96 MICHIGAN ACADKMY OF SCIENCE. 



in many cases to briug sufficient returns to pay for the tillage. While 

 in early times land was so cheap that the interest on the investment was 

 an insignificant factor in the cost of production the price of land now 

 calls for such an investment as to preclude the possibility of profit in the 

 production of light crops. As our land grows older and its value con- 

 tinues to advance, a still greater outlay per acre in tillage and fertilizers 

 will be demanded and the interest on the investment will keep increasing 

 so that the demand for greater acreage production will become more and 

 more imperative. Furthermore, with high prices for land, it is out of the 

 question for every young man to own a large farm, hence a greater net 

 profit per acre is demanded to support a family on a farm than would be 

 necessary could more acres be worked. 



That there must be an increase over present yields per acre if crop pro- 

 duction continues i»rofitable on our land will readily be seen by a glance 

 at statistics. According to the 1900 Year Book for the Department of 

 Agriculture, the average yield of the corn crop in Michigan during the 

 years 1891 to 1900 inclusive has ranged between 23,7 bushels for 1893 and 

 38 bushels for 1890, with values per acre ranging from |9.00 for 1899 to 

 114.16 for 1891. 



The average vield of wheat in Michigan has ranged during the years 

 1891 to 1900 between 7.6 bushels in 1900 and 20.8 bushels in 1898 with 

 values per acre ranging from |5.24 for 1900 to |17.11 for 1891. 



The average yield of the oat crop in Michigan during the same years 

 has ranged between 26 bushels for 1897 and 36.7 bushels for 1900 with 

 values ranging from |5.50 for 1895 to |10.40 for 1891. 



These statis-tics together with the facts previously mentioned indicate 

 very forcibly the great necessity of increasing the yields of our farm 

 crops. For a long time the necessity for better tillage has been recog- 

 nized and efforts made to improve the crop production through that 

 means. In the year 1868 the report of R. F. Johnstone, Secretary of the 

 Michigan State Agricultural Society to the Department at Washington 

 urges strongly the importance of greater attention to means which shall 

 stimulate higher cultivation generally, and suggests the question, "Is 

 it not the duty of the society' to devise means and ways by which it can 

 promote a more thorough and perfect system of treatment of land than 

 now prevails?" He says, "The premiums on farms have already done 

 something in this direction and the example has l)een followed with re- 

 markable success by some of the county societies. He says further, 

 "The committee on farms in reporting the awards made, remark that up 

 to the present time, the general system of Agriculture in Michigan has 

 been largely governed by the necessity which has compelled each farmer 

 to apply all his abilities to the clearing and amelioration of the surface 

 of his land. The greater the surface he could till the greater his returns. 

 But the time has come when this system must be changed, the necessity 

 for which is indicated by the decreased production of fields longest under 

 cultivation. Farms that formerly produced thirty to forty bushels of 

 the -choicest wheat to the acre now seldom yield over twenty to twenty- 

 five and in many cases the quality is inferior; and where this yield is 

 exceeded it is upon the new and recently cleared lands, where the soil is 

 yet rich with the elements of fertility with which nature has supplied the 

 surface. 



This report indicates to us that for a great many years our leading 

 agriculturists have realized the necessity for greater yields and thfit 



