Chapter XV: Part 15

The farmer has suffered; if you ask me why it is that we have the young men drifting into the city, why we have seen so many farms abandoned, or regarded as less desirable, I say that one of the reasons is that our consideration has been given to the things of the city, and not to the things of the country. Our laws have been made for the factory and not for the farm. (Applause) The men who represent industry in the city have been more numerously represented in the halls of legislation than the men who represent industry upon the farm, and one of the results of this higher education of our farmer boys will be, in my opinion, an increasing influence of the agricultural classes in all matters of legislation. I mention these as some of the subjects that are brought to our attention as we consider the various phases of this work of conservation. I am a believer in doing everything that can be done to make the farm an attractive place. It is the nursery of our great men and great women. It is the place where we train men in industry, in self-reliance, and in character. The man who comes nearest to nature has a tremendous advantage in the years of his youth. He deals with the works of the Almighty, while the boy in the town deals with the work of man. Is it strange that from the country and from the country life come the strength, the purity, the character that help to make our city strong, without which our cities would not be what they are today? (Applause)

TO MAKE FARMS ATTRACTIVE.

The man who lives upon the farm sees the miracle wrought about him constantly. The man in the city puts his eyes upon a man-made machine; the man upon the farm comes daily in contact with those irresistible forces that lie back of all the products of the farm and the orchard. It is a splendid training; we cannot allow it to be destroyed. Tributes for the farm have come from the poets of every land:

“Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasant, a nation’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

Take from any nation its bold peasantry, and you have impoverished it to an extent that figures cease to be valuable.

What will make our farms more attractive? It seems to me that just now there are a number of things that conspire to add to the attractiveness of the farm. Invention has already added largely to the comforts and the conveniences of the farmer. I live nearly four miles from the city. The telephone enables me to send and receive telegrams; it enables me to call the physician in a moment. I know of no one thing that hung more heavily on the mother than the fact when sickness came, or accident, it took so long to secure a physician. Today, with the telephone, we cut half in two, at least, the time between the accident and the relief. We find improvements that can be carried to the farm. Water in the house, light as good in the country as in the city. The light that I use in the country is as good as I ever had in the city, and it can now be furnished in small quantities, so that even the smallest house may be supplied. We find the rural free delivery grown until now in almost every section of our land the country is supplied as well as in the city. The good roads movement is a growing movement, and will grow because the farmers (applause) will not long be content to have a “mud embargo” upon their liberty, so large a part of the year. It is not a matter of economy merely. I believe the good roads movement is a social need as well as an economic requirement. With the good road you can have the union school, the community library; you can have a place for the farmers and their wives to meet other farmers and their wives; where you can have entertainment brought to them; where more light can be put into the life, and larger opportunity for social communion be had. Electric lines are bringing the country and city nearer together. All these things are possible. All these things are coming, and with their coming I hope to see the tide turn and the farm population increase rather than decrease in proportion to the urban population.

But, my friends, I have saved for the last the suggestion that I regard as most important. I have mentioned some of these things that have contributed to the desertion of the farm, some of the things which I hope will accelerate the return to the farm. I am interested in everything that has been said by those of whose speeches I have only heard, and by others to whose speeches I have listened. I believe in all of these things, but I believe there is one thing that we cannot neglect. I am not sure but it is the most important factor in this whole discussion, the great need of the human race, less in this country than in any other, but a need here as well, is a proper conception of the dignity of labor. (Loud applause) The struggle of mankind has been to avoid work. It has been to put the drudgery of life on somebody else, and Tolstoi has well said that, as soon as we can make somebody else do the unpleasant work we do not want to do, we then look down upon them and regard them as of a different class. Lack of sympathy is the chief cause of human injustice and human misery. I repeat that what the world needs, and we as well as the rest of the world, though not so much, for we have made more progress here than anywhere else in the world, is a proper conception of the dignity of labor. (Applause) Our education is at fault if it separates the idea of intellectual progress from the idea of moral advancement. Sometimes our children are taught that they should get an education in order that they may escape from work that seems unpleasant. Education will not be a blessing to the world, but instead a curse, if it lifts man above the willingness to toil. (Applause)

THE NECESSITY OF TOIL.

The most important thought that can be put into the mind of any child is that his education is to enlarge his capacity for work, not to relieve him from the necessity of toiling. (Applause) We find in the cities young men earning small wages in a store where they can wear good clothes, keep their hands clean and do a work that is considered more respectable, when they might earn larger wages if they were willing to bear a larger share of the manual labor of the world. (Applause) Not only do they escape from manual labor, but they miss the physical development that that toil brings. We find young men upon the farms taught that, if they manifest a little brightness, if they are a little more ambitious than those about them, they should look to the law, to medicine, to journalism, to the ministry or to politics—that they must get away from the farm. I hope our conservation congresses will not overlook the fact that we shall make little progress towards making farm homes more inviting until we teach men that the farm with all its toil and drudgery gives them a position where they can be independent, and give their children an environment that contributes to stature and character. (Applause) I believe that we shall only be doing our duty to ourselves, to our fellow man, to our country and to posterity when we emphasize the fact that it is the idler, and not the man who toils, who is a disgrace to society.

Here is a place where all of us can work; here is a public opinion which we can all join in cultivating. The mother who has a daughter approaching womanhood’s estate can help when she teaches that daughter that she ought to be more willing to link her fortunes with the fortunes of a poor young man, with high aspirations, education, ambition, good health and character, than to seek an alliance with an idle degenerate who spends the money somebody else has earned. (Applause) The father can do his duty, and can help, when he teaches the son that he is more proud of him when he sees him at work, trying to become a useful factor in society, than when he is simply waiting for some money to be left him that he may squander it, and be the worse for having had it. (Applause) Every member of society everywhere can serve in this great war upon the largest enemy we have to meet. The teacher in the college has his work to do; the preacher in the pulpit—oh, what an opportunity he has to present to his congregation, Sunday after Sunday, the idea that Christ Himself made a living reality, that greatness is to be measured by the service rendered, and that happiness, as well as greatness, depends on the contribution one makes to the world. (Applause) Here is a work that is large enough for us all. Here is something that invites us, an opportunity as large as we can crave.

MAN AND SOCIETY.

I present, therefore, as the most important thing that the conservation movement can consider, the raising up of an ideal of life that will give a man a proper conception of his relation to society. Where better than on the farm can a man learn God’s law? What is the Divine law of reward? God wrote it upon the face of the earth; He proclaimed it from the clouds; He burns it into us through the rays of the sun, namely, that God has given us the material and that in proportion as man shows industry and intelligence in converting natural resources into usable wealth he can rightfully draw from the common store of the world. That is God’s law of rewards. If a man lack intelligence, God punishes him by failure. If he lack industry, God whips him into poverty by laws that are inexorable. That is the Divine plan, but we have allowed the speculative craze to take its place, and man, instead of earning his bread in the sweat of his brow, rushes into the city to get some short cut to riches, and society has given respectability to the man who goes on the Board of Trade at 10 o’clock and by betting on what the farmers raise makes more than he can make raising it, while it looks down upon the people who feed us and clothe us. (Applause)

But, my friends, I have already talked longer than I intended to when I came. (Cries of Go on! Go on!)

I am here because I am interested. I am here because I am a debtor to society. Who in all this land has been placed under greater obligations than I? Who is more bound in duty to contribute as best he can to any improvement that is possible? This is one of the great avenues of effort; one of the great reform movements. It enlarges as you consider it. I am here to testify to my interest; I am here to listen to those who speak that I may gather from their matured thought ideas that I can put into use. My part is an humble part; it is not to discuss any question at length; it is not to speak as an expert upon any branch of conservation; it is rather to come and emphasize, so far as I can, the work that others have done—to show you how large it is, to increase your interest in it, to quicken your zeal, and to have you go from here determined, as I go determined, to contribute more largely than in the past, not only to this, but to every movement that has for its object the elevation of the human race and the advancement of the civilization of the world.

I thank you. (Continued applause)

On motion of Professor Condra, duly seconded, the Congress adjourned subject to the call of the executive committee.

SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS

LIVE STOCK FARMING AND SOIL FERTILITY.

BY F. B. MUMFORD, _Of the University of Missouri_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE CONSERVATION OF THE FARM

BY EX-GOVERNOR W. D. HOARD, _Of Wisconsin_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BACK TO THE FARM

BY HENRY IDE WILLEY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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