DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 28 1 



lines, but we had a particular reason for doing it. There were 

 a number of farmers in that section who would hang around 

 all summer without plowing their land, and when seeding time 

 came they would have to hustle and plow and get ready for 

 seeding. They would tickle the ground instead of cultivating 

 it well. I do not know whether you have that kind of men or 

 not; some of the fellows I have seen around here look a little 

 like it. These men of whom I am speaking would say : "Oh, 

 it doesn't make any difference whether we plow early or not 

 that man Anderson uses a lot of fertilizer, and that is what 

 does it." They thought it was a case of doctoring the ground. 

 You see, we have not gotten over this idea of taking a lot of 

 medicine to make us over. We think we can put fertilizer in 

 the ground and get maximum crops. 



Now, to continue with our experiment. The land that was 

 plowed early and thoroughly cultivated, yielded at the rate of 

 36^ bushels of clean wheat to the acre ; the land that was not 

 plowed until two weeks before seeding, but otherwise treated 

 exactly the same as the first section, yielded at the rate of 24 

 bushels to the acre, while the third lot plowed two days before 

 seeding, yielded 17 bushels to the acre. You will see we were 

 able to demonstrate just what we wanted to show to those 

 farmers who were looking on, in a practical way, right before 

 their noses, that early and late plowing does make a difference. 

 This is the only way to demonstrate some things to some peo- 

 ple, down in York county, Pennsylvania. 



We tried these experiments on four different soils ; soils derived 

 from the Potsdam sandstone, the Cambrian limestone, the hydro- 

 mica and the micaceous rock. It worked out everywhere in 

 the same way except in the sandy soils and, do you know, where 

 we did not plow at all. but cultivated well, the crop was the 

 largest in these soils. We have but little of that sort of soil, 

 and I was puzzled to know why a sandy soil should not need 

 plowing, or why wheat should yield better in a soil of that na- 

 ture when it was not plowed — only cultivated. I think I have 

 the correct solution ; wheat requires a compact soil into which 

 it can thrust its roots and draw the fertility from the confined 

 spaces around the grains of sand. 



The fertility contained in the organic matter of which I was 

 speaking this morning, becomes available very quickly in sandy 



