Corn Growers* Association. 313 



Row Number 17 Yield per acre 72.8 bushels. 



18 " " 83.4 



19 " " 91.6 



20-x " " 78.7 



21 " " 87.2 ", 



22-x " " 64.5 



23 " " 106.8 



24-X " " 48.3 



Average of entire plot 87.6 " 



(The rows marked (x) were detasseled.) 



THE PRESERVATION OF OUR TILLABLE LANDS. 



(Henry Wallace, editor "Wallace's Farmer.") 



The subject assigned me is the "Preservation of Our Tillable 

 Lands." I assume that what is meant by this is the preservation 

 or maintenance of the fertility of the tillable land, and I shall so 

 treat it, realizing that no more important question can be raised for 

 the farmers of Missouri or any other corn growing state. 



Missouri is a State of wonderful resources, probably second, if 

 indeed at all second, only to the state of Pennsylvania. It has won- 

 derful resources in its vast mineral deposits; in its location, which 

 has developed two great cities, one on each river; but its largest 

 resource is the fertility of its soil. Its forests may be w^asted, as the 

 forests of other states have been, but its fertile soil, if given the op- 

 portunity, will reproduce them. When its coal or iron or zinc or 

 lead is removed from the earth, there is no further creation. In 

 fact, when we take a broad view of the matter, the farmer is the only 

 creator, the only producer of values. The miner, the manufacturer, 

 the transporter add value to the products of the farm and forest and 

 mine, but do not create value. The raw material of the farmer is 

 the sunshine and the raindrop and the available fertility of the soil. 

 The farm itself is the factory in which he creates each year grains 

 and grasses, and with these produces animal forms that have never 

 been in existence before. Hence the pennanent prosperity of the 

 State and of every agricultural state is measured not by its cities or 

 its railroads or its factories, but by the fertility of its soil. If the 

 fertility of the soil is gone, then the prosperity of the State will 

 soon pass away. 



I shall not discuss this question from a scientific standpoint. I 

 shall leave Professor Whitney and Professor Hopkins to fight out the 

 questions at issue between them. While they are deciding whether 

 all soils are equally potentially fertile, or whether the fertility of 

 the soil is measured by the amount of available potash and 

 phosphorus I will endeavor to make suggestions which, if foUcwed 



