PLOUGHING IN GREEN CROPS. 259 



long it will be before the country will be exhansted, under 

 the present agricultural sj'stem. 



Mr. Whit^uiee. I should not want to answer that ques- 

 tion in that way. I should say, under the present system 

 it is already impoYcrished, because we are all of us to-day 

 raising the hue and cry, " What are we to do to bring up 

 the fertility of our soils ? " We have exhausted our soil, 

 and the wave of exhaustion has gone on from one State to 

 another. It has found its way even to the Pacific coast, and 

 it has been one continued system of exhaustion, until to-day 

 the great question in all our minds is " Where can we get the 

 fertiliziDg matter, and how cheap can we get it, in order to 

 bring our lands up?" This question is now staring us in 

 the face, and we cannot get away from it. 



Mr. Perry. Should we not add much to the fertility of 

 the soil where it is run out, as it is on the old jjlains up 

 near Springfield in the western part of the State, if we 

 should put on crops and plough them in every year, instead 

 of carrying them off? Would that not add to the fertility 

 of the soil, so that wo should get heavy crops in the course of 

 a few years ? 



Professor Stockbridge. I am most decidedly in favor of 

 ploughing in green crops as a means of restoring the fertility 

 of exhausted land ; but there comes up this question, " Can I 

 not carry that same crop to my barn, and make butter out of 

 it, which I can sell for fifty cents a pound, and then carry 

 the same materials back at a profit ? " It is a question of dol- 

 lars and cents. If you will put on an Indian-corn crop and 

 plough the crop under, you can enrich the land. If you put 

 on a clover-crop and plough it under, you have enriched the 

 land. The question is. Would it not be more profitable for 

 you to carry that crop to the barn and make some product 

 that you can sell, and from which you can put some money 

 in your pocket, and still return to the land all the elements 

 of fertility that you have carried away? It is a question 

 that is to be settled by balances. Sometimes I would plough 

 in ; but ordinarily I would carry to the barn and feed. If 

 I had land so poor that it would bear nothing but rje^ I 

 might plough that immediately in, and buckwheat I might 

 plough immediately in ; but after land gets so that it will 

 bear Indian corn, fifteen or twenty bushels to the acre, after 



