in the 'Heart of
Egypt.' He said the soil there was not so rich perhaps as in the
corn belt, but that with plenty of hard work they were able to live
and to produce the finest fruit and the greatest men in America. He
said they had to work both the top and bottom of their soil, and he
explained that they harvested wheat and apples from the top, and
then went down about 600 feet and harvested ten thousand tons of
coal to the acre, and still left enough to support the earth. I have
heard him say that when he was born there was not a mile of railroad
in the United States, and that he had during his own lifetime,
witnessed the practical agricultural ruin of almost whole States. He
used to plead for the University to send some of her scientific men
to help them to solve the problem of restoring the fertility of
their soils down in 'Egypt'; and I am glad to say that finally the
State appropriated sufficient funds so that the Illinois Experiment
Station is rapidly securing the exact information needed to make
those Southern Illinois lands richer than they ever were.
"I spent several days in 'Egypt' last month and I am planning to
make another trip down there next week before deciding definitely
about purchasing our poor land farm. I am not sure but the land of
'Egypt' is as poor as we ought to try to build up considering our
limited means."
"Oh, do you think so? But Papa's land is not so poor is it?"
"No, it is not so poor in mineral plant food on the sloping areas,
but even there it is extremely poor in humus and nitrogen. However,
I fear I could not enjoy farming in irregular patches of five or ten
acres, and the level lands of Virginia and Maryland are so
exceedingly poor, that much time and money and work will be required
to put them on a paying basis. There would be no pleasure or
satisfaction in merely robbing other farms to build up mine, as some
of the prosperous truck farmers and dairymen are doing. I should
want to practice a system of soil improvement of unlimited
application so that it would not be a curse to the agricultural
people, as is the case with the man who builds up his farm only at
the expense of other farms.
"We have been speaking of the development of agriculture on the
small tracts of cultivable land in the great manufacturing States of
New England. But, if we would make a fair comparison with a State
like Illinois, we should consider some great agricultural State, as
Georgia, for example, which is also one of the original thirteen.
Georgia is a larger State than Illinois, and Georgia cultivates as
many acres of corn and cotton as we cultivate in corn. But Georgia
land cannot be covered with fertilizer made from Illinois corn, nor
even with seaweed and fish-scrap from the ocean. Her agriculture
must be an independent agriculture, just as the agriculture of
Russia, India, and China must be, just as the agriculture of
Illinois must be, and as the agriculture of all the great
agricultural States must be. What is the result to date? The average
yield of corn in Georgia is down to 11 bushels per acre. This is not
for half of one township, but the average of four million acres for
the last ten years; and this in spite of the fact that Georgia out
more for the common acidulated manufactured so-called complete
commercial fertilizer than any other State."
"That is appalling," said Adelaide, "but still some larger countries
are building up their lands, such as those of Europe."
"In large part by the same methods as the New England truckers and
dairymen are following," he replied, "and in comparison with the
area and resources of their colonies and of the other great new
countries upon which they draw for food and fertilizer, they are
fairly comparable with the New England States in this country. Even
the Empire of Germany is only four-fifths as large as Texas. The
only country of Europe at all comparable with the United States is
Russia, and in that great country the average yield of wheat for the
last twenty years is eight and one-fourth bushels per acre, even
though, as a general practice, the land is allowed to lie fallow
every third year. The average yield for the five famine years that
have occurred during the twenty-year period was six and one-quarter
bushels of wheat per acre."
"That is wretched," said Adelaide, "I know about the Russian famines
for we have made contributions through our church for their relief,
but that condition can surely never come to this great rich new
country, can it?"
"It will come just as certainly as we allow our soil fertility to
decrease and our population to increase. As a nation we have
scarcely lifted a hand yet to stop the waste of fertility or to
restore exhausted lands; practically every effort put forth by the
Federal government along agricultural lines having been directed
toward better seeds, control of injurious insects and fungous
diseases, exploitation of new lands by drainage and irrigation,
popularly called 'reclamation,' although applied only to rich virgin
soils which can certainly be brought under cultivation at any future
time either by the Government or by private enterprise. But why
should not the Federal government make all necessary provisions to
furnish ground limestone and phosphate rock at the actual cost of
quarrying, grinding, and transporting, in order that farmers on
these old depleted soils may be encouraged to adopt systems of soil
improvement; or even compelled to adopt such systems, just as they
are compelled to build school houses, bridges, and battleships?"
"Perhaps the Government would do this," said Adelaide, "if the
Secretary of Agriculture would recommend it."
"I have heard of the '_big if,'" _Percy replied slowly, "but I am
afraid this _if _will beat the record for bigness. His soil
theorists continue to assure him that soils do not wear out, no
matter how heavily cropped, if they are only rotated and cultivated;
and to support their theories they have forsaken the data from the
most carefully conducted and long continued scientific
investigations, and indulged in a game of guessing that the
increasing productiveness of a few small countries of Europe is not
due to any necessary addition of plant food.
"But here is the depot, and I have taken almost an hour to drive
three miles. If I had hurried, you might have been back home by this
time. I am afraid I have been selfish in allowing the team to walk
nearly all of the way, but they will at least be fresh for the home
trip which you promised to make in less than twenty minutes, I
remember. Now if you will hold the lines, I will run into the store
to get the thread. I remember the kind; I often do such errands for
mother."
"I will wait while you get your ticket and find out if the train is
on time," said Adelaide, as Percy returned with the thread.
"At least fifty minutes late," he reported, "and the agent said he
was glad of it for he would need about that time to make out such a
long-jointed ticket as I want. I am rather glad too, for I can watch
you to the turn in the road on the hill, which must be a mile or
more, and I will time you. You can have six minutes to make that
corner."
"You mean I can have six minutes to get out of sight," she
suggested.
"I think you are out of sight," he ventured.
Adelaide reddened. "I shall have to tell mother what slang you use,"
she said.
"I hope you will," he retorted, "for I have watched her watch you
and I am sure she will agree with me. But I do feel that I owe you a
sincere apology for taking up the time we have had together with
this long discussion of the things that are of such special interest
to me. I have been alone with my mother so much and she is always so
ready and so able, I may add, to discuss any sort of business matter
that I fear I have been forgetful of your forbearance."
"But you really have not," Adelaide replied. "I keep books for papa,
and I am very much interested in these social and economic questions
which are so fundamental to the perpetuity of our State and National
prosperity. I have been both entertained and instructed by these
discussions; and I might say, honored, too, that you do not consider
me too young and foolish to talk of serious subjects."
"I am sure it is kind of you to make good excuses for me. You have
at any rate relieved my mind of some burden, but I am sure you are
the only woman I have ever known, except my mother, who could endure
discussions of this sort. I have so greatly enjoyed the few short
visits I have had with you. I wish I might write to you and I shall
be so much interested to learn what success your father has if he
begins a system of soil improvement. Would it be presuming to hope
that I might hear from you also?"
"I am papa's stenographer," she replied, "and perhaps he will
dictate and I will write. We will be glad to hear of your safe
return,--and you,--you might ask papa. Now, I shall soon be out of
sight."
"Please don't," begged Percy. "It is still forty-five minutes 'at
least,' before the train comes. Let me go a piece with you. I will
leave my suit case here and with nothing to carry I shall easily
walk a mile in twenty minutes. May I drive, please?"
"No, I will drive. I want to ask you another question, and I am
afraid you would drive too fast.
"You mentioned some long-continued scientific investigations which I
assumed referred to the yield of crops. What were they?"
"I meant such investigations as those at Rothamsted and also those
conducted at Pennsylvania State College. I have some of the exact
data here in my note book.
"In 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert began at Rothamsted,
England, two four-year rotations. One was turnips, barley, fallow,
and wheat; and the other was turnips, barley, clover, and wheat.
Whenever the clover failed, which has been frequent, beans were
substituted, in order that a legume crop should be grown every
fourth year.
"The average of the last twenty years represents the average yields
about fifty years from the beginning of this rotation.
"In the legume system, as an average of the last twenty years, the
use of mineral plant food has increased the yield of turnips from
less than one-half ton to more than twelve tons; increased the yield
of barley from thirteen and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-two and
two-tenths bushels; increased the yield of clover (when grown) from
less than one-half ton to almost two tons; increased the yield of
beans (when grown) from sixteen bushels to twenty-eight and
three-tenths bushels; and increased the yield of wheat from
twenty-four and three-tenths bushels to thirty-eight and four-tenths
bushels per acre.
"In the legume system the minerals applied have more than doubled
the value of the crops produced, have paid their cost, and made a
net profit of one hundred and forty per cent. on the investment, in
direct comparison with the unfertilized land.
"If we compare the average yield of turnips, barley, clover, and
wheat of the last twenty years with the yield of turnips in 1848,
barley in 1849, clover in 1850 and wheat in 1851 we find that on the
unfertilized land in this rotation of crops in fifty years the yield
of turnips has decreased from ten tons to one-half ton, and the
yield of barley has decreased from forty-six to fourteen bushels,
the yield of clover has decreased from two and eight-tenths tons per
acre to less than one-half ton, while the yield of wheat has
decreased only from thirty bushels to twenty-four bushels. As a
general average the late yields are only one-third as large as they
were fifty years before on the same land. Wheat grown once in four
years has been the only crop worth raising on the unfertilized land
during the last twenty years, and even the wheat crop has distinctly
decreased in yield; although where mineral plant food was applied
the yield has increased from thirty bushels, in 18851 to
thirty-eight bushels as an average of the last twenty years. In the
fallow rotation on the unfertilized land the yield of wheat averaged
thirty-four and five-tenths bushels during the first twenty years
(1848 to 1867) and twenty-three and five-tenths bushels during the
last twenty years.
"On another Rothamsted field the phosphorus actually removed in
fifty-five crops from well-fertilized land is two-thirds as much as
the total phosphorus now contained in the plowed soil of adjoining
untreated land.
"In the early 80's the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station
began a four-year crop rotation, including corn, oats, wheat, and
mixed clover and timothy.
"There are five plots in each of four different fields that have
received no applications of plant food from the beginning. Thus,
every year the crops are carefully harvested and weighed from twenty
measured plots of ground that receive no treatment except the
rotation of crops. The difference between the average of the first
twelve years and the average of the second twelve years should
represent the actual change in productive power during a period of
twelve years. These averages show that the yield of corn has
decreased from forty-one and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-seven
and seven-tenths bushels; that the yield of oats has decreased from
thirty-six and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-five bushels; that the
yield of wheat has decreased only from thirteen and three-tenths
bushels to twelve and eight-tenths bushels; and that the yield of
hay has decreased from three thousand seventy pounds to two thousand
one hundred and eighty pounds.
"As a general average of these four crops the annual value of
produce from one acre has decreased from $11.05 to $8.18. Here we
have information which is almost if not quite equal in value to that
from the Agdell rotation field at Rothamsted. While the Rothamsted
experiments cover a period of sixty years, each crop was grown but
once in four years; whereas, in the Pennsylvania experiments, there
have been four different series of plots, so that in twenty-four
years there have been twenty-four crops of corn, twenty-four crops
of oats, twenty-four crops of wheat, and twenty-four crops of hay.
"Under this four-year rotation the value of the crops produced has
decreased twenty-six per cent. in twelve years. What influence will
impress that fact upon the minds of American landowners? A loss
amounting to more than one-fourth of the productive power of the
land in a rotation with clover seeded every fourth year! This one
fact is the mathematical result of four hundred and eighty other
facts obtained from twenty different pieces of measured land during
a period of twenty-four years.
"As an average of these twenty-four years, the addition of mineral
plant food produced increases in crop yields above the unfertilized
land as follows:
Corn increased forty-five per cent.
Oats increased thirty-two per cent.
Wheat increased forty-two per cent.
Hay increased seventy-seven per cent.
"As a general average of the four crops for the twenty-four years,
the produce where mineral plant food is applied, was forty-nine per
cent. above the yields of the unfertilized land, although the same
rotation of crops was practiced in both cases."
"Those are some of the absolute facts of science secured from
practical application in the adoption and development of definite
systems of permanent prosperous agriculture, and they should be made
to serve this greatest and most important industry just as the
established facts of mathematical and physical science are made to
serve in engineering."
"I am glad to know about those long-continued experiments," said
Adelaide. "They are of fascinating interest. I have been so sorry
for grandma, and for papa and mamma, because of their increasing
discouragement over our farm. I do hope we may profit from this fund
of accumulated information which has already been secured from long
years of investigation. Surely we must endeavor to avoid in America
the awful conditions that already exist in the older agricultural
countries, where the lands are depleted and the people are brought
to greater poverty than even here in Virginia.
"But we have already reached the turn, and you have a mile to walk.
How much time have you?"
"Thirty minutes yet," said Percy. "Wait just a moment. Have you read
Lincoln's stories?"
"Many of them, yes."
"Here is the best one he ever told; I have copied it on a card. He
told it to a meeting of farmers at the close of an address in which
he urged them to study the science of agriculture and to adopt
better methods of farming:
"'An Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a
sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and
appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the
words, "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How
chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of
affliction! "And this, too, shall pass away." And yet, let us hope,
it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best
cultivation of the physical world beneath and around us, and the
best intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an
individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose
course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth
endures, shall not pass away.'"
"I agree with you that it is his best story," said Adelaide, as
Percy finished reading and placed the card in her hand. "Now you
must go or I shall insist upon taking you back to the station."
"I shall stand here and time you till you reach the next turn," he
replied. "Then you will be in sight of Westover. One! Two! Three!
Go!"
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION
WINTERBINE, ILLINOIS,
December 4, 1 903
Mr. T. O. Thornton, Blairville, VA.
MY DEAR SIR:--I beg to report that I returned home a few days ago
and found my mother well and busy as usual. We have definitely
decided that we will not accept your kind offer to sell us a part of
your farm, but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least
from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs. Thornton and Miss
Russell were willing to make, in order to permit us to secure such a
farm as we might want in a splendid situation.
As a matter of fact we are thinking very seriously of purchasing a
farm in Southern Illinois. My mother much prefers to remain in
Illinois, and for some reasons I have the same preference on her
account.
While in Washington I was fortunate enough to find that a soil
survey had been completed for your county and also that a partial
ultimate analysis had been made of the common loam soil of your
farm, such as we sampled. Following are the number of pounds per
acre for the surface soil to a depth of six and two-thirds
inches,--that is, for two million pounds of soil.
610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium
As compared with a normal fertile soil, your land is very deficient
in phosphorus and magnesium, and, as you know, the soil is acid. It
is better supplied with potassium than with any other important
element.
I would suggest that you make liberal use of magnesian
limestone,--at least two tons per acre every four or five
years,--and the initial application might better be five or even ten
tons per acre if you are ready to make such an investment.
I am sorry that the nitrogen content of the soil was not determined,
or at least not published in the bulletin. There can be no doubt,
however, that your soil is extremely deficient in organic matter and
nitrogen, and you will understand that liberal use should be made of
legume crops. The known nitrogen content of legumes and other crops
will be a help to you in planning your crop rotation and the
disposition of the crops grown.
As to phosphorus, it is safe to say that in the long run fine-ground
rock phosphate will prove the best investment; but for a few years
it might be best to make some use of acid phosphate in addition to
the raw rock, at least until you are ready to begin turning under
more organic matter with the phosphate.
There is only one other suggestion: If you wish to make a start
toward better crops as soon as possible, you may well use some
kainit,--say six hundred pounds per acre every four or five years,
preferably applied with the phosphate. In the absence of decaying
organic matter, the potassium of the soil becomes available very
slowly. The kainit furnishes both potassium and magnesium in soluble
form and it also contains sulfur and chlorin. As soon as you can
provide plenty of decaying organic matter you will probably
discontinue the use of both kainit and acid phosphate. If you sell
only grains and animal products, the amount of potassium sold from
the farm is very small compared with your supply of that element,
which would be sufficient for one hundred bushels of corn per acre
for seven hundred years.
I have some doubt if it will be worth the expense involved to have
the samples of subsurface and subsoil analyzed at this time; but you
might save them for future use if desired.
I shall always appreciate the kindness shown me by being permitted
to enjoy your hospitality and to profit from the information you
were so able to give me concerning the history and general character
of your lands.
My mother asks to have her kind regards extended to you and yours.
Very sincerely yours,
PERCY JOHNSTON.
WESTOVER, January 2, 1904. Percy Johnston, Esq., Winterbine, Ill.
MY DEAR FRIEND:--We were all pleased to receive your letter
informing us of your safe journey back to Illinois. I had hoped that
you might find a piece of land here in the East which would suit
you; but I am not surprised that you and your mother should prefer
to remain in Illinois, because of your former associations and your
better knowledge of the Western conditions. Northern men who come
South often have serious difficulty to manage our negro labor.
I am surprised, however, that you were able to purchase, even in
Southern Illinois, such prairie land as you describe for the price
of $18 per acre. I supposed $190 an acre for your corn belt farm was
a good price, although it is commonly reported to us that Illinois
land is selling for $150 to $200 an acre.
Now, in regard to correspondence with Adelaide, let me say that we
could have no objection whatever, except that it might be
misunderstood, more especially, of course, by Professor Barstow. I
do not think I mentioned it to you, but the fact is that the
Professor and Adelaide are essentially betrothed. I do not know that
the final details are perfected, but doubtless they are, for they
have been much together during the Christmas weeks. The Barstows, as
you probably know, are still among the most prominent people of
North Carolina. Adelaide is young yet and we respect her reticence,
but her mother and I have both given our consent and Professor
Barstow has every reason to be satisfied with the reception he
invariably receives from Adelaide.
I only mention this matter to you that you may understand why
misunderstanding might arise in case of such correspondence as you
suggest, even though, as Adelaide has explained, she has very
naturally become interested temporarily in some of the economic and
social questions relating to agriculture, and would unquestionably
read your letters concerning these state and national problems with
continued interest. I shall hope, however, that she may still have
that satisfaction, for I am very deeply interested in all such
questions, and I am particularly interested to know more of the
details of your southern Illinois farm, including the invoice of the
soil, which you say has been taken by your Experiment Station, and
especially your definite plans for the improvement of the land. I
hope the name you have chosen for your farm is not so appropriate as
it would be for some of our old Virginia farms.
I shall also be under renewed obligation to you if I may
occasionally submit questions concerning the best plans for the
restoration of Westover to its former productiveness. I have decided
at least to make another trial with alfalfa next summer, following
the valuable suggestions you gave me.
In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep gratitude for the
special service you so nobly rendered when fiendish danger
threatened my daughter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of
the highest type. Very respectfully yours,
CHARLES WEST.
Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and then slowly reread
it. His mother noticed that he absent-mindedly replaced the letter
in the envelope instead of reading it to her as was his custom.
However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked with her about
the corn-shelling which was to begin as soon as the corn sheller
could be brought from the neighbor's where Percy had been helping to
haul the corn from the sheller to elevator at Winterbine. Dinner
finished, he hurried out to complete the preparations for the
afternoon's work. We have no right to follow him. His mother only
saw that he went to the little granary where a few loads of corn
were to be stored for future use. Yes, she saw that he closed the
door as he entered. Not even his mother could see her son again a
child. Women and children weep, not men. The heart strings draw
tight and tighter until they tear or snap. The body is racked with
the anguish of the mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The
head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.--No, that cannot be.
Men do not shed tears. If they are mental cowards and physical
brutes they pass from hence by a short and easy route and leave the
burdens of life to their wives and mothers and disgraced families.
If they are Christian men they seek the only source of help.
Mrs. Johnston watched and waited--it seemed an hour, but was only a
quarter of that time till the granary door opened and she saw Percy
pass to the barn with a step which satisfied her mother's eye.
She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of making sure,
pressed the envelope to see that it contained nothing more. She
noted a slip of crumpled paper and drew it out. Upon it was written
in a penciled scrawl:
_"Her grandma has not consented."_
She read the letter, stood for a moment as in meditation, then
replaced the slip and letter in the envelope, and laid it on Percy's
desk. The letter was plainly a man's handwriting. The envelope was
addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not Mr. West's writing.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PLANNING FOR LIFE
HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS, June 16, 1904.
Mr. Charles West,
Blue Mound, Va.
MY DEAR SIR:--I have delayed writing to you in regard to the plans
for Poorland Farm, until I could feel that we are able at least to
make an outline of tentative nature. The labor problem of a farm of
three hundred and twenty acres is of course very different from that
on forty acres, and we are not yet fully decided regarding our crop
rotation and the disposition of the crops produced (or hoped for). I
realize that to rebuild in my life what another has torn down during
his life is a task the end of which can hardly be even dimly
foreshadowed. Some friends are already beginning to ask me what
results I am getting, and they apparently feel that we must succeed
or fail with a trial of a full season. I have said to them that I
have no objection whatever to discussing our plans at any time, so
far as we are yet able to make plans, but that I shall not be ready
to discuss results with anyone until we begin to secure crop yields
in the third rotation. This means that I am not expecting the
benefits of a six-year rotation of crops before the rotation has
been actually practiced. You will understand of course that, if all
your land had been cropped with little or no change, for all its
history, you would require six or eight years' time before you would
be able to grow a crop of corn on land that had been pastured for
six or eight years; but some people seem to take it for granted that
one can adopt a six-year rotation and enjoy the full benefits of it
the first season.
I remember that you were surprised that I could buy a level upland
farm even in this part of Illinois for $18 an acre; but you will
probably be more surprised to learn that this farm had not paid the
previous owners two per cent. interest on $18 an acre as an average
of the last five years. In fact, sixty acres of it had grown no
crops for the last five years. It was largely managed by tenants on
the basis of share rent, and because of this I have been able to
secure the records of several years.
I at least had some satisfaction in purchasing this farm, for the
real estate men were left without a single "talking point." I
insisted that I wanted the poorest prairie farm in "Egypt," and
whenever they began to tell me that the soil on a certain farm was
really above the average, or that the land had been well cared for
until recently, or that it had been fertilized a good deal, etc., I
at once informed them that any advantage of that sort completely
disqualified any farm for me; and that they need not talk to me
about any farms except those that represented the poorest and most
abused in Southern Illinois.
I may say, however, that $20 an acre is about the average price of
the average land. I had an option on a three hundred and sixty acre
farm cornering the corporation limits of the County Seat for $30 an
acre, and all agreed that the farm was above the average in quality.
Heart-of-Egypt is a small station on the double track of the
Chicago-New Orleans line of the Illinois Central, and there are
three other railroads passing through our County Seat. Poorland Farm
is less than two miles from Heart-of-Egypt and only five miles from
the County Seat, with level roads to both.
As to the soil, I may say that in some respects it is poorer than
yours, but in others not so poor. The amount of plant food contained
in six and two-thirds inches of the surface soil of an acre,
representing two million pounds of soil, are as follows:
2,880 pounds of nitrogen
840 pounds of phosphorus
24,940 pounds of potassium
6,740 pounds of magnesium
14,660 pounds of calcium
By referring to the invoice of your most common land, you will see
that Westover is richer in phosphorus, in magnesium, and in calcium,
than Poorland Farm. But, while your soil contains a half more of
that rare element phosphorus, ours contains a half more of the
abundant element potassium. In the supply of nitrogen we have a
distinct advantage, because our soil contains nearly three times as
much as your most common cultivated land, and even twice as much as
your level upland soil, which you consider too poor for farming, but
in which phosphorus and not nitrogen must be the first limiting
element, the same as with ours.
The fact is that the nitrogen problem in the East was one of the
reasons why we have chosen to locate in Southern Illinois. I am
confident that the level lands I saw about Blairville and over in
Maryland are more deficient in organic matter and nitrogen than your
uncultivated level upland, and probably even more deficient than
your common gently sloping cultivated lands, because of your long
rotation with much opportunity for nitrogen fixation by such legumes
will grow in your meadows and pastures, including the red clover
which you regularly sow, the white clover, which is very persistent,
and the Japan clover, which it seems to me has really benefited you
more than the others.
To me a difference in nitrogen content of two thousand pounds per
acre signifies a good deal. It plainly signifies a hundred years' of
"working the soil for all that's in it," beyond what has yet been
done to our "Egypt." The cost of two thousand pounds of nitrogen in
sodium nitrate would be at least $300 and even that would not
include the organic matter, which has value for its own sake because
of the power of its decomposition products to liberate the mineral
elements from the soil, as witness the most common upland soils of
St. Mary county, Maryland, with a phosphorus content reduced to one
hundred and sixty pounds per acre in two million pounds of the
ignited soil. The ten-inch plows of Maryland, the twelve-inch of
Southern Illinois, the fourteen-inch of the corn belt, and the
sixteen-inch of the newer regions of the Northwest, signify
something as to the influence of organic matter upon the horsepower
required in tillage; and the organic matter also has a value because
it increases the power of the soil to absorb and retain moisture and
to resist surface washing and "running together" to form the hard
surface crust.
To think of applying two thousand pounds of nitrogen by plowing
under two hundred tons of manure or forty tons of clover per acre at
least requires a "big think," as my Swede man would say.
Of course, with our western life and cosmopolitan population, where
"a man's a man for a' that," mother feels that it would not be easy
for us to fit into your somewhat distinctly stratified society. We
would not be "colored" if we could, and perhaps we could not be
aristocratic if we would; and the opportunity to become, or, perhaps
I should say, to remain, "poor white trash," though wide open, is
not very alluring. I realize, of course, that there are some
whole-souled people like the West's and Thornton's, but I also found
some of the tribe of Jones, and I have much doubt as to the social
standing of one who would feel obliged to demonstrate that he could
spread more manure in a day than his hired nigger.
My Swede and I are like brothers; we clean stables together and talk
politics, science, and agriculture. In fact he is as much interested
as I am in the building up of Poorland Farm, and has already
contributed some very practical suggestions. I pay him moderate
wages and a small percentage of the farm receipts after deducting
certain expenses which he can help to keep as low as possible, such
as for labor, repairs, and purchase of feed and new tools, but
without deducting the taxes or interest on investment or the cost of
any permanent improvements, such as the expense for limestone,
phosphate, new fences and buildings, and breeding stock.
Referring again to the invoice of the soil, I may say that the
percentage of the mineral plant foods increases with depth, the same
as in your soil, but not to such an extent, and with one exception.
The phosphorus content of our surface soil is greater than that of
the subsurface, but below the subsurface the phosphorus again
increases. This is probably due to the fact that the prairie grasses
that grew here for centuries extracted some phosphorus from the
subsurface in which their roots fed to some extent, and left it in
the organic residues which accumulated in the surface soil.
Aside from the difference in organic matter, the physical character
of our soil is distinctly inferior to the loam soils about
Blairville and Leonardtown. We have a very satisfactory silt loam
surface, but the structure of our subsoil is quite objectionable. It
is a tight clay through which water passes very slowly, so slowly
that the practicability of using tile-drainage is still questioned
by the State University, although the experiments which the
University soil investigators have already started in several
counties here in "Egypt" will ultimately furnish us positive
knowledge along this line.
As for me, I purpose making no experiments, whatever. I do not see
how I or any other farmer can afford to put our limited funds into
experiments, especially when we often lack the facilities for taking
the exact and complete data that are needed. It takes time and labor
and some equipment to make accurate measurements, to weigh every
pound of fertilizer applied and every crop carefully harvested from
measured and carefully seeded areas, especially selected because of
their uniform and representative character. I think this is public
business and it is best done by the State for the benefit of all.
I have heard narrow politicians call it class legislation to
appropriate funds for such agricultural investigations, but the fact
is that to investigate the soil and to insure an abundant use of
limestone, phosphate, or other necessary materials required for the
improvement and permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil
is legislation for all the people, both now and hereafter. Would
that our Statesmen would think as much of maintaining this most
important national resource, as they do of maintaining our national
honor by means of battleships and an army and navy supported at an
expense of three hundred million dollars a year, sufficient to
furnish ten tons of limestone to every acre of Virginia land, an
amount twenty times the Nation's appropriation for agriculture; and
even this is largely used in getting new lands ready for the
bleeding process, instead of reviving those that have been
practically bled to death.
As for me, I shall simply take the results which prove profitable on
the accurately conducted experiment fields of the University of
Illinois, one of which is located only seven miles from Poorland
Farm, and on the same type of soil, I shall try to profit by that
positive information, and await the accumulation of conclusive data
relating to tile-drainage and other possible improvements of
uncertain practicability for "Egypt."
Say, but our soil is acid! The University soil survey men say that
the acidity is positive in the surface, comparative in the
subsurface, and superlative in the subsoil. Two of them insisted
that the subsoil has an acid taste. The analysis of a set of soil
samples collected near Heart-of-Egypt shows that to neutralize the
acidity of the surface soil will require seven hundred and eighty
pounds of limestone per acre, while three tons are required for the
first twenty inches, and sixteen tons for the next twenty inches.
The tight clay stratum reaches from about twenty to thirty-six
inches. Above this is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness
from an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the subsoil
seems to be more porous, and I am hoping that we may lay tile just
below the tight clay and then puncture that clay stratum with red
clover roots and thus improve the physical condition of the soil. I
asked Mr. Secor, a friend who operates a coal mine,--and farms for
recreation,--if he thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of
soil. He replied: "That depends on what kind of a gimlet it has on
its tap root."
Some of the farmers down here tell me confidentially that "hardpan"
has been found on their neighbors' farms, but I have not talked with
any one who has any on his own farm. I am very glad the University
has settled the matter very much to the comfort of us "Egyptians,"
by reporting that no true "hardpan" exists in Illinois, although
there are extensive areas underlain with tight clay, "of whom, as it
were, we are which."
I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria do
business chicfly in the surface soil, because we are not prepared to
correct the acidity to any very great depth.
The present plan is to practice a six-year rotation on six
forty-acre fields, as follows:
First year--Corn (and legume catch crop).
Second year--Part oats or barley, part cowpeas or soy beans.
Third year--Wheat.
Fourth year--Clover, or clover and timothy.
Fifth year--Wheat, or clover and timothy.
Sixth year--Clover, or clover and timothy.
This plan may be a grain system where wheat is grown the fifth year,
only clover seed being harvested the fourth and sixth years, or it
may be changed to a live-stock system by having clover and timothy
for pasture and meadow the last three years, which may be best for a
time, perhaps, if we find it too hard to care for eighty acres of
wheat on poorly drained land.
In somewhat greater detail the system may be developed we hope about
as follows:
First year: Corn, with mixed legumes, seeded at the time of the last
cultivation, on perhaps one-half of the field. These legumes may
include some cowpeas and soy beans and some sweet clover, but that
is not yet fully decided upon.
Second year: Oats (part barley, perhaps) on twenty acres, cowpeas on
ten acres, and soy beans on ten acres. The peas and beans are to be
seeded on the twenty acres where the catch crop of legumes is to be
plowed under as late in the spring as practicable.
Third year: Wheat with alsike on twenty acres and red clover on the
other twenty, seeded in the early spring. If necessary to prevent
the clover or weeds from seeding, the field will be clipped about
the last of August.
Fourth year: Harvest the red clover for hay and the alsike for seed,
and apply limestone after plowing early for wheat.
Fifth year: Wheat, with alsike and red clover seeded and clipped as
before.
Sixth year: Pasture in early summer, then clip if necessary to
secure uniformity, and later harvest the red clover for seed. Manure
may be applied to any part of this field from the time of wheat
harvest the previous year until the close of the pasture period.
Then it may be applied to the alsike only until the red clover seed
crop is removed, and then again to any part of the field, which may
also be used for fall pasture. To this field the threshed clover
straw and all other straw not needed for feed and bedding will be
applied. The application of raw phosphate will be made to this
field, and all of this material plowed under for corn.
The second six years is to be a repetition of the first, except that
the alsike and red clover will be interchanged, so as to avoid the
development of clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil
uniform we may interchange the oats with the peas and beans.
This system provides for the following crops each year:
40 acres of corn;
20 acres of oats;
10 acres of cowpeas for hay
10 acres of soy beans for seed
80 acres of wheat
20 acres of red clover for hay
20 acres of alsike for seed
20 acres of red clover for seed
20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June to August.
We also have some permanent pasture which we may use at any time
that may seem best. If necessary we may cut all the clover for hay
the fourth year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth year. We
can pasture the corn stalks during the fall and winter when the
ground is in suitable condition.
We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps some to sell. In
addition we may raise a few dairy cows for market, but will do
little dairying ourselves.
We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if successful we shall
sell some soy beans, alsike seed, and red clover seed.
How soon we shall be able to get this system fully under way I shall
not try to predict; but we shall work toward this end unless we
think we have good reason to modify the plan.
I hope to make the initial application of limestone five tons per
acre, but after the first six years this will be reduced to two or
three tons. I also plan to apply at least one ton per acre of
fine-ground raw phosphate every six years until the phosphorus
content of the plowed soil approaches two thousand pounds per acre,
after which the applications will probably be reduced to about
one-half ton per acre each rotation.
There are three things that mother and I are fully decided upon:
First, that we shall use ground limestone in sufficient amounts to
make the soil a suitable home for clover.
Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock phosphate in such
amounts as to positively enrich our soil in that very deficient
element.
Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip across every
forty-acre field as an untreated check strip to which neither
limestone nor phosphate shall ever be applied, and that we shall
reserve another three-rod strip to which limestone is applied
without phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven acres are to
receive both limestone and phosphate.
Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of seeing whatever
clearly apparent effects are produced by this fundamental treatment,
even though we may not be able to bother with harvesting these check
strips separate from the rest of the field.
We have based our decision regarding the use of ground limestone
very largely upon the long-continued work of the Pennsylvania
Agricultural Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of
ground limestone and burned lime, which is supported, to be sure, by
all comparative tests so far as our Illinois soil investigators have
been able to learn.
The practicability and economy of using the fineground natural
phosphate has been even more conclusively established, as you
already know, by the concordant results of half a dozen state
experiment stations. There are only two objections to the use of the
raw phosphate. One of these is the short-sighted plan or policy of
the average farmer, and the other is the combined influence of about
four-hundred fertilizer manufacturers who prefer to sell, quite
naturally, perhaps, two tons of acid phosphate for $30, or four tons
of so-called "complete" fertilizer for $70 to $90, rather than to
see the farmer buy direct from the phosphate mine one ton of
fine-ground raw rock phosphate in which he receives the same amount
of phosphorus, at a cost of $7 to $9.
Until we can provide a greater abundance of decaying organic matter
we may make some temporary use of kainit, in case the experiments
conducted by the state show that it is profitable to do so.
In a laboratory experiment, made at college it was shown that when
raw phosphate was shaken with water and then filtered, the filtrate
contained practically no dissolved phosphorus; but, if a dilute
solution of such salts as exist in kainit was used in place of pure
water, then the filtrate would contain very appreciable amounts of
phosphorus.
In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish some readily
available potassium, magnesium, and sulfur; and, by purchasing
kainit in carload lots, the potassium will cost us less than it
would in the form of the more expensive potassium chlorid or
potassium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of course we do not need
this in order to add to our total stock of potassium, but more
especially I think to assist in liberating phosphorus from the raw
phosphate which is naturally contained in the soil and which we
shall also apply to the soil, unless the Government permits the
fertilizer trusts to get such complete control of our great natural
phosphate deposits that they make it impossible for farmers to
secure the fine-ground rock at a reasonable cost, which ought not, I
would say, to be more than one hundred per cent. net profit above
the expense of mining, grinding, and transportation. We may feel
safe upon the matter of transportation rates, for the railroads are
operated by men of large enough vision to see that the positive and
permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the key to
their own continued prosperity, and some of them are already
beginning to understand that the supply of phosphorus is the master
key to the whole industrial structure of America; for, with a
failing supply of phosphorus, neither agriculture nor any dependent
industry can permanently prosper in this great country.
If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only the grain, the
supply of potassium in the surface soil of Poorland Farm is
sufficient to meet the needs of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per
acre every year for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer
than the time that has passed since the Master walked among men on
the earth; whereas, the total phosphorus content of the same soil is
sufficient for only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full
life of one man. Keep in mind that Poorland Farm is near
Heart-of-Egypt, and that this is the common soil of our "Egyptian
Empire," which contains more cultivable land than all New England,
has the climate of Virginia, and a network of railroads scarcely
equalled in any other section of this country, and in addition it is
more than half surrounded by great navigable rivers.
On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre fields which are at
least as nearly level as they ought to be to permit good surface
drainage, and there is no need that a single hill of corn should be
omitted on any one of these seven fields; and I am confident that
with an adequate supply of raw phosphate rock and magnesian
limestone and a liberal use of legume crops this land can be made to
pay interest on $300 an acre.
Why not? At Rothamsted, England, they have averaged thirty-eight and
four-tenths bushels of wheat per acre during the last twenty years
in an experiment extending over sixty years, and they have done this
without a forkful of manure or a pound of purchased nitrogen. Why
not? The wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded forty
bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel, would pay nearly five per
cent. interest on $300 an acre for the entire two hundred and forty
acres used in my suggested rotation.
Aye, but there is one other very essential requirement: To wit, a
world of work.
Hoping to hear from you, and especially about your alfalfa, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
PERCY JOHNSTON.
CHAPTER XXXV
SEALED LIPS
No one realized more than Percy Johnston that toleration of life
itself was possible to him only because of the world of work that he
found always at hand in connection with his abiding faith and
interest in the upbuilding of Poorland Farm. He had accepted
Adelaide's sweet smile and lack of apparent disapproval with
confidence that he might at least have an opportunity to try to win
her love. As he was permitted at the parting to look for more than
an instant into those alluring eyes, he felt so sure that they
expressed something more than friendship or gratitude for him. He
had felt the more confidence because he thought he knew that she
would not permit him to humiliate himself by asking and failing to
receive from her father permission to write to her, when she could
easily in her own womanly way have discouraged such a thought at
once. Had she not insisted upon driving slowly back to the turn in
the road, and did he not feel the absence of a previous reserve?
Oh, misleading imagination. The will is truly the father of thought
and faith. Percy knew as he parted from Adelaide that he had left
with her the love of heart and mind of one whose life had developed
in him the character which does nothing by halves. His love had
multiplied with the distance as he journeyed westward, with a great
new pleasure which life seemed to hold before him and with a
pardonable confidence in its achievement.
He had written Mr. West a week after his return in a way which would
not fail of understanding if his hopes were justified. The belated
reply which reached him after holidays was accepted as final. His
pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream of his life abruptly
ended. He felt the more helpless and the more deeply wounded because
of Mr. West's reference to his special service in the protection he
had once rendered to Adelaide. It continually reminded him that, as
the highest type of gentleman, he should do nothing that could be
construed as an endeavor to take advantage of the consideration to
which that act might seem to entitle him. Bound and buried in the
deepest dungeon, waiting only for the announcement from his of the
day of his execution. This was his mental attitude as the months
passed and he began to receive an occasional letter from Mr. West,
in each of which he looked for the news of Adelaide's marriage.
In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had developed for Adelaide. She
was certain that she had marred the happiness of her son. The
heartlessness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of one
who had a right to assume in her an honor equal to his own deserved
only to be hated with even righteous hatred. She saw the scrawled
note which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did it signify? An
eccentric old lady's penchant for match making? Perhaps she was
even more guilty than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in
Adelaide more than he ought. She might even take an old flirt's
delight in the mere number of conquests made by her granddaughter.
Or was the scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank-
playing fourteen-year-old brother? In any case was it wise that
Percy should see the note? She could probably do nothing better than
to leave it with the letter. Even if the girl were worthy, Percy
could never hope to win one of her class, whose pride of ancestry is
their bread of life. It might not have been quite so, perhaps, if
Percy had only selected some more respected profession. Why should
not he have become a college professor?
CHAPTER XXXVI
HARD TIMES
WHEN Percy and his mother reached Poorland Farm in March they found
a small frame house needing only shingles, paint, and paper to make
it a fairly comfortable home, until they should be able to add such
conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the country as well
as in the city. From the sale of corn and some other produce they
were able to add to the residue of $1,840, which represented the
difference between the cost of three hundred and twenty acres in
Egypt and the selling price of forty acres in the corn belt. An even
$3,000 was left in the savings bank at Winterbine.
"If we can live," said Percy, "just as the other 'Egyptians' must
live, and save our $3,000 for limestone and phosphate, I believe we
shall win out. Through the efforts of the Agricultural College and
the Governor of the State the convicts in the Southern Illinois
Penitentiary have been put to quarrying stone, and large crushers
and grinders have been installed, and the State Board of Prison
Industries is already beginning to ship ground limestone direct to
farmers at sixty cents a ton in bulk in box cars. The entire
Illinois Freight Association gave an audience to the Warden of the
Penitentiary and representatives from the Agricultural College and a
uniform freight rate has been granted of one-half cent per ton per
mile. This will enable us to secure ground limestone delivered at
Heart-of-Egypt for $1.22-1/2 per ton.
"Now, to apply five tons per acre on two hundred and forty acres
will require one thousand two hundred tons and that will cost us
$1,570 in cash, less perhaps the $70, which we save on roads and the
untreated check strips which I want to leave. To apply one ton of
phosphate per acre to the same six fields will cost about $1,600. Of
course, I shall not begin to apply phosphate until after I have
applied the limestone and get some clover or manure to mix with the
phosphate when I plow it under; and I hope with the help of the
limestone we shall get some clover and some increase in the other
crops. In any case the $3,000 and interest we will get for what we
can leave in the bank during the six or eight years it will take to
get the rotation and treatment under way will pay for the initial
cost of the first applications of both limestone and phosphate; and
we shall hope that by that time the farm will bring us something
more than a living."
The carload of effects shipped from Winterbine to Heart-of-Egypt
included two horses, a cow, a few breeding hogs, and some chickens;
also a supply of corn and oats sufficient for the summer's feed
grain.
After the expenses of shipping were paid, less than $350 were
deposited in the bank at the County Seat. Of this $250 were used for
the purchase of another team. Hay was bought from a neighbor and
some old hay that had been discarded by the balers, who had
purchased, baled, and sold the previous hay crop from Poorland Farm,
Percy gathered up and saved for bedding.
He plowed forty acres of the land that had not been cropped for five
years, and, after some serious delays on account of wet weather,
planted the field in corn, using the Champion White Pearl variety,
be cause the Experiment Station had found it to be one of the best
varieties for poor land.
"I wouldn't plant that corn if you would give me the seed," a
neighbor had said to him. "See how big the cob is; and the tip is
not well filled out, and there is too much space between the rows. I
tell you there's too much cob in it for me. I want to raise corn and
not corn cob."
"It certainly is not a good show ear," said Percy, "but what I want
most is bushels of shelled corn per acre. Perhaps these big kernels
will help to give the young plant a good start, and perhaps the
piece of cob extending from the tip will make room for more kernels
if the soil can be built up so as to furnish the plant food to make
them. The cob is large but it is covered with grains all the way
around; and, if those kernels of corn were putty, we could mash them
down a little and have less space between the rows, but it would
make no more corn on the ear. However, my chief reason for planting
the Champion White Pearl is that this variety has produced more
shelled corn per acre than any other in the University experiments
on the gray prairie soil of 'Egypt.'"
There were only sixteen acres of corn grown on the entire farm in
1903 and this yielded thirteen bushels per acre, as Percy learned
from the share of the crop received by the previous landowner.
In 1904 the Champion White Pearl yielded twenty bushels per acre, as
nearly as could be determined by weighing the corn from a few shocks
on a small truck scale Percy had brought from the north. He numbered
his six forty-acre fields from one to six. Forty No. 7 was occupied
by twelve acres of apple orchard, eight acres of pasture, and twenty
acres of old meadow. By getting eighty rods of fencing it was
possible to include twenty-eight acres in the pasture, although one
hundred and ninety-two rods of fencing had been required to surround
the eight-acre pasture. The remainder of the farm was in patches,
including about fifteen acres on one corner crossed by a little
valley and covered with trees, a tract which Percy and his mother
treasured above any of the forty-acre fields. While the week was
always filled with work, there were many hours of real pleasure
found in the wood's pasture on the Sunday afternoons.
Forty No. I was left to "lie out," and No. 2 raised only twelve
acres of cowpeas. No. 3 was plowed during the summer and seeded to
timothy in the early fall. No. 4 was in corn and Nos. 5 and 6 were
left in meadow, two patches of nine and sixteen acres previously in
cowpeas and corn having been seeded to timothy in order, as Percy
said, to "square out" the forty-acre fields. About fifty acres of
land were cut over for about sixteen tons of hay. The corn was all
put in shock, and the fodder as well as the grain used for feed, the
refuse from the fodder and poor hay serving as bedding. About three
tons of cowpea hay of excellent quality were secured from the twelve
acres, and fifty barrels of apples were put in storage.
Another cow and eight calves were bought, and during the winter,
some butter, two small bunches of the last spring's pigs, and the
apple crop were sold. A few eggs had been sold almost every week
since the previous March.
In 1905 No. 1 was rented for corn on shares and produced about six
hundred bushels of which Percy received one-third. No. 2 yielded
four hundred and eighty-four bushels of oats. No. 3 produced
fourteen tons of poor hay. No. 4 was "rested" and prepared for
wheat, ground limestone having been applied. No. 5 was fall-plowed
from old meadow and well prepared and planted to corn in good time;
but, after the second cultivation, heavy rains set in and continued
until the corn was seriously damaged on the flat areas of the field,
the more so as he had not fully understood the importance of keeping
furrows open with outlets at the head-lands through which the excess
surface water could pass off quickly under such weather conditions.
Patches of the field aggregating at least five acres were so poorly
surface drained that the corn was "drowned out," and fifteen acres
more were so wet as to greatly injure the crop. However, on the
better drained parts of the field where the corn was given further
cultivation the yield was good and about 1,000 bushels of sound corn
were gathered from the forty acres.
A mixture of timothy, redtop and weeds was cut for hay on No. 6, the
yield being better than half a ton per acre.
The apples were a fair crop, and the total sales from that crop
amounted to $750, but about half of this had been expended for
trimming and spraying the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels,
picking, packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch of hogs
were sold.
Another year passed. Oats were grown on No. 1 and on part of No. 2,
yielding eleven bushels per acre.
No. 3 yielded one-third of a ton of hay per acre.
Wheat was grown on No. 4, and clover, the first the land had known
in many years, if ever, was seeded in the spring,--twenty acres of
red clover and twenty of alsike.
The fifty-four acres of wheat, including fourteen acres on No. 2,
yielded seven and one-half bushels per acre. Soy beans were planted
on No. 5, but wet weather seriously interferred and only part of the
field was cut for hay. Limestone was applied, but heavy continued
rains prevented the seeding of wheat.
No. 6 produced about twenty-seven bushels per acre of corn.
Two lots of hogs were sold for about $800, and some young steers
increased the receipts by nearly $100.
Mrs. Johnston continued to buy the groceries with eggs and butter;
but it was necessary to buy some hay, and the labor bill was heavy.
No. 5 joined the twenty-eight acre pasture and on two other sides it
joined neighbors' farms where line fences were up, and on the other
side lay No. 4.
Percy was trying to get ready to pasture the clover on No. 4, and a
mile of new fencing was required. The materials were bought and the
fence built, and when finished it also completed the fencing
required to enclose No. 5. The twenty-eight acre pasture was
inadequate for sixteen head of cattle and the young stock was kept
in a hired pasture. Unless he could produce more feed, Percy saw
that the farm would soon be overstocked, for some colts were growing
and eight cows were now giving milk.
His hope was in the clover, but as the fall came on the red clover
was found to have failed almost completely, and the alsike was
one-half a stand. As the red clover had been seeded on the unlimed
strip there was no way of knowing whether the limestone had even
benefited the alsike. The neighbors had "seen just as good clover
without putting on any of that stuff."
There were no apples, but the spraying had cost as much as ever, and
some team work had been hired.
Three years of the hardest work; limestone on two forties, but only
twenty acres of poor clover on one and no wheat seeded on the other.
The neighbors "knew the clover would winter kill." The bills for
pasturing amounted to as much as the butter had brought; for the
twenty-eight-acre pasture had been very poor. The feed for the cows
for winter consisted of corn fodder, straw and poor hay, and not
enough of that.
They had to do it--draw $150 from the Winterbine reserve, besides
what had been used for limestone. Part of it must go for clover
seed, for clover must be seeded before it could be grown. The small
barn must also be enlarged, but with the least possible expense.
It was February. Wet snow, water, and almost bottomless mud covered
the earth. With four horses on the wagon, Percy had worked nearly
all day bringing in two "jags" of poor hay from the stack in the
field. It was all the little mow would hold.
He had finished the chores late and came in with the milk.
"Put on some dry clothes and your new shoes," said his mother,
"while I strain the milk and take up the supper. There is a letter
on the table. I hardly see how the mail man gets along through these
roads. They must be worse than George Rogers Clark found on his trip
from Kaskaskia to Vincennes. They say his route passed across only a
few miles from the present site of Heart-of-Egypt. I suppose the
letter is from Mr. West."
Percy finished washing his hands, and opened the letter. Two cards
fell to the table as he drew the letter from the envelope.
He picked up one of the cards, and read it aloud to his mother:
_Mr. and Mrs. Strongworth Barstow
__At home after March I, 1907
1422 College Avenue
Raleigh, N. C._
_"With Grandma's Compliments,"_ was penciled across the top of the
card. Percy glanced at the other card and read the plain lines:
_Announce the marriage of their daughter_
Did his eyes blurr? He laid the one card over the other, scanned Mr.
West's letter hurriedly, replaced it with the cards in the envelope,
and laid the letter at his mother's plate.
Percy replaced his rubber boots with shoes, and his wet, heavy coat
with a dry one.
"You remember the letter I had from the College?" he asked, as he
took his seat at the table.
"Yes, I remember," she replied, "but the Institute was to begin
to-day."
"I know," said Percy, "but Hoard and Terry both speak
to-morrow,--Terry in the morning and the Governor in the afternoon,
and they are the men the Professor especially wanted me to hear, if
I could. I think I'll 'phone to Bronson's and ask Roscoe to come
over and do the chores to-morrow noon. I can get back by nine
to-morrow night."
"But, Dear, how in the world can you get to Olney to hear Mr. Terry
speak to-morrow morning?"
"There is a train east about eight o'clock," he replied. "Of course
the roads are too awful to think of driving to the station,
especially since the mares ought not to be used much. I put four on
the wagon to-day and tried to be as careful as possible but it does
not seem right to use them. I can manage all right. I will get up a
little early in the morning and get things in shape so I can leave
here by daylight and I am sure I can make the B. & O. station by
eight o'clock easily. I will wear my rubber boots and carry my shoes
in a bundle. I can change at the depot and put my boots on again
when I get back there at seven at night. If it clears up, I will
have the moon to help coming home."
But, Percy, you do not mean to walk five miles and back through all
this mud and water?"
"I wish you would not worry, Mother. There is grass along the sides
most of the way, and I am used to the mud and water. I will spy out
the best track as I go in the morning and just follow my own trail
coming back."
"Then it is time we were asleep," replied the mother.
CHAPTER XXXVII
HARDER TIMES
THE State Superintendent of Farmers' Institutes called the meeting
to order soon after Percy entered the Opera House at Olney about ten
o'clock the next morning.
"Divine blessing will be invoked by Doctor T. E. Sisson, pastor of
the First Methodist Church of Olney:"
"Oh, Thou, whose presence bright all space doth occupy and all
motion guide, all life impart, we come this morning in the capacity
of this Farmers' Institute to thank thee for Thy mercies and for Thy
blessings, and to invoke Thy presence and Thy continued favor. As
Thou with Thy presence hast surrounded all forms of creation and all
stages of being with the providences of welfare and development and
grace, so we pray, our Father, for guidance through the sessions of
this institute, for the providences of Thy love and Thy wisdom
divine as it reveals itself in the open field, in the orchard, in
the garden, bringing forth those things which replenish the earth
with food and fill the mouths of our hungry ones with bread.
"We thank Thee for this larger knowledge which has come to the minds
of men, because they have been learning to study Thy works and to
walk closer to Thee. Wilt Thou, Heavenly Father, continue to
enlighten this body of men and women that are represented in this
great field of the world's busy hive so that the starving millions
of the world, now in our cities rioting for bread, and in the vast
nations where they are crying for food, may be fed. We pray Thee,
reveal such improvement of knowledge to these who are willing to get
close to Thee to learn Thy secrets and know Thy wisdom, as that unto
all shall be given plenty, for replenishing our physical needs. And
help us to know, our Father, as we learn Thy will and seek to do Thy
will and live in the higher courts of knowledge and wider circles of
thought, so shall God reveal himself unto us.
"Our Father, we thank Thee for all the developments and great
sources of utility that come through the means of this institute in
the development of the resources of this country, this great State
and adjoining states through the length and breadth of this favored
nation. We pray, Heavenly Father, while studying all these
replenishments and seeking to defend them from the inroads of evil,
of the rust and the mildew and the worm, we pray also for the
beautiful homes, for the souls of the children given to our homes,
that we may study their mental and spiritual being in such a way as
shall keep all harm and evil and wrong from this life of ours, and
so to work in the field of Thy providences, revealed in hand and
mind and heart and relationships, of school and church and state and
farm, and all the activities of this life's great work, as that good
shall be our inheritance.
"We pray Thee, Heavenly Father, to be with the officers of this
institute. Give Thy strength, Thy presence, and Thy discernment to
these who participate in the work, the membership and onlookers, and
those who come to learn. We pray Thee, give us the revelation of Thy
wisdom to replenish and build up every human family, and to Thee all
praise shall be given to-day for this blessing and for Thy continued
favor; and not only to-day but to-morrow and the day after and
through all eternity the praise shall be Thine, in the name of Him
who came into this world to give us the life of the knowledge of
God. Amen."
"It may be," said the Chairman, "that a State Farmers' Institute
sometimes exercises a little arbitrary power in selecting subjects
we want to speak of. I think county institutes might adopt the same
plan to advantage, and assign the topic they wish discussed.
"The topic assigned our speaker to-day is 'What I did and how I did
it.' It may sound egotistical, but I want to relieve the speaker of
that imputation, because the subject was selected by the Institute.
"Allow me to present Mr. Terry, who needs no introduction to an
audience of American farmers:"
Mr. Terry began to speak:
"Thirty-six years ago last fall," he said, "my wife and I bought and
moved onto the farm where we now reside. We went on there in debt
$3,700, on which we had to pay seven per cent. interest. I had one
horse, an old one, and it had the heaves, a one-horse harness, and a
one-horse wagon, three tillage implements, and nine cows that were
paid for; and a wife and two babies, but no money. Now that was the
condition in which we started on this farm, thirty-six years ago, in
debt heavily, and no money; but that is not the worst of it. If it
had been as good soil as you have in some parts of this State, we
should have been all right. How about the soil? For sixty years
farmers had been running it down until it could scarcely produce
anything. We had a tenant on the place one year, before we could
arrange to move on, after we got it. They got eight bushels of wheat
per acre, and he said to me, 'That is a pretty good yield, don't you
think, for this old farm?' Oh, friends, I didn't think so;--never
ought to have bought this farm;--didn't know any better,--born and
brought up in town, my father a minister, and I thought a farm was a
farm. But I learned some things after awhile. That tenant mowed over
probably forty acres of land. (We originally bought one hundred and
twenty-five.) He put the hay in the barn. It measured twelve tons.
Half of that was weeds. Most of the hay he cut down in a swale.
There wasn't anything worth considering on the upland. That was the
condition of the land.
"How about the buildings? The house had been used about sixty years,
an old story-and-a-half house. Dilapidated, oh, my! Every time the
rain came, we had to take every pan upstairs and set it to catch the
water. We did not have any money to put on more shingles. It was out
of the question, we couldn't do it. How about the dooryard? It was a
cow yard. They used it for a milking yard, for years and years. You
can imagine how it looked. The barn was in such condition that
cattle were just as well off outdoors as in. The roof leaked
terribly. The tenants had burned up the doors and any boards they
could take off easily. They were too lazy to take off any that came
off hard. They burned all the fences in reach.
"Now friends, that was the farm we moved onto and the condition it
was in. Some of you will know we saw some pretty hard times for a
while. Time and again I was obliged to take my team, after we got
two horses (the second I borrowed of a relative, it was the only way
I could get one), and go to town to do some little job hauling to
get some money to get something to eat. That is the way we started
farming. I remember, after three or four years, meeting Dr. W. I.
Chamberlain. Some of you know him. He said: 'Terry, if you should
get a new hat, there wouldn't anybody know you. Your clothes wear
like the children of Israel's.' They had to wear. No one knew how
hard up we were. It was not best to let them know. That money was
borrowed of a friend in Detroit, secured on a life insurance policy.
We did not let anybody know how hard up we really were. My wife rode
to town (to church when she went), in the same wagon we hauled out
manure in, for a time. Time and again she had been to town when she
said she could not do without something any longer and came back
without it. Credit was good. We could have bought it. We didn't dare
to.
"Now, friends, a dozen years from the time we started on that farm,
under these circumstances, we were getting from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred and fifty bushels of merchantable potatoes per
acre right along--not a single year, but on the average--varying, of
course, somewhat with the season. We were getting from four to five
tons of clover hay in a season, from two cuttings, of course, per
acre. We were getting from thirty-three to thirty-eight bushels of
wheat per acre, not one year, but for five years we averaged
thirty-five bushels per acre, and right on that same farm. No
fertility had been brought on to it, practically, from the outside.
A man without any money, in debt for the land $3,700, was able to do
this. Now, how did he do it? That is the question I have been asked
to talk upon. I have told you briefly something like what we have
accomplished. I might say, further, the old house I told you that we
lived in for fourteen years while we were building up the fertility
of this soil, we sold for $10, after we got through with it. It is
now a horse barn on the farm of our next neighbor and has been
covered over.
"Eleven years from the time we started we paid the last $500 of our
debt, all dug out of that farm, not $25 from any other source.
Thirteen years from the time we started, we carried off the first
prize of $50 offered by the State Board of Agriculture of Ohio, for
the best detailed report of the best and most profitably managed
small farm in the state,--only thirteen years from the time we
started on that rundown land, and no fertility brought from the
outside; without any money; and meanwhile we had to live.
"Now I had arranged with the tenant the first year, before we went
on there, to seed down a certain field. It had been under the plow
for some time. I wanted it seeded so I could have some land to mow
and he seeded half of it. It was only a little lot, about five
acres. He seeded half with timothy and left the other half. That was
his way of doing things, anyway. When we moved onto the farm later I
naturally wanted to finish that seeding and get that field in some
sort of shape for mowing. I went to my next neighbor, who lives
there yet, and asked him what I had better use. I didn't know
anything, practitically, about farming, and he advised me to try
some clover seed. He said: 'So far as I know, none was ever sown on
that farm. They have sowed timothy everlastingly, everybody, because
it is cheap. I knew timothy wouldn't grow there to amount to
anything If I were in your place I would try some clover.'
"I got the land prepared and sowed that clover alone, so as to give
it a chance. I did have sense enough to mow off the weeds when they
got six or eight or ten inches high perhaps, so that the clover
could have a little better chance to grow. It happened to be a very
wet season. I remember that distinctly. This was a lot near to the
barn. I suppose what little manure they had hauled out had been
mostly put on this land. With these favoring conditions the result
was fairly good. Of course not half what we got later, but we got
quite a little clover and when I came to mow it, and to mow that
timothy at the other end, I could see I could draw the rake two or
three times as far in the timothy as in the clover. There was more
clover on an acre. A load of timothy would go in and a load of
clover. When I fed it to the cows in winter I noticed when feeding
clover for a number of days they gave more milk. I didn't know why.
I don't know as anybody knew why then. There wasn't an experiment
station in the land. We were following our own notions. But the cows
gave more milk; I could see that plainly.
"A little later I had an experiment forced on me by accident. I tell
you just how it came about. It resulted in putting a good many
thousands in our pockets and I hope millions in the pockets of the
farmers of America. Later I wanted to plant corn on this field, and,
as I wanted to grow just as good corn as I could, I got out what
manure we saved and put it on the land preparing for plowing. I knew
there wouldn't be more than half enough to go over the field. I said
to myself, if there was any good corn, I would like it next to the
road where people would see it. Wouldn't any of you do it? I didn't
have a dollar to hire any help. I paid one dollar that year for
help, and it was awful hard to get that dollar. I began spreading
that manure next to the road. The back half of the field was nearly
out of sight. When I got half way back there wasn't any manure left
and the back half didn't get any. Now it so happened that the
timothy was on the front end of the field, and it got the manure.
The clover on the back half didn't get any. It came about in the
simple way I told you of. Naturally I didn't expect much corn where
I hadn't put any manure, but what was my surprise to find it was
just about as good on that clover end of the field without any
dressing as on the timothy end with what I had been able to put on.
It is only right I should say there wasn't much of the manure It was
poor in quality because we couldn't get grain for the cows when we
couldn't get enough for ourselves to eat. There wasn't much manure
and it was pretty poor, but such as it was that was the result. More
hay to the acre, better hay, increased fertility, some way, by
growing this clover!
"Now let us go back a little. I think it was the second spring after
we moved onto the place that I happened to be crossing the farm of
my next neighbor, Mr. Holcombe, now dead. I found him plowing. He
had been around a piece of land, I should judge five acres, half a
dozen times. He was sitting on the plow, tired out,--too old to work
anyway. He said, 'I wish you would take this land and put in some
crop on the shares; I want to get rid of the work; I can't do it,
and would like to let you have it in some way. All I want is that it
should be left so I can seed it down in the fall again.'
"It was an old piece of sod he had mowed in the old eastern way
until it wouldn't grow anything any longer. I don't suppose he got a
quarter of a ton of hay to the acre. He wanted it plowed so he could
re-seed it. I didn't know the value of the land, but, foolishly
perhaps, as most people thought, offered him five dollars an acre
for the use of it. I hadn't enough to do at home. I didn't have my
land in shape so I could do much. We were working along as fast as
we could. I thought I could do well if I had this job, and could
perhaps make something off it. He agreed to it.
"I went home and got my team and plow, and finished the plowing. I
remember making those furrows narrow and turning the ground well, a
little deeper than it had been plowed before. I didn't realize what
I was doing, then. I simply had been brought up to do my work well.
I thought I was doing a good job, that was all. When I was through
plowing I got my old harrow, a spike-tooth, and harrowed the ground.
I had a roller. They were manufactured in our town. The firm bursted
and I had a chance to buy one very cheap. I had a roller, harrow,
and plow. That was all the tillage implements. The harrow had moved
the lumps around a little. I ran the roller over the lumps; then
harrowed, rolled, and harrowed. When the harrow would not take hold,
I put a plank across and rode on it. I worked that land alternately
until I had the surface as fine and nice as I could make it, two or
three inches deep. The harrow would not take hold any longer and I
had to quit. By and by a rain came. I didn't know anything about how
to till land,--this spring fallow business--but I happened to hit it
right. After it rained, I said that harrow will take hold better
now. I loaded the harrow and got on it, and tore that ground up
three or four inches deep.
"The harrow teeth were sharp. I harrowed and rolled it and my
neighbor said, 'Terry, you are ruining that land, it will never grow
anything any more, it will all blow away.' I reminded him of his
bargain; I should raise what I pleased and take the crop home. Every
little while, I can't remember how often, I would go over and harrow
and roll that land. I probably plowed it the first week in April.
For two months that was a sort of savings bank for my work. I would
run over and work that land, occasionally, until, about the first
week in June, I had it prepared just as mellow and fine and nice as
it was possible to make it. It was nice enough for flower seeds."
"I builded better then than I knew. I had no idea what the result
was going to be. When it was all ready, I sowed Hungarian grass
seed. I wish you could have seen the crop. It grew four and a half
or five feet high, as thick as it could stand on the land. I believe
if I had thrown my straw hat, it would have staid on the top. It was
enormous for that land. I had four big loads to the acre. You know
what you can put on a load of Hungarian. When I went by the owner's
house with those loads and took them to our barn, he was out there
and he looked awfully sour. That man, to my knowledge, had never
grown half as much to the acre since I had known of his being on the
land, probably never more than one-third as much. Old run-out
timothy sod; no manure, no fertilizer, nothing but the work,--this
spring fallowing. I enjoyed the matter more, because he had told
some of the neighbors he had got the start of that town fellow; I
would never see five dollars an acre back, out of the land. That was
his opinion of what I could raise.
"Hay was hay that fall, after a dry season. We live in a dairy
section. The cows were there and had to be fed. I got $18 a ton for
that hay in our barn, something like $70 per acre. I think the laugh
was on the other side. That was my first awakening, along this line
of tillage. Didn't know how it came about, didn't know anything
about the fertility locked up in the soil, just the plain facts. I
did so and so, and got such and such results. The next year Charlie
Harlow, still living there, said, 'I wish you would put in some
Hungarian for me this spring.' I said, 'What part of the crop?--I
should want two-thirds.' He said he had an offer for half. I said,
'Then let him have it.' He replied, 'One-third of what you will
raise is more than half of what he will raise.' He saw what I did on
his brother-in-law's farm.
"The following year I had a piece of land ready to grow corn, I had
cleared out the stumps and done the best I could to get it in shape.
I plowed it just as soon as the ground was dry enough, about the
first of April, that is. I worked it every little while just as
nearly as I could as the Hungarian land had been worked, I harrowed
and rolled, let it rest a while, then harrowed and rolled. I kept it
up until my next door neighbor, Mr. Croy, had planted his corn, and
it was four inches high and growing pretty well. Ours wasn't
planted. A neighbor came and said, 'I am sorry for you, Terry, you
don't know what you are about. You are fooling away your time. Your
corn ought to have been in before this.' I was harrowing and
rolling. I was determined to see whether I could do it over again.
Some of the neighbors said it couldn't be done again.
"The fourth or fifth of June--too late, ordinarily, to plant corn
with us--I put in the crop. I wish you could have seen it grow! It
came up and grew from the word 'Go.' In four weeks it was ahead of
any corn about. It went ahead of my neighbor's corn that was three
or four inches high when ours was planted. We had a crop that, the
farm in the condition that it was, was considered as something
remarkable. They couldn't account for it, neither could I. All I
knew was I had been working the ground so and so and getting such
and such results.
"Let us go back once more. The first year that I moved onto that
farm, the first fall, we had nine cows, and I wanted to save all of
the manure. Now, there wasn't an experimental station in the land. I
didn't know anything about the potassium or nitrogen in the liquid
manure, but I had seen where it dropped on the land and how the
grass grew. I thought it was plant food, and our land was hungry. I
said, I must try and save this manure, and not have it wasted. I
hadn't a dollar. What did I do? There was an old stable there that
would hold ten cows. It was in terrible shape. It had a plank floor
that was all broken. I tore it out. I hauled some blue clay. I
filled the stable four or five inches deep with the blue clay, wet
it, pounded it down, shaped it off and got it level, fixed it up
around the sides, saucer shape, so it would hold water. Then I laid
down some old boards (I couldn't buy new ones), and put in a lot of
straw there and put my cows in. I saved all that manure the first
year, all that liquid. I had twice as much, probably more, from the
same number of cows as had been saved on that farm before, and it
was much more valuable. That was the beginning the first winter,
when I hadn't anything.
"For the horse stable I went to town and found some old billboards.
It was new lumber, but had been used for billboards. After the
circus the owner offered to sell the boards cheap, and to trust me.
He was a carpenter, and he jointed them. We put them crosswise on
the old plank floor, and when they got wet they swelled and became
practically water tight. I even crawled under and saw that there was
no liquid manure dropping down there. I drew sawdust and used for
bedding. I saved the liquid of the horse stable. I didn't know it
was worth three times as much, pound for pound, as the solid. I
didn't know it was worth two times as much in the cow stable, pound
for pound, as the solid. I found it out by experience.
"Now, when I was in town, before going on this farm, I worked for S.
Straight & Son, the then great cheese and butter kings of the
Western Reserve. I was getting over a thousand dollars a year in
their office. They didn't want me to leave at all, but my wife and I
took a notion to be independent, to work for ourselves, and we
bought this old farm. We had a chance to work for ourselves, all
right. The first year we worked from early in the morning until nine
or ten o'clock at night, and then we tumbled into bed, too tired to
think, to get up and do it over again. I worked in the field, taking
out stumps and doing something, as long as I could see, and then
helped my wife to milk. We would get our supper along about nine or
ten o'clock. At the end of the year we had not one single dollar,
after paying our interest and taxes,--not one dollar to show for our
work. Do you wonder we were pretty discouraged?
"I met Mr. Straight one day. He said: 'Terry, things are not going
very well in the office since you left. I wish you would come back.
You are not doing much over on that farm that I can see. You are
having a hard time. I will gladly give you $1,200 a year if you will
come back into our office.' It was a great temptation. Think what it
meant. To move back to town and have $100 a month. But I said, 'No,
Mr. Straight; I can't do it.' I don't deserve any credit for it,
friends: but I wasn't built that way. I can't back out. When I
undertake anything I have got to go through. I would have been
willing enough to leave that farm, if I had made a success of it,
after I made a success of it, as I thought then; but I wasn't
willing to give up, whipped--to acknowledge that I had undertaken
that job and had to back out and go back to town to make a living.
"Some little incident sometimes will change the whole character of a
man's life. I remember, when we were in very hard conditions, we
were sitting under an apple tree in our door yard one evening. It is
there yet. Two men from town went by. One of them said to the other,
'What is Terry going to do?' The other said, 'If Terry sticks to it
he will make something out of that old farm.' Just as quick as a
flash, friends, I said, 'Terry will stick to it.'
"You see what condition we were in. I began to put all these matters
together. I had been taught how to. In college I had been trained to
study and think, of course,--not to work with my hands. When I got
onto the work at first I worked myself almost to death with my
hands, and had no time to think or study; but gradually old methods
came around again and I began to think and study. I said: 'Here,
more hay to the acre, better hay, increased fertility by growing
that clover, increased fertility by working that soil so much.' I
didn't know why, but there was the fact. 'Now, isn't it possible to
put these matters together and so work them out as to build up the
fertility of this farm and make it blossom like the rose?'
"I began to work it out. What was the first step? I sold eight or
nine cows to get a little money to start, thus cutting off
practically our whole source of income. There was no other way I
could get any money. We had to do some draining. A part of the land
we could not do anything with until it was tile-drained. It took
money to buy tile. I had to have a little help about the digging,
although I like to boast that I laid every tile on my farm with my
own hands. I buried every one and know it will stay there. They were
all sound and hard and good. In all these years not one has ever
failed, not one drain or tile. I worked day after day, in the rain,
wet to the skin, because it had to be done. It was the foundation of
our success.
"As I was coming here yesterday, and passed so much of your flat
land, in need of drainage, I thought, drainage is the foundation of
success for lots of these people, down here in southern Illinois.
You can't do much until you have the water out of the land. Then you
have a chance to do something with tillage and manure-saving and
clover. But you throw away your efforts when you try to do this work
on land that is in need of drainage.
"As fast as possible we fixed up this land. Of course, it took
years. We hadn't money, and there were many things that had to be
done,--changing fields, getting out stumps, doing drainage,--it all
took time. I had my plans made and was working as fast as I could.
"Two things I did, to keep life in our bodies until we got ready to
make some money. One was to cut off every bit of timber on the farm.
Our neighbors laughed at us and prophesied rain and all that. There
were two things in my mind. We had to have money to live on, and I
managed to get quite a little of it in that way. In the next place
we didn't have much of a farm, and I wanted the land for tillage. We
can buy wood of the neighbors to-day, cheaper than we sold ours, so
we never lost anything.
"Another way we got some money, as we went along, that helped us,
was raising forage crops. I did not attempt to put in crops that
required much hand labor. I raised Hungarian, and everything I could
to be fed to cows. In our dairying section, with feed often scarce
in the fall, farmers often had more stock than they could winter. We
could pick up cows cheaply on credit and hold them. I could winter
them for people, and the manure we used as a top dressing, to make
the clover grow. Starting with a little piece of land, we spread out
more and more, and got more and more enriched, and more and more
growing clover, and by and by we got all the cultivated land growing
it. Then we were ready for business.
"I am afraid to tell you Illinois farmers, with your great big
farms, how large our farm was. We bought one hundred and twenty-five
acres. We sold off all but fifty-five. That didn't help us, for the
man who bought it was so poor he didn't pay us for over thirty
years. Then the land went up in price and he was able to sell it for
a good price and we got our money. Fifty-five acres were selected,
the best we could for our purpose. Twenty acres were so situated as
to have no value. Thirty-five acres were fairly good, tillable land,
the best we could pick out. I began a system of rotation, after we
got the land ready for it, of clover, potatoes, and wheat. My idea
was to have the clover gather fertility to grow potatoes and wheat.
I was going to make use of the tillage to help out all I could, and
sold the potatoes and wheat, and then had clover again, and so on
around the circle. Everybody said, of course I would fail. I didn't
know but I would. It was the only chance and I had to take it.
"Of course it took quite a while to get this thing going. The first
three or four years didn't amount to much. After six or eight years
we were surprised at the result. We were getting more than we hoped
for. In a dozen years the whole country was surprised. I remember
when a reporter was sent from Albany, New York, to see what we were
doing, and reported in the "Country Gentlemen." We had visitors by
the score from various states, it made such a stir. They couldn't
believe it was possible for a man to take land as poor as that, and
make it produce so well. We had some they could see that had not
been touched. As I told you, in eleven years we were out of debt.
After about ten or eleven years we were laying up a thousand dollars
a year, above all living and running expenses, from this land,
raising potatoes and wheat. It doesn't seem possible to you, large
farmers, but you can't get around the facts. In 1883 we laid up
$1,700 from the land. But this was a little extra.
"We wanted to build a new house. We had lived in the old shell long
enough. We had the money to pay cash down for the new house and to
pay for the furniture that went into it. We paid $3,500 cash down,
that fall, for the house and furniture, and every dollar taken out
of the land. Only two or three years before that we paid the last of
our debt. I had not done any talking or writing to speak of, at that
time. I did not begin until 1882 I never went to an institute, and
never wrote an article for a paper, except when called upon to do
it. I never sought such a job and prefer to stay at home on my farm.
It was only because I was called to do this work that I got into it.
For twenty-one years I was never at home one week during the winter
season. Farmers called for me and I didn't feel that I could refuse
to go.
"Now, how did we do it? I told some of the things. Let us go down to
the science of the matter little, now. I didn't know anything about
the science at the time. That came later. Practice came first. We
know now--of course, you all know--that clover has the ability,
through the little nodules that grow on the roots, to take the free
nitrogen out of the air to grow itself. You know about four-fifths
of the air you are breathing is nitrogen in the form of gas, and
clover has the ability to feed on that and make use of it. The other
plants have not. I might illustrate it in this way: You can't eat
grass; at least, you wouldn't do very well on it. But the steer eats
grass and you eat the steer, so you get the grass, don't you? Your
corn, wheat, oats, timothy, potatoes, so far as we know, can't touch
free nitrogen in the air, but clover can and then feed it to those
other crops.
"Let us look into how we got the phosphorus. On land that would not
grow over six to eight bushels of wheat per acre we have succeeded
once in growing forty-seven and three-fourths bushels to the acre,
on all the land sowed, of wheat that sold away above the market
price and weighed sixty-four pounds to the measured bushel, and
never put on a pound of phosphorus. We got it from that tillage we
told you about. Our land in northeastern Ohio is not very good
naturally. It is nothing like what you have in this state. Most of
you know that is the poorest land we have in the state in general,
but we have a fair share of clay and sand in ours. That has helped
us wonderfully. We have clay enough so that with our tillage we can
make so far all the plant food available we want.
"Now, a little more about the tillage. I told you how we worked the
surface of that ground and made it fine and nice. After five or six
years, perhaps, of this kind of work, I got to thinking if I had
some tool that would stir that ground to the bottom of the plowed
furrow and mix it very deeply and thoroughly, I might get still
better results out of the tillage. I happened to be in town one
morning in the fall, when we had some wheat land (clover sod) plowed
and prepared for wheat. I had harrowed and rolled it and made it as
nice as I could.--It was what the neighbors would call all ready for
sowing and more than ready. In town I saw a man trying to sell a
two-horse cultivator. I think it was made in this State. It was the
first one I ever saw--you can judge how long ago. It was a big,
heavy, cumbersome thing,--a horse-killer. I thought, if I only had
that, I knew I could increase the fertility of our soil still more.
I hadn't any money. We hadn't got far enough that there was a dollar
to spare. What did I do? I gave my note for $50 and took that
cultivator home with me. I could have bought it for $35 in money,
but I didn't have it. My wife didn't say a word when I got home. I
have heard since that she did a lot of crying to think I would go in
debt $50 more, and all for that thing.
"I got home about eleven o'clock and you can well suspect that I
couldn't eat any dinner that day. I hitched up and went right to
work, and told my wife I couldn't stop for any dinner. I rode that
cultivator that day and tore up that field in a way land was never
torn up in our section before. There was nothing to do it with. The
soil would roll up and tumble over. After going lengthwise I went
crosswise. A thousand hogs couldn't have made it rougher. The
neighbors looked on and said that 'Terry would do 'most anything if
you would only let him ride.' The worst of it was, I really didn't
know but what they were right, and all he would get out of it was
the riding. It was a serious thing. I had to wait until the harvest
time before I could know.
"What was the result? I got ten bushels of wheat more per acre than
had ever grown on the land before, without any manure or fertilizer
having been applied since it grew the previous crop in the rotation.
Clover had been grown. It was a clover sod. I didn't know how much
came from the clover and how much from the tillage. I didn't care,
they went together to get that result. I asked some of the old
settlers how much had been grown there per acre during their
recollection. They said twenty-three bushels was the most they had
known. I got thirty-three. The neighbors said, 'It happened so, you
can't do it again.' You know how they talk, to make out nothing can
be done with an old farm. I was interested in doing it again. I paid
that note and had a large margin of profit left, you see, out of the
extra wheat. It all came right.
"The next year I took the next field in rotation and worked it in
the same way, probably more. I got thirteen bushels more wheat per
acre than ever grew before. Thirty-six bushels of wheat! Such a
thing was never heard of in our section before; land that would not
grow anything a dozen years ago. Do you wonder I have been an
enthusiast on tillage since then? Why, they call me a crank
sometimes. It is a good crank, as it has turned out prosperity for
us.
"After a time I began to think, can't we carry this matter a little
further? People generally don't cultivate their crops more than two
or three times in a season. Can I cultivate more to advantage? I
began to try it, six or eight times, eight or ten. I think there
have been dry years when I have cultivated our potatoes as many as
fifteen times. I don't believe we ever went through them when it
didn't pay.
"I remember one fall, when it was a wet season. When the tops began
to die and got to the point where I could see the space between the
rows, I started the cultivators again. I had money then to hire men
and I hired plenty of them. I started to cultivate between the rows.
People said, ' What is the idiot doing now?' I said, 'He is going
to raise five bushels more by doing that work, that it what he is
after.'
"Now, remember, more hay to the acre, better hay, increased
fertility by growing clover, increased fertility by working this
land over and over in the different ways I have told you of. They
used to send for me to talk on this subject, before I knew anything
about it, except that I had done it. In Wisconsin, some twenty years
ago, I helped at the first institute held in the state. They sent
for me to come up. I told them what I was doing and how I thought it
came about, what I thought clover was doing for me. When I was
through I asked Professor Henry, who was in the audience, to tell
me, honestly, what he thought about my talk. He said, 'As a farmer I
believe you are right, but as a scientific man I dare not say so in
public.'
"Professor Roberts came to my place one time, to investigate a
little. I knew what he came for. I showed him around, and showed him
the land we had not touched, not to this day. He was a surprised
man. I remember the second crop of clover was at its best. It was
above his knees. He says, 'This will make two tons of hay to the
acre, and it is the second crop.' He didn't say but very little. I
couldn't get him to talk much. He went home and began that system of
experiments at Ithaca that has practically revolutionized the
agriculture of the east--experiments in tillage. Pretty soon we had
his book on the fertility of the soil. I think he got his
inspiration from what he saw. He said to himself, seems to me,
'Terry has something that scientific men do not know.' He got
samples of soil all over the state. They analyzed the soil and found
what the average soil of New York contained. They found about four
thousand five hundred pounds of nitrogen, six thousand three hundred
pounds of phosphoric acid, and twenty-four thousand pounds of potash
in an average acre eight inches deep; and they had been buying
potash largely. (Laughter.)
"The farm we moved onto was the old Sanford homestead. Old Mr.
Sanford lived there and brought up a large family. I think five of
them boys. Every one of these boys left the farm just as soon as
they could get away. There wasn't anything in farming for them.
After we had been at work a dozen years or more and got things going
nicely, they came back (one of them lives in Connecticut) and
visited the old homestead. I remember Lorenzo said, 'It seems like a
miracle. I don't know how you did it. We worked from daylight to
dark, from one year's end to another, and never had anything. We
boys used to be promised a holiday on the Fourth of July if the corn
was all hoed. That was all we got. How on earth have you done these
things?'
"Friends, there were three farms we bought. Old Mr. Sanford didn't
know anything about but one. There was the air and the soil and
there was the subsoil. He had been working only the soil, plowing it
three or four inches deep, scratching it over, taking what came, and
every year less and less came. The land had run down until the
surface had quit producing. We took the same soil, put in clover and
took the fertility out of the upper farm, the air, and out of the
lower one, the subsoil, and put it into the second one. We plowed
the surface soil a little deeper and deeper until we got it eight or
nine inches deep instead of four. We worked it more and more,
setting more and more of the available plant food in the soil free.
That is how we did it.
"I say 'we' advisedly, because, friends, if I hadn't had a wife
fully able and willing to do her part, and more, I would not have
this story to tell."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
AN AWAKENING DREAM
"THE chores are all done," said Mrs. Johnston, as Percy began to
take down his heavy work-coat about nine o'clock that evening.
"You ought not to have done them," he chided as he slipped his arm
around her and drew her to the sofa.
"Tell me about the Institute," she said, stroking the hair from his
forehead.
He told her of the professors who were there from the University and
briefly reported the addresses he had heard.
"And I verily believe," he added, "that if Terry were to wake up
some morning and find himself located on the "Barrens" of the
Highland Rim of Tennessee, he would start out with the firm
conviction that all he would need to do to become a successful
farmer there would be to sow clover and then 'work the land for all
that's in it.' But, after all, it is not so strange, perhaps, that
one who has himself discovered and then utilized the power of clover
and tillage to restore and increase the productive power of land
rich in limestone, phosphorus and all other essential mineral plant
food, should jump to the fixed and final conclusion that the same
system of treatment is all that is needed to make any and all land
productive. The fact that Terry's land (if equal to the nearby New
York land) contained two thousand three hundred pounds of phosphorus
in the plowed soil of an acre when he began to work it out, while
the soil of the Tennessee "Barrens" contains only about one
hundred pounds, does not disturb him or modify his opinion so long
as his personal experience is limited to his own land.
"Terry's problem was easier than Mr. West's on his Virginia farm,
where the soil is acid and hence limestone must be used liberally in
order that clover and other legumes may be grown successfully. Even
the supply of phosphorus and other mineral elements is probably
greater in Terry's farm in northeastern Ohio than in the soil of
Westover.
"Our problem is even more difficult, because we must not only
increase the supply of active organic matter, although we have a
reserve of old humus far above that contained in the Terry or West
farms; but in addition we need more limestone than Mr. West and then
we must add the phosphorus. Of course the surface washing is a
serious factor on Westover, but perhaps our tight clay subsoil is
worse.
"But I learned at least two things that I shall try to profit by.
One of these was from Governor Hoard's lecture on 'Cows Versus Cows,
and the man behind the cow'; and the other is that we must do more
work on the land."
"Oh, Percy, I am so sorry you went. How can you possibly do more
work than you have been doing?"
"I may need to hire more," he replied; "and, of course, that will
further increase our expenses, but, it will surely pay to do well
what we try to do."
"When does my boy expect to get married?" she asked, softly, as
she gently stroked his hair.
"I am married," he replied.
She looked at him in wonder.
"Mother mine, I thought that you knew I was married."
"Your face is blank sincerity, as usual," she said smiling, "but you
never deceive me with your voice. Your voice reveals every attempt
at deception. Tell me what you mean."
His voice was sincere now. "I am married to a farm and laboring
together with God. After hearing Terry's talk, I am more than ever
determined to continue to do my part, working in the light as He
gives me the power to see the light."
"Percy, dear," she asked, "did you know the bride whose wedding
cards you received yesterday?"
"Don't you remember what I told you of Adelaide West, Mr. West's
daughter?" he queried.
"I thought so," said the mother. She stepped to Percy's home-made
desk, and from one of the pigeon holes, drew out a bunch of letters,
and selected the top and bottom letters from the pile.
"Here are the first and last letters you have received from Mr.
West. Did you ever see this?" She drew out a crumpled piece of
paper and placed it in his hand.
_"Her Grandma had not consented,"_ he read. "What does that mean?"
"I do not know and I did not know when I read it three years ago. It
came in your first letter from Mr. West. I thought you had not found
it in the envelope, but you gave me the letter to read and I found
it. I left it in the letter, but never till to-day did I feel that I
ought to mention it to you. Yesterday you received a letter with two
cards; but you read only one of them to me."
"But I saw the other was only the wedding announcement, and I left
them both in the letter for you to read."
"And I read them both," she said. "Read this."
Percy took the card and slowly read:
_Mr. and Mrs. Clarance Voit
Announce the marriage of their daughter
Ameila Louise
to
Professor Paul Strongworth Barstow_
She watched his face but saw no sign. She kissed his forehead and
then pointed to the writing, _"With Grandma's Compliments,"_ saying,
"I do not know what this means, but I thought my boy might be
getting too careless, when he fails to read even the wedding
announcement of college professors, sent to him by such a good
friend as Grandma West may intend to be."
Percy looked into his mother's face as if to read her thoughts.
"I think I understand what you have in mind," he said. "Mr. West has
mentioned once or twice that Adelaide was teaching school, but I
supposed that she was trying to earn enough to buy her own wedding
outfit."
"Perhaps that is true," replied the mother, "and perhaps she is
already married or soon to be married; but I thought you ought to
know that she had not married Professor Barstow, lest you might
allude to it in your letters to Mr. West."
CHAPTER XXXIX
HONEY WITHOUT WAX
"WELL, I reckon the cowboy's gone back to 'tend to his cows," remarked
the grandmother to Adelaide, as she returned from taking Percy to
Blue Mound and found the old lady sitting on the lawn bench
apparently enjoying the mild late November weather. "Did you leave
him at the station or see him off?"
"Neither," Adelaide replied, sitting down beside her. "The train was
late, and he insisted on coming back with me to the first turn, and
then stood and watched till I came within sight of home at the next
turn. I doubt if he is back to the station yet."
"He reminds me, Pet, of the Latin definition you gave for _sincere,"
_remarked the grandmother. "Pure honey without wax, wasn't it?"
"Oh, no, Grandma. Not pure honey. It says nothing about honey. Sine
is the Latin for _without, _and _cera _means _wax; _so that our word
_sincere, _taken literally from the Latin, means _without wax."_
"Oh, yes, I see now; but let me tell you, Adelaide, I think that
professor of yours is right smart wax."
"Why, Grandma! I never heard you say such a thing. You know papa and
mamma like Professor Barstow and I think I like him too, and,--and
he has papa's consent, and mamma's consent."
"Well, you never heard me say such a thing before and you won't ever
hear it again, but he hasn't got my consent. I think he's some wax,
but I reckon you think he's some honey, and I know he thinks he's
some punk'ns. Of course, your father would like an English or
Scottish nobleman for a son-in-law, or at least a college professor
with a string of ancestry reaching across the water; but the Henry's
prefer to make their own reputations as they go along, and I doubt
if Patrick ever saw England or Scotland. I tell you, Adelaide, a
pound of gumption will make a better husband than a shipload of
ancestry, and I just hope you will more than like your husband,
that's all."
With that the old lady arose and walked to the house.
CHAPTER XL
INSPIRATION
WESTOVER,
March 14, 1907.
Mr. Percy Johnston,
Heart-of-Egypt, Ill.
MY DEAR Friend:--We were delighted to receive your interesting
letter of March 2, describing the Farmer's Institute. I have been to
two such meetings in Virginia, but they are devoted to fruit and
truck and dairying, and no one seems to know much about our soils. I
appreciate more and more every year the absolute knowledge you
helped me to secure concerning Westover, where we had been working
in the dark for two centuries. I am sure you will succeed on
Poorland Farm,--just as confident as any one can be in advance of
actual achievement; and I expect to see the time when Richland Farm
will be a more appropriate name.
I only wish you could see my alfalfa. I have been seeding more every
year and now have sixty acres. It has come through winter in fine
condition and it will be a fine sight by Easter. Here's a standing
invitation to take Easter dinner with us, or any other dinner, for
that matter, if you ever come East.
I am planning to sow about forty acres more alfalfa this year. A
writer for the _Breeder's Gazette _visited us last summer, and he
said some of our alfalfa was as good as any he had ever seen in
California. He said ground limestone was plainly what we need for
alfalfa at Westover, but he thought some phosphorus would also help
on the less rolling areas, where the alfalfa is not so good as where
you found more phosphorus.
Lime and raw rock phosphate make the difference between clover and
no clover.
I can get ground limestone for $2.90 a ton now, delivered at Blue
Mound in bulk in carload lots. We are hoping to get it still lower,
and I think we will, for some of the big lime manufacturers, such as
the company at Riverton, are making plans to furnish ground
limestone; and the railroad companies are likely to make better
rates, or the State will do so for them.
It is truly a lamentable situation, when our hills and mountains are
full of all sorts of limestone, and our exhausted lands are crying
for that more than anything else. We understand, even better than
you, that everybody is poor in a country where the land is poor; and
it should be to the greatest interest of the railroad companies as
well as to all other industries, to unite in an effort to make it
possible for every landowner to apply large amounts of limestone to
his land,--the more the better,--and no one should expect any large
profit from the business; but wait till the benefit is produced on
the land,--wait till the farmer has his increased crops, and some
money from the sale of those crops. Then the railroads can make
profit hauling those crops to market and hauling back the necessary
supplies, and even the luxuries, which the farmer's money will
enable him to buy and pay for. Then the factory wheels will turn;
for, as you told us, the Secretary of Agriculture reports that
eighty-six per cent. of all the manufactured products are made from
agricultural raw materials.
There is no danger but what the railroads and manufacturers and
commercial people will get their share out of the produce from the
farms; but it is absolutely sure that, when the farms fail to
produce, then there is no profit for any of them, and the last man
to starve out will be the farmer himself, for he can live on what he
raises even though he has nothing left to sell.
We are all well. My son Charles is still bookkeeping for a Richmond
firm, but he is becoming greatly interested in my alfalfa, and says
he sometimes wishes he had taken an agricultural course instead of
the literary at college. His grandmother says she reckons the
agricultural college could give him about all the literature he
needs keeping books for a hides and tallow wholesale company; and I
am coming to believe that she is about right. I still remember that
the dative of indirect object is used with most Latin verbs
compounded with _ad, ante, con, in, inter, ob, post, pre, pro, sub,
_and _super, _and sometimes _circum; _but it would have been just as
easy for me to have learned forty years ago that the essential
elements of plant food are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium; magnesium, calcium, iron and sulfur; and
possibly chlorin; and I am sure that the culture of Greek roots and
a knowledge of Latin compounds have been of less value to me during
the forty years than the culture of alfalfa roots and even a meager
knowledge of plant-food compounds have been during the last three
years.
Adelaide is teaching; Frank is in the academy; and the younger
children are all in school.
We shall always be glad to hear from you.
Very respectfully yours,
CHARLES WEST.
"That is an exceptionally good letter," said Mrs. Johnson, as Percy
finished reading.
"Not for Mr. West," he replied. "His letters are always good, always
helpful and encouraging, almost an inspiration to me. Mr. West is in
many ways a very exceptional man. If he had not been tied down all
his life to a so-called worn-out farm of a thousand acres, he might
just as well have been the Governor of the State. Even in spite of
himself he has been practically forced to accept some very
responsible public offices, but the financial sacrifice was too
great to permit his retaining them very long. I never realized until
I was nearly through college that the trustees of our own University
devoted a large amount of time to that public service with no
financial remuneration whatever. They are merely reimbursed for
their actual and necessary travelling expenses."
"Well, if I were a young man about your age, this letter would be an
inspiration to me," said his mother.
"You mean his suggestion about changing the name of our farm?"
"No, I mean his possible suggestion about changing the name of his
daughter."
Percy was silent.
"How can I tell anything from your blank face? Why do you not
speak?"
"You will have to show me," said Percy.
"Will you accept his invitation?"
"Oh, Mr. West always closes his letters with an invitation for me to
visit them if I ever come East. There is nothing exceptional or
unusual in that."
"The letter is very exceptional," she repeated, "insomuch that if
there is no understanding there is no misunderstanding, and if there
is some misunderstanding there was no intention. When Mrs. Barton
says: 'Do come over when you can,' there is no invitation intended
and no acceptance expected; but when Mrs. McKnight says: 'Can't you
and your son come over and take supper with us Thursday
evening,'--well that is an invitation to come. In the case of Mr.
West's letter, perhaps you had an invitation to spend the Easter
vacation at Westover when his daughter will be at home,--and perhaps
not."
Percy was silent and his mother quietly waited.
"In any case," he said, "I cannot afford to go this spring. We never
were so short of funds. I almost begrudged the railroad fare I paid
to go to the Institute."
"I have agreed to agree with you regarding the matter of hiring more
help on the farm if you need it," she said; "for it is easily
possible to lose by saving. There are some things which should never
be influenced by financial considerations. It is more than three
years since your Eastern trip. You need a rest and a change. It
would be entirely commonplace for you to spend the Easter time in
Virginia. You ought to see the country in the spring; and you ought
especially to be interested in Mr. West's sixty acres of alfalfa.
Expectations are always followed either by realization or by
disappointment, either of which my noble son can bear."
Her fingers passed through his hair as she kissed his forehead.
"The only question is, whether you would enjoy a visit to Westover,"
she continued. "You have insisted that the Winterbine deposit
remain in my name, but I have written and signed a check against
that reserve for $100, and you have only to fill in the date and
draw the amount at the County Seat whenever you wish. If you go,
express my regards to the ladies, and especially remember me to the
grandmother."
CHAPTER XLI
THE KINDERGARTEN
HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS,
November 9, 1909.
Hon. James J. Hill,
Great Northern Railroad Company, St. Paul, Minnesota.
MY DEAR SIR:--I have read with very great interest your article in
the November _World's Work _on "What We Must Do to be Fed." I wonder
if you read _The American Farm Review!_ In the editorial columns of
that journal, issue of October 28, 1909, occurs the following:
"The pessimist always assumes that every man who quits farming for
some other business does so because there is something the matter
with the farm. Mr. James J. Hill has recently considered the
question and decided that, unless the farmer and his family can be
confined on the land and be compelled to do better work than they
have been doing, the balance of the population must starve to death.
The bug-aboo of impending decadence raised by such talk is based
upon a wrong assumption, inadequate statistics, and a failure to
comprehend the evolutional movement in agriculture."
The evolutional movement means, of course, that we are different
from other people. Have not England, Germany and France run their
lands down until they produce only fourteen bushels of wheat per
acre and have we not steadily built ours up to an average yield of
thirty bushels? Other peoples wear out their soil because they fail
to have part in the evolutional movement; whereas, did we not come
to America and at once begin to make our rich land richer than it
ever was in the virgin state? Do you not know, Sir, that the oldest
lands in America are now the richest, most productive, and most
valuable? We admit, of course, that the Bureau of Soils of the
United States Department of Agriculture reports the common level
upland loam soil of St. Mary country, Maryland, to be valued at $1
to $3 an acre, and the same kind of land in Prince George county,
adjoining the District of Columbia, to be worth $1.50 to $5; but do
you not know the American evolutional movement could easily move all
those decimal points two places and at once make those values read
from $100 to $500 an acre. And likewise, it would be a very simple
matter to change the yield of corn in Georgia from eleven bushels
per acre and have it read one hundred and ten bushels. Why not, if
an acre of corn in the adjoining State of South Carolina has
produced two hundred and thirty-nine bushels in one season? Do you
not see that this simple evolution would also put plate glass in the
thousands of windowless homes now inhabited by human beings, both
white and colored, in the state of Georgia?
There is another phase of this evolutional movement which should not
be overlooked. There is already fast developing in this country a
class of people who can live and grow fat on hot air, and they will
tell you that your only trouble is poor digestion, and they are glad
that they can see the bright side of things and enjoy life in this
glorious country, assured that the future will take care of itself.
Have not all other great agricultural countries rapidly gotten into
this evolutional movement until all their people live on Easy
Street?
I have a letter from a missionary in China, a former schoolmate,
Clarence Robertson, who resigned the position of Assistant Professor
of mechanical engineering in Purdue University in order to accept in
the largest sense the Master's specific invitation to "Go ye,
therefore, and teach all nations."
This letter was written in February, 1907 and contained the
following statement regarding the famine district in which the
writer was located:
"At the present time the only practical thing to do is to let four
hundred thousand people starve, and try to get seed grain for the
remainder to plant their spring crops."
I think we have failed utterly, Mr. Hill, to lay special emphasis
upon either the evolutional or the emotional in agriculture. Is it
not probable that a superabundance of emotion would even permit the
constitution to wave the bread requirement in the
bread-and-water-with-love diet? As a cure for pessimism the
emotional tonic is strongly recommended.
On the other hand, there are some people who are even too emotional,
people who are inclined to sit up and take notice when the
mathematics and statistics are spread out in clear light and plainly
reveal the fact that the time is near at hand when their children
may lack for bread. (They already lack for meat and milk and eggs in
many places). To ally any feeling of this sort that might tend to
excite those who are so emotional as even to love their own
grandchildren, some sort of soothing syrup should be administered. A
preparation put out by the Chief of the United States Bureau of
Soils and fully endorsed by the great optimist, the Secretary of
Agriculture, is recommended as an article very much superior to Mrs.
Winslow's. As a moderate dose for an adult, read the following
extracts from pages 66, 78, and 80 of Bureau of Soils Bulletin 55
(1909), by the Chief of the Bureau:
"The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation
possesses. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that
cannot be used up."
"From the modern conception of the nature and purpose of the soil it
is evident that it cannot wear out, that so far as the mineral food
is concerned it will continue automatically to supply adequate
quantities of the mineral plant foods for crops."
"As we see it now, the main cause of infertile soils or the
deterioration of soils is the improper sanitary conditions
originally present in the soil or arising from our injudicious
culture and rotation of crops. It is, of course, exceedingly
difficult to work out the principles which govern the proper
rotation for any particular soil."
"As a national asset the soil is safe as a means of feeding mankind
for untold ages to come. So far as our investigations show, the soil
will not be exhausted of any one or all of its mineral plant food
constituents. If the coal and iron give out, as it is predicted they
will before long, the soil can be depended on to furnish food,
light, heat, and habitation not only for the present population but
for an enormously larger population than the world has at present."
"Personally, I take a most hopeful view of the situation as respects
the soil resources of our country and of the world at large. I
cannot bring myself to believe that the discouraging reports that
have been issued from time to time as to the threatened
deterioration of our soils, as to the exhaustion of any particular
element of fertility, will ever be realized."
Sweeten to taste, and repeat the dose if necessary.
If you desire mathematical proof that we can always continue to take
definite and measurable amounts of plant food away from the limited
supplies still remaining in our American soils and still have enough
left to supply the needs of all future crops, let it be understood:
That y = x
Then xy = X3
And xy-y2 = x3-y2
Or y(x-y)=(x + y) (x-y)
Hence, y = x + y
Thus, y = 2y
Therefore, 1=2
Now cube both sides of the last equation and:
1=8
Multiply by one hundred and sixty, the number of pounds of
phosphorus still remaining in the common upland soil of Southern
Maryland, and behold:
160 =1280
Thus the soil again becomes the equal of the $200 corn belt
land,--Q. E. D.
Fortunately, Mr. Hill, you have not found it "exceedingly difficult
to work out the principles which govern the proper rotation" that
"actually enriches the land."
Seriously, I hope you will permit me to take this opportunity to say
that I deplore, as must all right-minded and clear-thinking men, the
occasional petty criticisms which attribute to you some selfish
motive for the honest and noble stand you have taken concerning the
importance of immediate action and of a widespread, far-reaching,
and generally effective movement looking toward, not the
conservation, but the restoration, and permanent preservation of
American soils. According to the Scriptures, there is a sin which
God, Himself, will not forgive; namely, the sin of imputing bad
motives to the one who does right from motives only good and pure.
Thoughts that deserve a place of honor in American history you have
expressed in the following words:
"The farm is the basis of all industry, but for many years this
country has made the mistake of unduly assisting manufacture,
commerce, and other activities that center in cities, at the expense
of the farm. The result is a neglected system of agriculture and the
decline of the farming interest. But all these other activities are
founded upon the agricultural growth of the nation and must continue
to depend upon it. Every manufacturer, every merchant, every
business man, and every good citizen is deeply interested in
maintaining the growth and development of our agricultural
resources. Herein lies the true secret of our anxious interest in
agricultural methods; because, in the long run, they mean life or
death to future millions; who are no strangers or invaders, but our
own children's children, and who will pass judgment upon us
according to what we have made of the world in which their lot is to
be cast."
True and noble thoughts are these, from the master mind of a great
statesman; for there are statesmen who neither grace nor disgrace
the Halls of Congress.
Your article contains twenty-eight pages of wholesome reading matter
and instructive illustrations, and, in addition, about one page, I
regret to say, of misinformation that will do much to destroy your
otherwise valuable contribution to agricultural literature.
Briefly you have shown very clearly and very correctly that the
present practice of agriculture in America tends toward land ruin,
and that, with our rapidly increasing population, with continued
depletion of our vast areas of cultivated soils, and with no
possibility of any large extension of well-watered arable lands, we
are already facing the serious problem of providing sufficient food
for our own people.
You summarize your conclusions along this line in the following
words:
"We have to provide for a contingency not distant from us by nearly
a generation, but already present. The food condition presses upon
us now. The shortage has begun. Witness the great fall in wheat
exports and the rise of prices. Obviously it is time to quit
speculating about what may occur even twenty or thirty years hence,
and begin to take thought for the morrow. As far as our food supply
is concerned, right now the lean years have begun."
It is certain that the time is near when our food supplies shall
become inadequate if our present practices continue, but the
enforced reduction in animal products will at least postpone the
time of actual famine in America. I keep in mind always that we are
feeding much grain to domestic animals, an extremely wasteful
practice so far as economy of human food is concerned; because, as
an average, animals return in meat and milk not more than onefifth
as much food value as they destroy in the corresponding grain
consumed; and, as we gradually reduce the amounts of grain that are
fed to cattle, sheep, and swine, we shall also gradually increase
our human food supply. Ultimately our milk-producing and
meat-producing animals will be fed only the grass grown upon the
non-arable lands and possibly some refuse forage not suitable for
human food or more valuable for green manure, unless we modify our
present practice and tendency, which we can do if the proper
influences are exerted by the intelligent people of this country,
and thus make possible the continuation of high standards of living
for all our people.
I keep in mind, too, that much of the food taken into the average
American kitchen is wasted, and that progress in the science of
feeding the man will ultimately prevent this waste and, by adding to
this better preparation and combination of foods, will increase to
some extent the nutritive value of our present food supply.
The serious fact remains, however, that our older lands are
decreasing in productive power and, in spite of what may be
accomplished by such methods of conservation, we are now facing a
rapidly approaching shortage of food supplies for the rapidly
increasing population of these United States; and you have put me
and all other American citizens under lasting obligations to you for
your frankness, good sense, and true patriotism in thus pointing out
n advance our great national weakness.
According to the statistics of the United States Government, a
comparison of the last five years reported in this century with the
last five years of the old century, shows, by these two five-year
averages, that our annual production of wheat has increased from
about five hundred million to seven hundred million bushels: that
our annual production of corn has increased from two and one-quarter
billion to two and three-quarter billion bushels; that our wheat
exports have decreased from thirty-seven per cent. to seventeen per
cent. of our total production; that our corn exports have decreased
from nine per cent. to three per cent. of our total production; and
yet the average price of wheat, by the five-year periods, has
increased thirty-one per cent., and the average price of corn has
increased ninety-one per cent., during the same period.
The latest Year Book of the Department of Agriculture (1908 )
furnishes the average yields of wheat and corn for four successive
ten-year periods, from 1866 to 1905. By combining these into two
twenty-year periods this record of forty years shows that the
average yield of wheat for the United States increased one bushel
per acre, while the average yield of corn decreased one and one-half
bushels per acre, according to these two twenty-year averages.
If we consider only the statistics for the North-Central states,
extending from Ohio to Kansas and from "Egypt" to Canada, the same
forty-year record shows the average yield of wheat to have increased
one-half bushel per acre, while the average yield of corn decreased
two bushels per acre.
Thus, notwithstanding the great areas of rich virgin soils brought
under cultivation in the West and Northwest during the last forty
years, notwithstanding the abandonment of great areas of wornout
lands in the East and Southeast during the same years,
notwithstanding the enormous extension of dredge ditching and tile
drainage, and, notwithstanding the marked improvement in seed and in
the implements of cultivation, the average yield per acre of the two
great grain crops of the United States has not even been maintained,
the decrease in corn being greater than the increase in wheat, and
not only for the entire United States, but also for the great new
states of the corn belt and wheat belt.
( Seasonal variations are so great that shorter periods than
twenty-year averages cannot be considered trustworthy for yield per
acre.)
Meanwhile, the total population of the United States increased from
thirty-eight millions in 1870 to seventy-six millions in 1900, or an
increase of one hundred per cent. in thirty years; and the only
means by which we have been able to feed this increase in population
has been by increasing our acreage of cultivated crops and by
decreasing our exportation of foodstuffs; and I need not remind you
that the limit to our relief is near in both of these directions.
But have we decreased our exportation of phosphate? Oh, no. On the
contrary, under the soothing influence of the most pleasing and
acceptable doctrine that our soil is an indestructible, immutable
asset, which cannot be depleted, our exportation of rock phosphate
has increased during the years of the present century from six
hundred and ninety thousand tons in 1900, to one-million three
hundred and thirty thousand tons in 1908, an increase of practically
one hundred per cent., in accordance with the published reports of
the United States Geological Survey.
But I am writing to you, Mr. Hill, not only to thank you for what
you have said and shown in the twenty-eight pages above referred to,
but also in part to repay my obligation to you by giving you some
correct information, which I am altogether confident you will
appreciate; namely, that, while you are a graduate student or past
master in your knowledge of the supply and demand of the world's
markets, you are just entering the kindergarten class in the study
of soil fertility, as witness the following extracts from the one
erroneous page of your article.
"Right methods of farming, without which no agricultural country
such as this can hope to remain prosperous, or even to escape
eventual poverty, are not complicated and are within the reach of
the most modest means. They include a study of soils and seeds, so
as to adapt the one to the other; a diversification of industry,
including the cultivation of different crops and the raising of live
stock; a careful rotation of crops, so that the land will not be
worn out by successive years of single cropping; intelligent
fertilizing by the system of rotation, by cultivating leguminous
plants, and, above all, by the economy and use of every particle of
fertilizing material from stock barns and yards; a careful selection
of grain used for seed; and, first of all perhaps in importance, the
substitution of the small farm, thoroughly tilled, for the large
farm, with its weeds, its neglected corners, its abused soil, and
its thin product. This will make room for the new population whose
added product will help to restore our place as an exporter of
foodstuffs. Let us set these simple principles of the new method out
again in order:
_"First--_The farmer must cultivate no more land than he can till
thoroughly. With less labor he will get more results. Official
statistics show that the net profit from one crop of twenty bushels
of wheat to the acre is as great as that from two of sixteen, after
original cost of production has been paid.
_"Second--_There must be rotation of crops. Ten years of single
cropping will pretty nearly wear out any but the richest soil. A
proper three or fiveyear rotation of crops actually enriches the
land.
_"Third--_There must be soil renovation by fertilizing; and the best
fertilizer is that provided by nature herself--barnyard manure.
Every farmer can and should keep some cattle, sheep, and hogs on his
place. The farmer and his land cannot prosper until stock raising
becomes an inseparable part of agriculture. Of all forage fed to
live stock at least one-third in cash value remains on the land in
the form of manure that soon restores worn-out soil to fertility and
keeps good land from deteriorating. By this system the farm may be
made and kept a source of perpetual wealth."
Your _first principle _will be agreed to and emphasized by all; but
it should be kept in mind that the large farms are frequently better
tilled than the small farms. The $200 land in the corn belt is
usually "worked for all that's in it." It is tile-drained and well
cultivated, and the best of seed is used. If more thorough tillage
would increase the profits, these corn-belt farmers would certainly
practice it.
It ought to be known (1) that as an average of six years the
Illinois Experiment Station produced seventy and three-tenths
bushels of corn per acre with the ordinary four cultivation, and
only seventy-two and eight-tenths bushels with additional
cultivation even up to eight times; and (2) that the average yield
of corn in India on irrigated land varies from seven bushels in poor
years to twelve bushels in good seasons, and this is where the
average farm is about three acres in size.
One Illinois farmer with a four-horse team raises more corn than ten
Georgia farmers with a mule a piece on the same total acreage
Fertile soil and competent labor are the great essentials in crop
production. A mere increase in country population does not increase
the productive power of the soil.
The farms down here in "Egypt" average much smaller than those in
the corn belt of Illinois, but our "Egyptian" farms are nevertheless
poorly tilled as a rule and some of them are already becoming
abandoned for agricultural purposes.
Certainly the land should always be well tilled, but tillage makes
the soil poorer, not richer. Tillage liberates plant food but adds
none. "A little farm well tilled" is all right if well manured, but
it should not be forgotten that the men who consider "Ten Acres
Enough" are market gardeners, or truck farmers, who are not
satisfied until in the course of six or eight years they have
applied to their land about two hundred tons of manure per acre, all
made from crops grown on other lands.
All the manure produced in all the states would provide only thirty
tons per acre for the farm lands of Illinois. In round numbers there
are eighty million cattle and horses in the United States, and our
annual corn crop is harvested from one hundred million acres. All
the manure produced by all domestic animals would barely fertilize
the corn lands with ten tons per acre if none whatever were lost or
wasted; and, if all farm animals were figured on the basis of
cattle, there is only one head for each ten acres of farm land in
the United States.
Your _second principle _is, that "a proper three or five-year
rotation of crops actually enriches the land."
I hope the God of truth and a long-suffering, misguided people will
forgive you for that false teaching. If there is any one practice
the value of which is fully understood by the farmers and landowners
in the Eastern states and in all old agricultural countries, it is
the practice of crop rotation. Indeed, the rotation of crops is much
more common and much better understood and much more fully
appreciated in the East than it is in the corn belt. Practically all
we know of crop rotation we have learned from the East. Every old
depleted agricultural country has worn out the soil by good systems
of crop rotation. I once took a legal option of an "abandoned" farm
in Maryland (beautiful location, two miles from a railroad station,
gently undulating upland loam, at $10 per acre) that had been worn
out under a four-year rotation of corn, wheat, meadow and pasture. A
few acres of tobacco were usually grown in one corner of the corn
field, and clover and timothy were regularly used for meadow and
pasture. Wheat, tobacco and livestock were sold, and manure was
applied for tobacco and so far as possible for corn also. In the
later years of the system the ordinary commercial fertilizer was
also applied for the wheat at the usual rate of two hundred pounds
per acre, this having become a "necessity" toward the end of this
slow but sure system of land ruin.
The "simple principles" of your "new method" were understood and
practiced in Roman agriculture two thousand years ago; and they
included not only thorough tillage, careful seed selection, regular
crop rotation, and the use of farm manure, but also the use of green
manures. Thus Cato wrote:
"Take care to have your wheat weeded twice--with the hoe, and also
by hand."
And again Cato wrote:
"Wherein does a good system of agriculture consist? In the first
place, in thorough plowing; in the second place, in thorough
plowing; and, in the third place, in manuring."
Varro, who lived at the same time as Cato, wrote as follows:
"The land must rest every second year, or be sown with lighter kinds
of seeds, which prove less exhausting to the soil. A field is not
sown entirely for the crop which is to be obtained the same year,
but partly for the effect to be produced in the following; because
there are many plants which, when cut down and left on the land,
improve the soil. Thus lupines, for instance, are plowed into a poor
soil in lieu of manure. Horse manure is about the best suited for
meadow land, and so in general is that of beasts of burden fed on
barley; for manure made from this cereal makes the grass grow
luxuriantly."
Virgil wrote in his _Georgics:_
"Still will the seeds, tho chosen with toilsome pains, Degenerate,
if man's industrious hand Cull not each year the largest and the
best."
It was in 1859 that Baron von Liebig wrote as follows, regarding
these and similar _ancient _teachings:
"All these rules had, as history tells us, only a temporary effect;
they hastened the decay of Roman agriculture; and the farmer
ultimately found that he had exhausted all his expedients to keep
his fields fruitful and reap remunerative crops from them. Even in
Columella's time, the produce of the land was only fourfold. It is
not the land itself that constitutes the farmer's wealth, but it is
in the constituents of the soil, which serve for the nutrition of
plants, that this wealth truly consists."
Suppose, Mr. Hill, that a successful American farmer should tell you
that your bank account will actually increase if you will give from
three to five members of your family the privilege of writing checks
instead of following the single checking system. "But," you will
ask, "doesn't rotation produce a larger aggregate yield of crops
than the single crop system?" Certainly, and, likewise, a rotation
of the check book will produce a larger aggregate of the checks
written; but the ultimate effect on the bank deposit is the same as
on the natural deposit of plant food in the soil, and finally the
checks will not be honored. Indeed, it would be a fine sort of
perpetual motion if we could actually enrich the soil by the simple
rotation of crops, and thus make something out of nothing.
Consider, for example, the common three-year rotation, corn, wheat,
and clover. A fifty-bushel crop of corn removes twelve pounds of
phosphorus from the soil; the twenty-five bushel wheat crop draws
out eight pounds; and then the two-ton crop of clover withdraws ten
pounds, making thirty pounds required for this simple rotation. The
most common type of land in St. Mary county, Maryland, after two
hundred years of farming, contains phosphorus enough in the soil for
five rotations of this simple sort. Mathematically that is all the
further traffic in rotations that soil can bear. Agriculturally that
soil has refused to bear any sort of traffic, whether single or in
rotations, and has been abandoned for farm use except where
fertilized.
These crops would remove from the soil one hundred and twenty-four
pounds of nitrogen in the corn and wheat, and the roots and stubble
of the clover would contain forty pounds of nitrogen. Now, if the
soil furnishes seventy-six pounds of nitrogen to the corn crop and
forty-eight pounds to the wheat crop, will it furnish forty pounds
to the clover crop, or as much as remains in the roots and stubble?
If so, how does the rotation actually enrich the soil in nitrogen?
You will be interested to know that there are many exact records of
the effect upon the soil of the rotation of crops. This particular
three-year rotation has been followed at the Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station for thirteen years, and the average yield of
wheat has been, not twenty bushels, not sixteen bushels, but eleven
bushels per acre, where no plant food was applied; although where
farm manure was used the wheat yielded twenty bushels, and with
manure and fine-ground natural rock phosphate added the average
yield of wheat for the thirteen years has been more than twenty-six
bushels per acre. The corresponding yields for corn are thirty-two,
fifty-three and sixty-one bushels, and for clover they are one and
two-tenths, one and six-tenths and two and two-tenths tons of hay
per acre.
You will wish to know also that the Ohio Station has conducted a
five-year rotation of corn, oats, wheat, clover, and timothy for the
last fifteen years, both with and without the application of
commercial plant food. As an average of the fifteen years the
unfertilized and fertilized tracts have produced, respectively:
30 and 48 bushels of corn
32 and 50 bushels of oats and 27 bushels of wheat .9 and 1.6 tons of
clover
1.3 and 1.8 tons of timothy
In 1908 the unfertilized land produced nine-tenths ton of clover,
while land treated with farm manure produced three and two-tenths
tons per acre.
You will welcome the information that the average yield of wheat on
an Illinois experiment field down here in "Egypt," in a four-year
rotation, including both cowpeas and clover, has been eleven and
one-half bushels on unfertilized land, fourteen bushels where legume
crops have been plowed under, and twenty-seven bushels where
limestone and phosphorus have been added with the legume crops
turned under; and that the aggregate value of the four crops, corn,
oats, wheat, and clover, from another "Egyptian" farm, has been
$25.97 per acre on unfertilized land, and $54.24 where limestone and
phosphorus have been applied.
In your very busy and very successful railroad experience, you may
have overlooked the reports of the Pennsylvania Agricultural
Experiment Station, showing the results of a four-year rotation of
crops that has been conducted with very great care for more than a
quarter of a century. These, you will agree, are exactly such
absolute data as we sorely need just now when facing the stupendous
problem of changing from an agricultural system whose equal has
never been known for rapidity of soil exhaustion to a system which
shall actually enrich the land. By averaging the results from the
first twelve years and also those from the second twelve years, in
this rotation of corn, oats, wheat, and hay (clover and timothy), we
find that the yields have decreased as follows:
Corn decreased 34 per cent.
Oats decreased 31 per cent.
Wheat decreased 4 per cent.
Hay decreased 29 per cent.
Appalling, is it not? It is the best information America affords in
answer to the question, Will the rotation of crops actually enrich
the land?
No, Sir. We cannot make crops nor bank accounts out of nothing. The
rotation of crops does not enrich the soil, does not even maintain
the fertility of the soil. On the contrary, the rotation of crops,
like the rotation of your check book, actually depletes the soil
more rapidly than the single system; and, if you ever have your
choice between two farms of equal original fertility, one of which
has been cropped with wheat only, and the other with a good three or
five-year rotation, for fifty years, take my advice and choose the
"worn-out" wheat farm. Then adopt a good system of cropping with a
moderate use of clover, and you will soon discover that your land is
not worn out, but "almos' new lan" as a good Swede friend of mine
reported who made a similar choice. But beware of the land that has
been truly worn out under a good rotation, which avoids the insects
and diseases of the single crop system, and also furnishes regularly
a moderate amount of clover roots which decay very rapidly and thus
stimulate the decomposition of the old humus and the liberation of
mineral plant food from the soil.
Perhaps you have heard of Rothamsted. If not, your kindergarten
teacher is at fault. A four-year rotation of crops has been followed
on Agdell field for more than sixty years. An average of the crop
yields of the last twenty years reveals:
(1) That the yield of turnips has decreased from ten tons to
one-half ton per acre since 1848.
(2) That the yield of barley has decreased from forty-six bushels to
fourteen bushels since 1849.
(3) That the yield of clover has decreased from two and eight-tenth
tons to one-half ton since 1850.
(4) That the yield of wheat has decreased from thirty bushels to
twenty-four bushels since 1851, wheat, grown once in four years,
being the only crop worth raising as an average of the last twenty
years.
No, Sir. Neither optimism, nor ignorance, nor bigotry, nor deception
can controvert these facts.
Do you know that the people of India rotate their crops? They do;
and they use many legumes; and some of their soils now contain only
a trace of phosphorus, too small to be determined in figures by the
chemist. Do you know there are more of our own Aryan Race hungry in
India than live in the United States?
Do you know that Russia regularly practices a three-year rotation
and actually harvests only two crops in three years, with one year
of green manuring? Yes, and the average yield of wheat for twenty
years is only eight and one-quarter bushels per acre.
Think on these things.
Your _third principle _is, that "of all forage fed to live stock at
least one-third in cash value remains on the land in the form of
manure that soon restores worn-out soil to fertility and keeps good
land from deteriorating. By this system the farm may be made and
kept a source of perpetual wealth."
I grieve with you; pity 'tis, 'tis not true.
No, Sir. Neither crops nor animals can be made out of nothing, and
no independent system of livestock farming can add to the soil a
pound of any element of plant food, aside from nitrogen, and even
this addition is due to the legume crops grown and not to the live
stock.
Under the best system of live-stock farming about three-fourths of
the nitrogen, three-fourths of the phosphorus, and one-third of the
organic matter contained in the food consumed can be returned to the
land if the total excrements, both solid and liquid, are saved
without loss. Of course, the produce used for bedding can all be
returned, but it could also be returned without live stock.
Under a good system of crop rotation with all grain sold from the
farm it is possible to return to the soil more than one-third of the
phosphorus and more than one-half of the organic matter contained in
the crops, and even as much nitrogen as all of the crops remove from
the land in the grain sold. Thus, with a four-year rotation of
wheat, corn, oats, and clover, and a catch crop of clover grown with
the wheat and turned under late the following spring for corn, we
may plow under three tons of clover containing one hundred and
twenty pounds of nitrogen, in return for the one hundred and
nineteen pounds removed from the soil for the twenty-five bushels of
wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and fifty bushels of oats. These
amounts of grain and the two bushels of clover seed might be sold
from the farm, while the two and one-half tons of straw, one and
one-half tons of stalks, and three tons of clover might be returned
to the land. These amounts aggregate seven tons of organic matter,
or the equivalent of seventeen tons of manure, measured by the
nitrogen content, or of twenty-four tons, measured by the content of
organic matter. To replace the twenty-two pounds of phosphorus sold
from the farm in the grain of these four crops would require the
expenditure of sixty-six cents at the present prices for raw
phosphate delivered at Heart-of-Egypt.
I have no doubt you will be glad to have your attention called to
the fact that the world does not live wholly, or even largely, upon
meat and milk. Bread is the staff of life, and I note from your
_World's Work _article that you prefer to have the bread made of
wheat. Thus, most farmers must raise and sell grain and vegetables.
If no independent system of live-stock farming can add a pound of
phosphorus to the one hundred and sixty pounds still remaining in
the great body of the level uplands constituting forty-one per cent.
of St. Mary county, and forty-five thousand seven hundred and
seventy acres of Prince George county, Maryland, adjoining the
District of Columbia, nor even maintain the phosphorus supply in our
good lands, then what must we do to be fed?
Manifestly, we should make large use of legume crops for the
production of farm manure or green manure; and, manifestly, America
should stop selling every year for five million dollars enough raw
phosphate for the production of more than a billion dollars' worth
of wheat. How long can we afford to give away a thousand millions
for five millions?
Our annual corn crop is nearly three billion bushels, while the
estimated value of all the timber on the still remaining federal
lands is only one billion dollars. Again, our three trillion tons of
coal is sufficient for an annual consumption of half a billion tons
for six thousands years, whereas the United States Geological Survey
has estimated that at the present rate of increase in mining and
exportation our total supply of high-grade phosphate will be
exhausted in fifty years. It seems to me that about ninety per cent.
of the talk about conservation of natural resources is directed
toward ten per cent. of the resources, when we remember the soil as
the foundation of all agriculture and all industry.
Do you know, Mr. Hill, that, at the Second Conservation Conference
called by the President of the United States, Doctor Van Hise, of
the University of Wisconsin, was the only man to raise his voice in
the interests of the common soils of America? For three days the
statesman and experts discussed the forests, forests, forests, and
the waters, waters, and the coal and iron; and for fifteen minutes
President Van Hise pleaded for the conservation of phosphate, _the
master key to all our material prosperity; _and he was called a
crank with a hobby.
With deep respect, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
PERCY JOHNSTON
CHAPTER XLII
ADVANCE INFORMATION
HEART-OF-EGYPT, November 14, 1909.
DEAR father and mother: I can scarcely realize that I have been an
"Egyptian" for almost two years. I feel that the time has been
shorter than two months of school-teaching.
Percy is so encouraged with the crops that I rejoice with him,
although I could never weep with him unless I weep for joy. He says
the crops needed only that I should stroll over the fields with him;
that they would grow rapidly if I only looked at them. Think of
it--I drove the mower to cut hay,--not all of the 80 acres, to be
sure, but I cut where it yielded two tons per acre. That is on No.
4, where Percy applied his first cars of limestone. I wish you could
have seen the untreated strips--no clover and only half a ton of
weedy timothy, while the rest of No. 4 and No. 6 were clean hay of
mixed alsike and timothy. Percy says that No. 4 produced as much
real hay last year as all the rest of the farm has produced since he
came, and that the hay crop this year is worth as much for feed as
all that has been harvested during the previous five years; and the
cattle and horses seem to agree with him.
We sold our main lot of hogs for $654, and have another lot to go
later. We are getting so many horses and cattle on the place, that
we are going out of the hog business.
Percy says that hogs belong more properly in the corn belt, than in
the wheat and fruit belt. You know the year I came the corn crop was
on No. I, which had never grown anything but corn, oats, and wheat,
so far as we can learn; and the corn was so poor the hogs ate most
of it in two months' time. During the same two months the price of
hogs dropped from 7 to 4-1/2 cents, so that the hogs were worth no
more after eating the corn crop than they were before.
Next year we are to have corn on No. 4, and Percy says it will be
the first time that corn has had a "ghost of a show to make a decent
crop" since he bought the place. The spring before we were married
he reseeded that forty, sowing mixed alsike and timothy. The clover
came on finely, evidently because the scanty growth of clover the
year before had at least allowed the field to become thoroughly
infected with the clover bacteria. There was no clover on the
unlimed strip. So we say that limestone and bacteria brought clover.
The hay and other feed has made manure enough so that No. 4 has been
completely covered with six tons per acre, and the phosphate has
also been applied; so with manure and phosphate on clover ground we
hope to grow corn next year, if we have good weather.
The phosphate has also been put on some of the other forties. I
convinced him that the money will pay a higher rate of interest in
phosphate than it would in the savings bank, even if he put it on
before manure and clover could be plowed under. The experiments of
several states show this very conclusively.
The corn is on No. 3 this year and it is the best crop in the six
years. Percy says the "Terry Act" (which means lots of work in
preparing the land) is some help, but he thinks the phosphate shows
against the check strips. The young wheat on No. 2 is looking fine,
and with both limestone and phosphate on that field and the extra
work on the seed bed, we hope for a better crop than we have ever
grown on a full forty; even though we must depend solely upon our
reserve stock of nitrogen for the crop. We are all about as jealous
of that reserve stock of organic matter and nitrogen as we are of
the Winterbine bank account.
I cannot forget how Percy tried to persuade me to postpone our
wedding for a year because, as he said, the hogs had taken his corn
crop and given nothing in return for it; and above all how he
objected to my reimbursing the Winterbine reserve from my teacher's
wages to the extent of $250, which he had drawn in part to tide over
the hard times, and in part to come to see me that Easter. But I am
glad to have him still insist upon it that that uncertain venture
proved his best investment, even if he does tease by adding that it
paid one hundred and fifty per cent. net profit at Winterbine.
We are selling some cows this fall,--trying to weed out our herd by
the Babcock test which shows that "some cows don't pay their board
and keep," to quote Governor Hoard's lecture on "Cows versus Cows,"
which Percy heard at Olney the winter Professor Barstow was married.
The "versus cows" are worth only $45.
I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer. Sir Charles Henry
is the dearest child, and his grandmother insists upon it that it is
better for me to help Percy in the field with such light work as I
can do, and I am out for a few hours every day when the weather is
good. Percy's mother is such a dear. I am sure she could be no more
sweet and loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to herself
for so long that I was really afraid she might not like to share him
with me, but Percy says that it was his mother who persuaded him to
make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she hasn't much use for
either of us now, and that we are likely to get jealous because
Charles Henry gets so much of her affection.
I forgot to tell you of Percy's four-acre patch of wheat. He said it
is so long to wait till 1912 for his first wheat crop on land that
had grown clover at least once during historic times that he thought
he would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat, just to see
how real wheat would look; or, as he sometimes says, to see how
wheat grows in "Egypt" when it has a ghost of a chance.
He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood's pasture with
limestone, phosphorus, and farm manure, did the "Terry Act" in
preparing the seed bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on
October 17,--a little later than he likes to finish sowing wheat. It
came up with a good stand but did not make very much fall growth,
partly owing to the dry weather. In the spring the man came across
the patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was mighty small and
he guessed it was "gone up," although it seemed to be all alive.
Percy said that he would not worry about it if it were alive because
the wheat would find something to please it when it really woke up
in the spring. I reckon it did, for a neighbor passed on his way to
town in early May and called over the fence to Percy that his patch
of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well the four acres
yielded 129-1/2 bushels, or a little more than thirty-two bushels
per acre. Percy said if he could have eighty acres of it and sell it
for $1.18 a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it
would amount to twice the original cost of the land--and then some.
Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise "just as good crops with
good old farm manure," and if he could not build up his whole farm
with farm manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three thousand
tons for the first application. Mr. Barton then suggested that that
was more than the whole township produced.
No. 5 has been in pasture for three years, clover and grass having
been seeded in 1906, even though the wet weather had prevented the
seeding of wheat the fall before, and the ground was left too rough
for the mower. Percy hopes to have that forty completely covered
with manure by the time he will be ready to apply the phosphate and
plow it under for the 19 I I corn crop.
Now your "Egyptian" son has just read over this long, long letter,
and he says that if I were a real wise old farmer I would not begin
to talk about results before a single forty acres of grain had had a
ghost of a chance to make a crop. He says that every bushel of corn,
oats, and wheat that this old farm has produced during the last six
years has been wholly at the expense of the meager stock of reserve
nitrogen still left in the soil after seventy-five years of almost
continuous effort to "work the land for all that's in it" He says
that we have no right to expect really good crops until after the
second rotation is completed, because the clover grown during the
first rotation does not have a fair show, the limestone not yet
being well mixed with the soil, the phosphorus supply being
inadequate, the inoculation or infection being imperfect, and no
provision whatever having been made to supply decaying organic
matter in advance of the first clover crop. I think he is right as
usual and I promise to give no more advance information hereafter
except upon inquiry, at least not until 1918, when the first wheat
crop will be grown on land which has been twice in clover. We are
mighty sorry not to be able to be with you for Thanksgiving or
Christmas, but really we cannot go to the expense; our house is so
small (we just must build a larger barn) and our home equipment is
so meager that, in the words which you will remember Percy told us
his mother credited to Mrs. Barton, I feel that as yet I must say,
"Do come over when you can."
Your happy, loving daughter,
ADELAIDE.
P.S.--Three big oil wells, belonging to the class called "gushers,"
have been struck about seven or eight miles from Poorland Farm. We
are all getting interested except Percy. He says he does not want
any oil wells on his six rotation forties or in the wood's pasture,
but he might let them bore in the twelve-acre orchard, which has
never produced but one crop that paid for itself, and the profit
from that is about all gone for the later years of spraying.
The first oil boom in Illinois was at Casey where they struck oil
six or eight years ago, but they say the wells there are dry already
and they have to go back to farming again to get a living. Of course
if we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten acres and get a
royalty of $400 a day for a few years, it would help out nicely, but
the oil business is uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote
Percy "the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which her
children must always draw their nourishment."
Some have spoken to Percy about the coal right, but he says if there
are ten thousand tons of coal per acre under Poorland Farm, he will
save it for Charles Henry before he will allow anyone else to take
it out for less than ten cents a ton. He says that just because the
United States Government was generous enough to give the settler
three hundred and twenty acres of land, and foolish enough to throw
in with it three million tons of coal if it happened to lie beneath,
is no reason why he should sell it to any coal company or coal trust
at the rate of ten tons for one cent, which is the same as ten
dollars per acre for the coal right. He says if Uncle Sam ever wants
to assume his rightful ownership of all coal, phosphate deposits, or
other minerals whose conservation and proper use is essential to the
continued prosperity of all the people, then our coal shall be his;
but, if he does not want it then he will consider nothing less than
leasing on the basis of a royalty of ten cents a ton to be paid to
him, his heirs, and assigns, etc.; but even then he wants enough
coal left to hold up the earth, so that there will be no
interference with the tile drains which he expects sometime to put
down at an expense exceeding the original cost of the land. With
much love,
ADELAIDE.
P.S.--Percy sends his love to grandma and a photograph for Papa,
from which you will see that on such land as ours no limestone or
phosphate means no clover.--A. W. J.
The author takes this occasion to say to the kind reader who has had
the patience and the necessary interest in the stupendous problem
now confronting the American people, of devising and adopting into
general practice independence systems of farming that will restore,
increase, and permanently maintain the productive power of American
farm lands,--to those who have read thus far the _Story of the Soil
_and who may have some desire for more specific and more complete or
comprehensive information upon the subject,--to all such he takes
this occasion to say that this volume is based scientifically upon
"Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture."
This little book is intended as an introduction to the subject; the
other may be classed as technical, but nevertheless can be
understood by any one who gives it serious thought. This book tells
the true story of the soil, for which the other gives a thousand
proofs.
Grateful acknowledgment is here expressed that even the measure of
success thus far attained on Poorland Farm has been possible largely
through the co-operation of a beloved brother, Carl Edwin, the man
who does a world of work, ably assisted by "Adelaide."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of the Soil, by Cyril G. Hopkins
