THE SOIL
The soil is the greatest of our natural resources. We may almost say
that it is greater than all the others combined, for from it comes all
of our food; a large part of it directly as plants which grow in the
soil and which we eat in the form of roots, leaves, grains, berries,
fruits, and nuts; and a part of it indirectly as animals, which have
received their food supply from the plants.
But this is not all. The soil supplies almost every known need. We build
our homes from the trees of the forest; combined with the iron that
comes from the soil they furnish our fuel, our ships, our cars, our
furniture, and countless other things. Our clothing is made from the
cotton or flax which grows from the soil, the wool from the sheep that
feed on the pastures, or from the silk-worms that feed on leaves.
So it is to the earth that we turn for every need, and Mother Nature
supplies it. But it is of the soil as it gives us our food supply that
we shall speak in this chapter, and we must first learn the nature of
the soil, and the process of its making, in order to understand the need
of extraordinary care in its management, and also how to use it so that
it will not wear out, or become exhausted, but will increase in value
for years and even centuries, as it will if properly cared for.
The earth's surface is constantly being renewed. Although the great
formative movements occurred ages ago, yet earthquakes, volcanic action,
wind, frost and water are working continual changes. Hills and mountains
have been thrown up, and nature has gone to work at once to shave down
the mountains and fill up the valleys. The whole earth is as carefully
adjusted and balanced as the wheels of a watch, but these adjustments
take place in long periods of time. In a lifetime, or even a century,
the changes of the earth's surface seem few and small, but they are none
the less sure.
The soil or humus, that is, the upper layer of the earth's crust which
is used in farming, has an average depth of about four feet, and has
been formed by decay, first and most important of all by rock decay
which is constantly going on under the surface of the earth and in
exposed places everywhere, and is caused by the action of air and water.
This process is very slow. In places where the rock is already partly
ground up, or, disintegrated, as we sometimes say, it is more rapid, but
the average growth of the soil from beneath by rock decay is scarcely
more than a foot in ten thousand years.
Some waste of this upper layer is constantly taking place from above,
caused by wind and floods, and considerable additions are made to it by
the decay of animal and vegetable matter, but in order to keep the soil
at its best, the average soil waste should not amount to more than an
inch every thousand years.
When this humus is once exhausted there is no way to repair the damage
but to wait for the slow rock-decay. In the river valleys there is no
immediate danger of exhausting the entire body of the soil, but on the
hills and in the higher regions the soil-depth is very much less than
four feet, and the danger of waste much more serious. There are parts of
the earth that were once almost as fertile as ours where great cities
once stood, but where now nothing is left but the bare rock.
So we know that the end is sure, even for the life of man upon earth,
unless we learn to conserve our soil.
The value of our farm crops can not be overestimated. In food value they
are the life of the nation; in money value, our greatest national
wealth. For the year 1909 the total value of farm products was the
amazing sum of $8,760,000,000. It may give some idea of this vast amount
to say that if we could have it in the form of twenty-dollar gold
pieces, stacked in one pile, the column would reach seven hundred miles
high. If they were laid flat, edge to edge, they would extend from
Alaska to the Panama Canal, with enough left over to reach from New York
to San Francisco. If the money could be distributed, it would give us
all, every man, woman and child in the United States, one hundred
dollars apiece. The corn crop was worth $1,720,000,000; the cotton
$850,000,000; wheat comes third with a value of $725,000,000; then come
hay, oats, and other crops in vast amounts worth hundreds of millions of
dollars. The cotton alone was worth more than the world's output of gold
and silver combined. The corn would pay for the Panama Canal, for fifty
battleships, and for the irrigation projects in the West, with a hundred
million dollars left over.
And this is all new wealth. If we build a house, we have gained the
house, but the trees of which we build it are gone. The same thing is
true of every article we manufacture. Something is taken from our store
in the making. But after we have taken these wonderful crops from our
farms the land is still there, and the soil is just as ready to produce
a good crop the next year, and the next, and the next, if we treat it
properly.
This matter of soil conservation is of the greatest importance to every
one of us. If you are to own a farm, or rent a farm, or till a garden,
or plant an orchard ten years from now, it will make a great difference
to you whether the man who owns it from now until then knows how to care
for it so as to make it produce well, or whether, by neglect, he allows
it to become poorer each year. It will make a far greater difference if
twenty years elapse.
It makes a difference to the farmer whether he gets twelve bushels of
wheat to the acre, or whether he gets twenty, for the cost of producing
the smaller amount is just as great as the cost of producing the larger,
and the extra bushels are all profit. It makes a difference whether a
garden furnishes all the fruit and vegetables needed by the family, or
whether it does not even pay for cultivation, and the food must be
bought at high prices. It makes even more difference to the dweller in
the city, who must buy all that he eats, whether food is abundant or
not. If food is abundant, prices are low, but when the yield is small
the demand is so great that prices become high.
Not only the men, but the women and children as well, are affected by
these food values, because it is from the extra money left over after
the actual cost of living is taken out that the clothing, the
house-furnishings, books, pictures, music, travel and all the pleasures
of life must come.
Great as are our harvests, we are not raising much more than enough for
our present needs. Each year we are using more of our food at home, and
have less to export to other countries. In a few years more the public
lands will all be taken, and there will be comparatively little more
land than we now cultivate to supply a population that will be many
times as great as at present.
Men who watch the great movements of the world tell us that the time is
coming before many years when there will not be food enough to supply
all our people, when we shall be buying food from other countries
instead of selling to them, when we shall have famine instead of plenty
unless we realize the danger and at once set about to make the most of
every acre of our land.
James J. Hill, the great railroad builder of the Northwest, and one of
the best informed men of the country on food production and the increase
of population, is doing a great work in pointing out these dangers to
the people on every possible occasion.
Watching the great food-producing region of the country, he has noted
that each year the yield per acre is growing less, and the population
steadily more. He tells us that when our first census was taken only
four per cent. of the people lived in cities, that fifty years ago
one-third of the people lived in cities, and two-thirds in the country,
that is, two-thirds of the people were furnishing food to the remainder.
Now conditions are almost exactly reversed. Only one-third remain in the
country, and must supply the food, not only for themselves, but for all
the two-thirds who are not food producers, so that the food supply is
lagging far behind the demand. The price of corn has advanced from
twenty-five cents to sixty-five cents a bushel in ten years, and this in
turn raises the price of live stock. And so all along the line. Prices
are growing higher all the time because not enough food is being
produced to supply the demand.
So we can see that it is absolutely necessary that the soil be properly
cared for if we are to continue to increase and prosper, for as
Secretary Wilson has said, "Upon the fertility of the soil depends the
whole business of agriculture."
The soil is exhausted in two ways: (1) By erosion, or the carrying away
of the entire soil itself. (2) By so using the soil that one or more of
its principal elements are worn out. We shall consider this form of soil
exhaustion first, because it more directly concerns the work of every
farmer.
By a fertile soil is meant one that has an abundance of plant food in
the proper proportions. The soil contains all the elements that are
needed to support life, but they are in an inorganic form, that is, they
are lifeless. Plants alone can take these inorganic substances from the
soil, and change them into starch, sugar, fats, and protein. All
animals, including man, must get these substances through plants, or
through other animals that have already absorbed them from plants.
The soil contains ten elements that are absorbed or assimilated by
plants. These are: (1) lime, (2) magnesia, (3) iron, (4) sulphur, all of
which are found in most plants in very small proportions, and are
present in most soils in quantities far beyond the needs of crops for
ages to come; (5) carbon, which is obtained by plants through their
leaves directly from the air and the sunshine; (6) hydrogen and (7)
oxygen, which are taken from the water in the soil and carried to the
leaves, where they also help to take the carbon from the atmosphere.
With none of these elements, then, does the farmer need to concern
himself in regions where the water supply is abundant, as they are, and
will continue to be, plentifully supplied by nature. But the other
three, (8) nitrogen, (9) potassium, and (10) phosphorus, are needed by
plants in large quantities, and are taken from the soil far more rapidly
than nature can replace them.
All these elements are necessary to plant life, but some plants require
a large amount of one element, others a small proportion of that, but a
large amount of some of the others. No two varieties of plants require
exactly the same proportions, so it is easy to see that the plant that
takes out of the soil any one element makes the soil less capable each
year of producing a good crop of the same kind.
In the early days of farming in this country, it was the custom to grow
a single crop, which had been found to give good results, year after
year in the same field. In Virginia and other near-by states nearly all
the best land was given every year to the cultivation of tobacco, which
exhausts the soil rapidly. In the states farther north other crops were
planted in the same way. As a result, some of the most fertile soil in
Virginia, the Carolinas, Massachusetts, and other eastern states has
been so exhausted that it is no longer worth cultivating. Everywhere
throughout the New England states are to be found these worn-out farms,
and, while they were never so fertile as the lands of the Mississippi
Valley, each one was rich enough to support a family in comfort, with
something left to sell; but because they were required to produce the
same crops, and so take the same element from the soil, year after year,
they have become so lacking in one of the essential elements that they
are unfit for cultivation, and have been abandoned.
It is wisdom and good business policy for farmers to study carefully
this question of plant food and to learn what each crop is taking from
the soil, so that it may be replaced. It has been found by long and
careful experiments, that when land has been "single cropped," as this
abuse of the land is called, for a long time, the soil has been almost
entirely deprived of its nitrogen. As you know, nitrogen is one of the
elements of the air, so that there is a never-ending supply, but most
plants are unable to take it from the air, and until the last few years
the task of replacing nitrogen in the soil was considered impossible.
Recent discoveries, however, have shown that there are two ways in which
it may be done. By means of electricity, nitrogen may be directly
combined with the other elements of the soil. The other method is
nature's own plan, and so is easier and cheaper. It has been found that
while most plants exhaust the nitrogen from the soil, one class of
plants, the legumes, of which beans, peas, clover, and alfalfa are the
best known, have the power of drawing large stores of nitrogen from the
air, and, by means of bacteria attached to their roots, restoring it to
the ground.
So farmers have learned that if they plant corn one year, it is wiser
not to plant corn in the same field the next year, but to sow wheat,
which requires less nitrogen, and the following year to sow clover, so
that the nitrogen which the corn and wheat have taken from the soil, may
be put back into it. If the land be naturally fertile, and has been well
cared for, the soil is then ready to produce a good crop of corn again.
If the soil has become worn-out and the farmer is trying to improve its
general condition, he can gain better results by keeping the field in
clover a second year, when a profitable crop of clover seed may be had
from the land. This system of changing each year, and alternating cereal
crops, which take the nitrogen from the soil, with leguminous plants,
which restore it to the soil again, is called "rotation of crops," and
if regularly followed will preserve a proper balance of nitrogen in the
soil.
In some parts of the West there is a lack of decaying vegetable matter
in the soil, because the few plants which naturally grow there have
small roots, and leave little vegetable material behind when they decay.
For this condition one of the best crops to employ in rotation is
sugar-beets, because they strike many small roots deep into the earth.
As these decay, each leaves behind a tiny load of vegetable mold deep in
the earth, and also makes the soil more porous. As the principal
elements of the soil needed by sugar-beets are carbon and oxygen, which
are absorbed from the air and sunshine, and as the beets can be sold at
a good profit, it is an excellent crop to employ in rotation. In the
United States records in various states show that where sugar-beets are
used in rotation, the wheat and corn yield is increased from two to four
times, and in Germany they are largely used to restore the fertility of
the land, even if the sugar-beets themselves are sold at a loss.
It is most important that farmers should understand the principle of
rotation of crops, because nothing is taken from the soil so quickly or
in such large quantities as nitrogen, and nothing is so easily put back;
while, if it is not so replaced, the land becomes worthless.
A comparison of the results of single cropping and the rotation of crops
has been clearly shown at the Experiment Station of the Agricultural
College of the State of Minnesota, where for ten years they have planted
corn on one plot of ground. For the first five years it averaged a
little more than twenty bushels per acre, and for the last five years,
eleven bushels.
On another plot, where corn was planted in rotation, the average yield
was more than forty-eight bushels, the difference in average in the two
plots being thirty-two bushels, or twice the value of the entire average
yield on the exhausted ground. The corn grown at the end of the ten
years was only about three feet high, the ears were small, and the
grains light in weight. But it cost just as much to cultivate the land
that produced it as it did to cultivate the land that produced
forty-eight bushels.
Of the other two elements, potassium is found abundantly in most soils.
It is also found in a readily soluble form in various parts of the
United States and is sold at a very low price. But even if these
deposits were exhausted we could still use the rocks which are very rich
in potassium, and are very abundant, in a pulverized form, or potash
could be manufactured from them.
The only remaining element of the soil is phosphorus. This element was
discovered in 1607, the year of the first English settlement at
Jamestown and was first noticed because of its property of giving off
light from itself. The name which was given it means light-bearer. It
was at first thought to be the source of all power, to heal all
diseases, and to turn the common minerals into gold. Although we have
long ago learned that these ideas are absurd, yet we have also learned
that its real value to man is far greater than was even dreamed of then.
It is the most important element in every living thing, for no cell,
however small, in either animal or vegetable organisms can grow or even
live without phosphorus. It is found in the green of the leaves, and
helps to make the starch. It enters largely into the grain and seeds of
plants, and is necessary for their germination, or sprouting, as well as
their growth. Three-fourths of all the phosphorus in a crop of cereals
is in the grains, giving them size and weight. It will thus be seen how
necessary it is that the soil which feeds our plants, which in turn
become the food of animals and of man, should contain a sufficient
amount of phosphorus.
Phosphorus is taken from the soil in large quantities by every kind of
crop. In parts of Wisconsin which have been farmed a little more than
fifty years without fertilizing, it is found that about one-third of the
phosphorus has been taken out of the soil, which would mean that in one
hundred and fifty years, or a hundred years from now, the soil would be
incapable of producing any living thing, and long before that time the
crops would not pay for the labor of producing them. Almost every acre
of land that has been farmed for ten years without fertilization is
deficient in phosphorus, that is, so much has been used that the soil
can no longer produce at its former rate.
It may be asked, if this be true, why the soil of America, which before
it was cultivated had borne rich forests and fields of waving grass, has
not become exhausted long ago. We must remember that nature always
adjusts itself; that, in the wild state, all plants decay where they
grow, and the same elements are returned again to the soil. But when the
entire product of vast areas is removed year after year, the soil has
nothing except the slow rock-decay with which to renew itself.
In tropical regions it is not necessary to feed domestic animals at any
season of the year, but in those countries where the natural food can be
found only during a part of the year, the need of artificial feeding is
seen at once, and it becomes a part of the regular expense of farming.
It would be considered the height of folly for a man to allow his
valuable animals to starve to death because of the expense of feeding
them, but few people recognize the fact, which is also true, that it is
equally bad business policy to allow the valuable crops of wheat, oats,
and corn to starve for want of plant food.
The phosphates (that is, phosphorus) are the only large items of
expense, and in a large measure this may be lessened by raising live
stock, for which high prices can be obtained either as meat or dairy
products, and returning the manure, which contains a large amount of
phosphate, to the soil. If all the waste animal products could be
returned to the land, Professor Van Hise says, three-fourths of the
phosphorus would be replaced. All animal products are rich in
phosphates. The packing houses manufacture large quantities from the
bones and blood of animals.
The garbage of cities, when reduced to powder, yields large returns in
phosphorus. It is said that if the sewage of cities, which in this
country is often turned into rivers and streams, polluting them and
causing disease, was reduced to commercial fertilizer, it would supply
the equivalent of from six to nine pounds of rock phosphate per year for
every acre of cultivated land in the United States. And this valuable
product is now totally lost, and worse than lost, since it menaces the
life and health of great numbers of our people.
There still remain to be considered the rock phosphates, the form in
which phosphorus is found in separate deposits. The only large deposits
that have been used are in Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and
from them about two and a quarter million tons were mined in 1907.
Unfortunately, however, there is no law that prevents its export from
this country, and almost half of this found its way to Europe, where it
is eagerly sought at high prices.
Within a short time valuable phosphate beds, more extensive than any
before known to exist in this country, have been discovered in Utah,
Wyoming, and Idaho. Professor Van Hise, who is one of the highest
authorities on the subject, says of these deposits that with the
exception of our coal and iron lands, they are our most precious mineral
possession; that every ounce should be saved for the time which is
coming when the population will have outgrown the capacity of the land,
and means of increasing its fertility in order to prevent famine will be
sought from every possible source.
The other great waste of the soil is by erosion, or the wearing away of
the soil by stream-flow. We can all see this in a small way by wandering
along the shore of any swift-running stream and noticing how the banks
are worn away, and what deep gullies and ravines are cut into them by
the water running down from the fields above. Another way in which we
can observe the effect of this waste is by noticing the muddy yellow
color of streams during floods and after heavy rains, and comparing it
with the clear blue of the same stream at ordinary times.
When we realize that this muddy color always means that the water is
filled with soil, all that it will hold in solution, that it is carrying
away the top soil, which is best for agriculture, and, finally, that
every little streamlet and creek, as well as the mightiest river, is
carrying this rich soil-deposit downward toward the sea in its flow, we
begin to see how great a factor erosion is in the wasting of the land.
The Missouri River, which drains a large area of wheat and corn land, is
notable as a muddy, yellow river at almost all seasons. Do you
understand what that means? It means that this great productive region
is growing poorer each year, and that as the population increases, and
the need of great harvests increases, the land is becoming less able to
produce them. The Mississippi River is said to tear down from its banks
more soil each year than is to be dredged from the Panama Canal. At the
mouth of the river is a delta many miles in extent, formed wholly of
land that has been carried down the river. The soil in lower Mississippi
and Louisiana is almost black, and is in many places seventy feet in
depth, and it has all been left there by the river, which took it from
the higher lands.
It is estimated that our rivers carry out to sea one billion tons of our
richest soil each year. The ancient Egyptians worshiped the Nile because
each year the spring floods left behind the rich soil deposits that
fertilized their fields and gave them an abundant harvest. Entire fields
and even whole farms along the upper stretches of the Mississippi and
Missouri have been carried away, not the top soil only, but the land
itself, by the swift current of the springtime floods as they cut a new
channel for the river.
Canaan, the "land of promise" of the Bible, was once an abundant region,
"flowing with milk and honey" in the language of Moses, with its grapes,
its vast forests of cedar, fir, and oak, its treasures of wheat,
olive-oil, and other rich agricultural products. Now all are gone. The
entire country seen by the traveler in the Holy Land to-day is one of
the most desolate regions on the globe, where the few inhabitants are
scarcely able to obtain a scanty living.
We wonder what has brought about this change, and we have not far to
seek in answer to our questioning. The preservation of the forests means
the preservation of the soil, and the destruction of the forests means
the destruction of the soil. This is the universal law. First the
forests were cut down and the hillsides left bare. Then the streams wore
great ravines down the unprotected hillsides. Steadily the work of
destruction by erosion has gone on, until time beyond our possibility to
comprehend must pass before the land can be made productive again. The
hills and valleys of China have been devastated in the same way, and
many of the older regions of the earth that were once the sites of great
cities and extensive commerce are now marked only by the ruins of the
civilization that has passed away. They have almost ceased to support
life.
In the days of Rome's greatness, Sicily was known as "the granary of
Rome" because from this little island came the grains to supply her vast
armies. 12,000,000 bushels of grain was the tribute that Rome claimed of
Sicily each year, and yet Sicily had enough left to make her rich. She
built splendid cities and became great. But the same story of
destruction is to be read in the history of Sicily. Now the entire
island does not raise a million and a half bushels of wheat altogether.
The soil is barren. The cities have nearly all fallen into ruin. The
people are scattered. Thousands have come to America, seeking a poor
living at the lowest wages because at home there was no chance to earn
even the little they require. They allowed the soil to become exhausted
by lack of fertilization and by erosion and it long ago ceased to
support the people. All the rest followed naturally.
In many parts of our own country this same danger is coming on us. It is
only the beginning, but the end is as sure for us as for those far-off
Eastern countries.
Millions of acres have already been destroyed in the East and South. The
Appalachian mountain system lies not far from the coast, and the rivers
on the eastern slopes are short and swift. It is necessary, then, to
exercise the greatest care of the forests in order to prevent the floods
in this region from carrying away the lands in their swift rush to the
sea. North Carolina was one of the richest states in the Union in
natural resources a hundred years ago. Now it is low on the list in
agricultural products. The forests on its mountain tops were valuable
for their lumber, their turpentine, pitch, and other products, and great
lumber companies have almost denuded the hillsides, regardless of the
fate of the lands they cut over. The people of the state are powerless
to prevent this except by buying all of these lands and replanting the
forests. They have been pleading with Congress for power to stop the
destruction of their forests and the wasting of their lands, but so far
have received no assistance and meanwhile the land grows poorer each
year. The same conditions are to be found in many other states that now
rank high agriculturally, but in North Carolina we are beginning to see
results.
In order to understand exactly how the damage is done to the land, let
us suppose a case which has actually occurred in hundreds of places. A
farmer owned a farm on the mountain side. Much of it was good wheat
land, but the top was covered with forests. At last he decided to cut
and sell the timber, and use the land for raising more wheat. He did
so, but now there was no spreading foliage to check the dash of the
heavy rains as they fell to the ground. As they sank below the surface
there were no masses of tangled roots to hold the moisture in the soil
and to carry it up into the air again through the trees.
As the water penetrated deeper, the soil became softened, and was
carried away down the hillside. It was only a muddy little stream, but
it took away some of the richest soil from the fields, and the next
year's crop was not quite so good. Every rain that fell carried more of
the fertile soil down the hillside, and the next year the farmer
wondered that the yield was still less. After a few years he ceased to
sow the field because it had never paid for its cultivation, and was
constantly growing poorer. But it was too late then to repair the damage
that had been done. There were no seeds of forest trees left in the
ground and the farmer did not plant them, so the ground lay idle and
desolate. The rain wore deep gullies down the hillside, which, as they
grew larger, became more of a menace to the lands below them. The
streams soon grew large enough to take the top-soil from the fields
lower down, and in a few years more the whole farm had grown so
unproductive that the farmer, tired of the struggle, left the farm and
went to the city to make a living.
In the meantime the land in the valley below had been growing more
fertile, for each year the spring floods had left a rich soil deposit
behind them. The farmer down there had been innocently stealing the land
above him, but not all of it, for much had been carried out to sea.
It is not possible to prevent this entirely, but much of the loss might
have been avoided by leaving the hilltops, which are never well fitted
for cultivation, covered with forests. In this way the soil-wash from
above is prevented and the streams run gently and with only a small
amount of muddy deposit, forming proper drainage for the soil.
The preserving of the forests on the great mountain ranges of the
country, where nature has placed them, will mean in the one matter of
soil-wash, fruitful lands and bountiful harvests, instead of barren,
wasted lands, desolated by floods and seamed by great ravines, carrying
desolation to the lands below them.
But in many cases the trees are already cut away. Here replanting
becomes necessary and should be done in every case where soil-wash is
beginning on the mountain tops. It is almost equally desirable to plant
small shrubs and bushes as an undergrowth, so that the roots may form a
thick mat below the ground to hold the water in the soil, and permit it
to filter through slowly.
In Massachusetts, the tracks of the Boston and Albany Railroad are
depressed so that trains may pass below the level of the highways. In
order to protect the banks from erosion, the sloping sides of this
roadway have been planted with trailing rose-bushes and other vines
which have thickly matted roots. These serve a double purpose in
preventing landslides and washouts on the tracks, and in adding greatly
to the attractiveness of the scenery along the railway.
The poorest land of a farm is always found on the hilltops, because even
with the greatest care there is always considerable waste of the
top-soil. This land, then, should never be used for field crops. It
should constitute the woodland, or if this is not possible, the
pasture-land of the farm, for the grass roots protect the soil and
prevent it from washing away, and the profits on the hay are at least as
great as any other crop which could be grown on hill land.
But when erosion has been checked and the top-soil preserved, when the
soil is thoroughly fertilized, and a proper rotation of crops
established, there are still other lessons to be learned in order to
make our country as productive as it might be, as it will _need_ to be
to support the population that we shall have by the end of the century.
As a nation we undertake to farm too much land and do it carelessly.
The invention of labor-saving machinery has made it possible to farm
hundreds and even thousands of acres together with little physical
labor. This has made farmers heedless of small amounts of land wasted.
A man often only expects to make a comfortable living on one hundred and
sixty acres of land, while in Europe he would expect to grow rich on two
or three acres. It is often said that a French family would live off of
an American farmer's neglected fence-corners. In France, in England, in
Holland and Belgium every bit of land is tended and made useful. We have
the best natural soil in the world, the most fertile river valleys,
watered by abundant rains. The fertility of our lands is the envy of the
civilized world, and has drawn thousands to our shores in the hope of
finding comfort and plenty, and yet the total value of our farm products
was only eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents per cultivated acre
according to the last census, while in the little island of Jersey, just
off the English coast, the average annual value of products is over two
hundred and fifty dollars per acre.
Germany has been cultivated nearly eighteen hundred years, the soil is
not naturally so productive nor the climate so favorable as ours, but
the wheat yield there averages more than twice as much as in this
country.
When the most fertile land in the world produces so much less than
poorer lands elsewhere it plainly shows that we are robbing the soil in
order to get the largest cash returns in the shortest possible time and
with the least possible labor.
The American farmer needs to cultivate a much smaller amount of land
thoroughly, to have a soil analysis made of his land in order to know
what crops are best suited to it and what elements are lacking to make
it produce the best. In Illinois more than half a million acres had
become unfit for cultivation. Analysis showed that the soil was too
acid. By mixing limestone dust with the soil the trouble was corrected
and the land reclaimed.
Often it is only necessary to find the cause of some deficiency, or
lack, in the soil, and the remedy will be found to be simple and cheap,
while the result of its use will be to double the crop. Nothing else so
quickly and easily responds to proper treatment, no other resource is so
easily conserved. All the soil needs is proper treatment.
Every bit of waste land should be cultivated for either use or beauty,
or both. If all the lanes and neglected places could be planted with
fruit and nut trees, berry vines, and bushes, herbs or flowers which
need little cultivation after they are planted, our food, in variety and
quantity, would be greatly increased. "The hedge-rows of Old England"
are famous for their beauty and the air of comfort and prosperity they
give. They take the place of the weeds that grow by the country
roadsides in America and which constitute one of the greatest nuisances
of the farmer.
Another thing that should be considered is the marketing of farm
products. Near a city or near a canning factory the soil can be most
profitably used for the raising of vegetables, for which the cost of
cultivation is great, but which yield far larger profits than farm
crops.
Within the last few years a new system of farming has been developed in
the West, which is of great interest to all of us, both because it is
opening up for production a large part of our country that has seemed
valueless, and because the lessons that have been learned there are of
the greatest advantage in every part of the country.
West of the one-hundredth meridian, which crosses North and South
Dakota, the western part of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and
including the states west of them, lies a vast region that used to be
known as the "great American desert." It comprises almost half of the
United States. Here the noble forests of the eastern states and the
prairie grasses of the plains were replaced by sage-brush and cactus.
The soil was light in color and weight, and the rainfall very scanty.
It seemed impossible that it could ever be fitted for agriculture. But
there were a few great rivers, rich mining districts, and excellent
grazing lands. These attracted settlers, and to them some cultivation of
the soil became almost a necessity. The waste waters of the rivers were
used for irrigation and the land when watered was found to produce
remarkably fine fruits and agricultural products. Yet there were
hundreds of thousands of acres that could not be irrigated for lack of
water, and the problem of finding a use for these barren, semi-arid
lands remained unsolved for many years.
But here and there in different states and under varying conditions,
after many experiments and failures, men began without water to grow
successful crops on these semi-arid lands, where the rainfall was
scarcely more than ten inches per year. Others following this method
found success, and it began to seem possible that all this territory
might some day become a great farming region.
By comparing the methods employed in different states, the few general
laws have been worked out which must be applied in order to farm
successfully in this region, though the details differ with local
differences in altitude, climate, soil, and rainfall. Here farming is
being reduced to a science. In other parts of the country a man sows his
seed and nature cares for it, and gives him his harvest; but here he
must wring from nature all that he gets, so it is only the man who farms
according to fixed laws who can hope to succeed.
This system is usually called "dry farming," though "scientific farming"
would perhaps be a better name, for the same principles that are
absolutely necessary here will greatly increase the yield anywhere. The
most important principle is to conserve every particle of moisture in
the soil. It is necessary to go deep into the soil to find the
underlying moisture. The seed-bed is made very deep. Plowing is from
sixteen to nineteen inches deep, while in well-watered regions it is
only about six inches. This deep seed-bed is thoroughly cultivated to
make the soil porous, the soil being reduced to a fine powder. After
sowing the seed, the ground is packed as solidly as possible. This is
done by especially designed machines. The surface of the soil is kept
broken all the time to prevent the escape of the moisture. This rule
applies equally to all soils in dry weather, and will often save a crop
of corn in any part of the country during a drought.
These are simple rules, but the practice of them is opening up the great
semi-arid regions, not of the United States only, but of the whole
earth. Western Canada, a large part of Australia, the Kalahari Desert of
Africa, and many parts of Asia, which are all semi-arid, will in time
become productive instead of barren.
It must be remarked that the grains of the East could not
withstand the severe winters in a large part of the Northwest, so
the Department of Agriculture sent men all over the world to find
drought-and-cold-resisting grains. They found a hard winter wheat, the
most nutritious in existence, which is now growing all the way from the
Dakotas to the Pacific Ocean, producing crops far above the yield of the
eastern states. 50,000,000 bushels of this wheat was raised in 1907.
The soil is the natural disintegrated rock, rich in the mineral
elements, but lacking in decayed vegetable matter. The crops soon
exhaust the nitrogen, and as clover and the common alfalfas can not grow
there, the problem of finding legumes has been the most serious one
facing this new region; but in Siberia the Agricultural Department has
recently found a new clover and three varieties of alfalfa that will
stand the cold, and Secretary Wilson believes that these will solve the
problem.
Every acre brought under cultivation adds to the world's food supply.
Can we even dream of what it will mean when 200,000,000 acres are added
to the farm lands of this continent? It means prosperity for the farmers
themselves, homes for those who are now crowded in cities, work for the
idle, and food for the hungry. It means wealth and happiness for
thousands now living and millions yet to come.
REFERENCES
Lands. Report National Conservation Commission.
Soil Wastage. Chamberlain. Report White House Conference of Governors.
Conservation of Soils. Van Hise. (Same.)
Commercial Fertilizers. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 44.[A]
[Footnote A: Department of Agriculture bulletins are free unless a price
is indicated, and may be obtained by application to The Department of
Agriculture. Washington, D. C. Postage is free in the United States.
These bulletins contain the latest scientific information and result of
research work by the government.]
The Liming of Soils. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 57.
Renovation of Worn-out Soils. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 245.
Soil Fertility. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 257.
Management of Soils to Conserve Moisture. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin,
266.
Fertilizers for Cotton Soils. Bureau of Soils Bulletin, 62.
Work of the Bureau of Soils. Bureau of Soils Bulletin.
Exhaustion and Abandonment of Soils. Bureau of Soils Bulletin. Whitney,
5c.
Phosphorus. Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin.
The Present Status of the Nitrogen Problem. Yearbook Dept. of
Agriculture Reprint, 411.
The Search for Leguminous Forage Crops. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture
Reprint, 478.
Leguminous Crops. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 278.
Progress in Legume Inoculation. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin,
315.
A Grain for Semi-arid Lands. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin,
139.
The Sugar-Beet. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 52.
Dry-Land Problems in the Great Plains Area. Yearbook Dept. of
Agriculture Reprint, 461.
Reports of Dry Farming Congress.
The Natural Wealth of the Land. J. J. Hill, Report Governor's
Conference.
National Wealth and the Farm. J. J. Hill.