No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 367 



though but a small proportion of vegetation consists of mineral ele- 

 ments derived from soil constant cropping year after year is a drain 

 that exhausts the most productive land. It is calculated that li. 

 two crops, one of wheat and one of oats, grain and straw remove 

 about 400 pounds of mineral elements, potash, soda, lime, magnesia, 

 silicia and phosphoric acid from an acre of land. The U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, the various Experiment Stations and Boards 

 of Agriculture perform a service of inestimable value, and we far- 

 mers usually accept their theories and teachings without question, 

 but it should be recognized that even those of highest authority are 

 not infallible. 



A Bulletin issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture by the 

 Bureau of Soils, "Farmers' Bulletin No. 257," maintains that ''All 

 ordinary soils, including the so-called exhausted soils, contain suf- 

 ficient plant food for good crop yields, and this supply will be in- 

 definitely maintained, without the addition of any of the plant food 

 elements." The application of fertilizers it is claimed does not 

 usually add any plant food directly to the soil but acts rather as med- 

 icine to neutralize poisonous substances in the soil, the same as cal- 

 omel, quinine, etc., are used for specifics in diseases. This is a 

 theory not warranted by facts, yet some Institute speakers pro- 

 claim this theory before audiences of farmers, and it is likely to 

 lead to serious mistakes. 



We hear and read about abandoned farms in the Eastern and Mid- 

 dle states, in the older sections where farming has been i>racticed 

 for several generations, and were it not that the fertile western 

 plains furnish grain and feeds of various kinds; Germany supplies 

 potash; Chili, Nitrate of Soda; Florida and Sicily, Sulphur; the 

 Southern states, Phosphate Rock and Bones, with other slaughter 

 house refuse, wherever obtainable, supply Nitrogen and Phosphoric 

 Acid, substances that are not only stimulants but direct plant food; 

 Agriculture would be less prosperous than it is. As westward the 

 empire made its way, so followed exhausted farms, and were it not 

 that the things enumerated were available, there would be many 

 more abandoned farms and not alone farms but whole communities 

 would be depopulated. The great and fertile plains were considered 

 inexhaustible, commercial fertilizers were hooted at in many sec- 

 tions, and the farmers enriched themselves with the stores of plant 

 food accumulated during past ages, but the soil is becoming less and 

 less productive, so that even Kansas recently enacted laws governing 

 the Analysis and Sale of Commercial Fertilizers in that state. 



We have a great variety of soils of ditferent ages and formations, 

 much of it derived from the disintegration and redepositing by wa- 

 ter action forming stratified rocks, composed of sand and clay, to- 

 gether with other elements. W"e have also soils organic in origin, de- 

 rived from minute organisms, in the oceans, eozoon, globigerena, and 

 corals, from the remains of which were formed mountains of lime- 

 stone, and because of their organic origin and the mechanical condi- 

 tion of the soil derived from disintegrated limestone produces fer- 

 tile lands throughout the world wherever limestone is found. There 

 are also soils of vegetable origin, like coal, plumbago, etc., contain- 

 ing usually an excessive quantity of carbon not favorable for plant 

 growth. Given a soil of reasonable depth with physical conditions, 



