No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 299 



enough." "But/' lie said, "I can" t afford it." "Well," I said, ''if you 

 will take my way I will pay half of it instead of two-tiftbs, and then 

 the difference will not be so much to you; it is the difference be- 

 tween |23 and $13, and if the crop then doesn't beat anything you 

 ever had, I'll pay the whole of it." So on the strength of that our 

 farmer agreed to do as I suggested. Well, the other day that far- 

 mer came into town to see me, and I said to him "Johnson, what 

 would you say as to our prospects of a wheat crop next year?" 

 "The best outlook I ever saw," he said. I don't know whether we 

 will get so large a crop this year, as a good strong grain, that will 

 carry with it the virtue of the nitrogen which we have put on the 

 soil. Now, this proved to me that the great thing for every farmer 

 to know is what he has in his soil, and what he requires to make 

 it produce the crop he expects. Do you want a Baldwin apple? 

 Ascertain whether the soil is suited for a Baldwin or for a Pippin, 

 or for anything else. These learned scientists can tell you the rea- 

 son; I can simply tell you the fact, that you must know what is 

 already in the soil to adapt it for the purpose you want it, in order 

 to produce the result. 



Now, I believe that this is worth studying in Pennsylvania, and 

 I believe that it would pay every .farmer who has not already done so, 

 to go up to the College and take a short course, and find out what there 

 is in associating with these scientists, that they can tell you just what 

 is already in the soil, and what you must put there inordertoproduce 

 a crop. Of course, you may have a little round-a-bout vv^ay in find- 

 ing this out for vourself. In order to secure results vou mav have 

 to raise clover before you raise other things, to restore the nitro- 

 genous food, but they can tell you that sometimes even clover 

 won't do it; and they tell you to raise field peas and beans in order 

 to prepare the soil to raise other crops. But the first thing to do is 

 to ascertain what you have. That does not take any great know- 

 ledge; it doesn't take four years at college to ascertain how to do 

 that thing. Why, I have heard what was to me a perfectly ridicu- 

 lous proposition, come from no less a person that the man who has 

 just been elected Prof, of Horticulture at State College. Between 

 State College and Buffalo Eun there is a stretch which has hereto- 

 fore been called "the Barrens," and he assured me that these bar- 

 rens could be made at least as productive as the sandy soil of New 

 Jersey for market gardening. We all know what the people over 

 there have done with the sands of New Jersey, and his proposition 

 seemed to me just as ridiculous a thing as I ever heard, but he has 

 a farm ou the top of the Alleghenies, which he calls "Scalp Level," 

 out of which he has made from four to five thousand dollars a year 

 in market gardening. Nov,-, if that is so, it is worth a great deal. 

 Th(^se barrens, where all the timber has been taken off for the last 

 hundred years to make barrel staves, until it is covered with noth- 

 ing but pen-oak brush, can be made very profitable, he says. How? 

 By analyzing the soil, and seeing what it wants. 



That is the message that comes to me at tliis time, and it is a 

 message that will help agriculture. Not that there is any science 

 in it; it is only common sense. You don't draw on your bank ac- 

 count unless you put something in that bank, and then you can only 

 draw out what you have put in. unloss you are one of th(» favored 

 few who are allowed to overdraw their bank accounts. The great 



