No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 431 



in sections where the soil is fertile and not depleted of fertility by 

 constant and long cropping. The crops produced last year in this 

 country amount to the vast sum of nine billion dollars in value, yet 

 dividing it among the six million farms in the country the average 

 share of each is fifteen hundred dollars. In this State the faruiers 

 spend about eight million dollars a year for commercial fertilizer, 

 how much more for lime and manure, there are no records, but the 

 money spent for these articles is a large aggregate. 



Things that farmers must purchase, taxes, labor, fertilizers, rail- 

 road fares, freight and express rates are not reduced, while farm crops 

 are worth eight and one-half per cent, less than one year since; the 

 decline amounting to two hundred and thirty-six million dollars. There 

 is nothing to encourage agriculture, except the plaudits of transporta- 

 tion lines and consumers; these spur the farmer on to renewed and 

 more strenuous efforts, for the coming year. The report was current 

 recently that the German Government proposed to levy an almost 

 prohibitive export duty on potash, so much needed in our agriculture, 

 that it seemed advisable to annex that country to this, to secure cheap 

 fertilizer. Since the reports were first circulated, the German Kali 

 importers explain the situation in recent "ads" in agricultural pub- 

 lications, indicating that the tax will be from fifteen to sixty-five 

 cents per ton. 



Farm practices in the treatment of the sands and clays are not 

 always scientific, and farmers are severely criticised, especially by 

 some people who do their farming in cozy offices on rosewood and 

 mahogany desks, from the theories advanced by impractical stu- 

 dents, with limited environments and close at hand observations, and 

 from these formulate a theory, that does not meet general condi- 

 tions. Farmers are also criticised for soil exhaustion and small crop 

 yields, while the fact is that few farmers wilfully deplete soils, ex- 

 cept as the products are needed to meet necessary expenses and to 

 support themselves. Undoubtedly, many farms are producing less 

 than fifty years ago, because, grain, hay and livestock were sold for 

 needed funds. Throughout Eastern Pennsylvania, there was scarcely 

 a stream available in farming communities, that was not employed in 

 grinding grain for export and city uses as breadstuffs, besides numer- 

 ous distilleries turning corn and rye into an abomination before the 

 Lord, in the form of whiskey, thus destroying one of the most im- 

 portant National resources to provide food and drink for the hungry 

 and thirsty, at home and foreign countries. 



After all the years of tillage, the sands and much of the clay re- 

 main, although somewhat diminished. Transported soils by water 

 or through glacial agencies contain a variety of sand and clay min- 

 gled together from various formations, while soils derived from the 

 underlying formations are the same as the rock from which derived 

 and, in many places where the stratification is vertical or steep dip, 

 there is little uniformity, but a considerable difiference in short dis- 

 tances. Our honored Executive, Governor Stuart, in his late message 

 to the Legislature, writes thus: ''The farms must be saved from 

 exhaustion of the soil." Possibly, the Legislature in its wisdom may 

 devise a method to accomplish the object and solve a problem that 

 has concerned many generations and many nations, without a suc- 

 cessful solution until now. 



The subject of soil preservation is simply a question of economics, 

 while the principles enunciated by eminent scientists are recog- 

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