490 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



shares, which means that it was constaiitlj cropped but that no 

 fertilizing value or material was put back on the soil. It proved so 

 uuprodncl ive that at the end of that time no one would further waste 

 lime acid elTort in the attempt to raise crops which would not even 

 l)aj fertile labor. It was then rented out for pasture, but the 3-ear be- 

 fore I bought it the starved appearance and condition of the two 

 cows pasturing on it led their owner to move them to more congenial 

 climes aiid the farm became a burden on the estate Avhich owned it, 

 for the taxes had to be paid fiom other resources or incomes than 

 those of the farm. The land was considered so poor that as my 

 friend Seeds puts it, jou could not even raise a disturbance co it. 



At this time I bouglit it because I needed more land; but the cir- 

 cumstances and conditions of raj need were such that I had to make 

 up mj mind to at once utilize the land for the raising of crops and 

 at the same time to bring it up to as nearly its virgin productive- 

 ness as I could. U wiis impossible for me to apply manure as I 

 had use for every pound of manure I could make or buy on my mar- 

 ket garden of fifteen acres, and as a matter of fact 1 have never put 

 even a single load of manure on this farm during the thirteen years 

 ot my ownership and yet, while I have continuously by force of cir- 

 cumstances cropped every field every year, these thirty-eight acres 

 are to-day in a condition of fertility not equaled by aoy other land 

 for miles around. 



I knew from trips through the south that but comparatively small 

 portions of the large plantations there in vogue were being culti- 

 vated, and that their owners, too indolent to have manure hauled out 

 on their extensive fields, and too much in need of the mo«iey pro- 

 duced by their crops to spend it on fertilizers, depended for fertility 

 entirely on the natural grasses which would overrun the idle fields 

 and being left undisturbed, would after four or five years have quite 

 a coating and quite a root system of vegetable matter, which, when 

 plowed under, would so act on the soil by reason of the humic 

 acid cieated as to bring tlie soil to produce quite fair crops for the 

 labor expended. These fields would be cropped for two or sometimes 

 three years and then again left lying idle for the next four or 

 five years, while other grass grown fields were given their chance to 

 furnish the needed crops. I reasoned that after all, all soil had 

 been made fertile by decayed vegetable matter and that if I could 

 produce this vegetable matter on my fields between crops and plow 

 it under year after year I should soon be able to restore my farm to 

 prujicr fertility and conditio«i. 



While I believe that this process could be followed and success 

 achieved in time without the use of fertilizers, my needs were such 

 that in order to immediately use my land and to save time I thought 

 It best and cheapest in the end, to resort to the use of fertilizers. 



