No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 2G3 



leave the farm. Why, it was drilled into me from the time 1 was 

 knee high, that if I was going to make money I must get off the 

 farm. This had a basis of truth twenty-five years ago here in the 

 East, but it is not so to-day. 



Then there are other things to consider worth more than mere 

 money to those who stay on the farms. There can be and are good 

 homes in the cities, but if there is any happy place in the world it 

 is a good farm home. Did you ever know a millionare that was 

 happy? Or did you ever know a man who was worth hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars that was happy? ]f you want to find a happy 

 man, woman or family go to some farm where they are making a 

 comfortable living and a little to lay up besides. But when I was 

 a boy they told the boys, "if you want to be rich you must leave 

 the farm." They seemed to forget there were other things of greater 

 value than gold and that one of them was a pure home out among 

 the green trees where the birds sang and fruits could be had for the 

 raising and no better homes can be found in God's world than we 

 find on the farms of America to-day. 



Another thing they told us when we were boys that has hurt 

 eastern agriculture, and that was that our soil was worn out. We 

 must get that idea right out of our heads. Here in the East we 

 have no such thing as worn out soils. Our rock-formed soils will 

 never be Avorn out, but will be ])roducIng better crops generations 

 hence, under a more enlightened system of scientific farming than 

 they have ever produced in the past. The chemist will tell you 

 Ihat in the first eight inches of clay loam soil that Ave have enough 

 phos])horic acid to groAV maximum cro])S from 1.50 to 200 years and 

 potash enough in the same soil to grow maximum crops from 200 

 to 400 years, but locked up in an insoluble form, a wise provisicm 

 of nature, to keep one generation from robbing posterity and pre- 

 vented us from getting and selling it at the time our agriculture 

 Avas depressed Avith Avestern competition. In the second eight 

 inches of soil there is as much more, and Avith scientific handling 

 of our soils, we can make available from year to year enough to grow 

 maximum crops, and we can go on indefinitely Avith no danger of 

 robbing those who are to come after us. 



What does our eastern soil need as much as anything? Vegetable 

 matter. And of all cro])s, T think the potato demands it more than 

 any other T know of if Ave are to have it do its Lest. If you giA^e 

 ]>otatoes plent}^ of vegetable matter in the soil, — and I want to say 

 that this is true of all soils in my section of Maine and I think 

 it is true of you here, you can grow as good crops of potatoes as 

 they can grow anywhere. The more vegetable matter you have in 

 the soil the more Avater will it contain, and the better Avill the cro]) 

 stand the drouth. And another thing, the decay of this A'egetable 

 matter acting upon the locked-uj) phosphoric acid and potash, Avill 

 liberate and make some of it available for our growing crop and 

 save us from buying so rcuch of these kinds of plant foods in the 

 form of commercial fertilizer. Now let us imagine Ave have an old 

 field here, one that has not been ])lowed for years and the hay has 

 been cut and hauled off and no return made to the soil. Also that 

 we have no barn dressing Avhich we can spare to apply to this par- 

 ticular field, and we want to get a crop of potatoes and at the same 

 time fit it to produce a paying croj) of grain and hay in years fol- 



