PERMANENT FERTILITY 



61 



Poorland Farm: Wheat, 1913. Check strip, 11% bushels per acre. 



I purchased a farm in southern Illinois ten years ago at a cost of less 

 than $20 an acre. It comprised about 300 acres of poor gray prairie 

 land (the commonest type of soil in about twenty counties in that part 

 of the state) and a few acres of timber land. It was christened "Poor- 

 land Farm " by others who knew of its impoverished condition. 



In 1913 a 40-acre field of this farm produced 1,320 bushels of wheat. 

 This particular forty acres was bought at $15 an acre. It had been 

 agriculturally abandoned for five years prior to 1904, and was covered 

 with a scant growth of red sorrel, poverty grass and weeds. 



During the ten years this field has been cropped with a rotation 

 including one year each of corn, oats (or cowpeas) and wheat, and three 



